Comments from Collaborators

When asked to contribute to the fortieth anniversary issue of The Journal of Analytical Psychology I reflected on the role the Journal has played and continues to play in my professional life and the lives of my colleagues. When the Journal was founded in 1955, analytical psychology was a tiny field, and the only English publications were Spring, Harvest, and the Guild of Pastoral Psychology Lectures. Jung was still alive and the first issue of the Journal was dedicated to him in his honour. The inspiration for having a Journal came from Michael Fordham, who stated in that first issue that analytical psychology needed a forum for clinical and theoretical issues. The first issue included only papers from the Society of Analytical Psychology, but it had developed an international advisory board, including the most famous analysts of the day. The articles in those first years continued Jung's traditional focus upon the amplification of archetypal symbolism.

Only after the 1962 International Congress did the focus of the Journal begin to change. At that Congress a heated debate took place (between Esther Harding and Murray Jackson) about the term ‘symbol’ and what it meant in Jungian terms. The S.A.P. point of view emphasized clinical practice. Many of its analysts had experience of working with children, and, having become influenced by Melanie Klein, D.W. Winnicott, and others, had begun to create a developmental approach to individuation. This was an area of study that Jung's own work hinted at but had not evolved in much detail. The Journal became the place where analysts working in this vein were able to explore and develop Jungian connections to the British object-relations theorists. In addition, the papers that appeared in the Journal showed the importance of paying attention to the details of the analytical process, focusing on the conscious and unconscious aspects of interaction between patient and analyst.

The rift (with which we are now familiar) between the ‘