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This is the fourth and last volume of Meier's textbook series. Originally published in German in 1977, it has only now appeared in an English translation. It is useful to keep the time lag in mind and to remember the probable readership for which these textbooks were produced. In some ways the book works best read as a lecture series given by a distinguished colleague and successor of Jung, with a unique personal experience of his ideas and clinical work in development. It is worth taking some trouble to develop a suitable attitude to this very individual study and to the author's style, and to persist in pursuing Meier's main ideas through a wealth of classical and anthropological illustrations and amplificatory material. Sometimes the reader might wish for more clinical or indeed psychological examples or discussion. Meier can be dismissive of disciplines (e.g. sociology) which have undergone much development in the years since the book was written, and in this, and perhaps some other ways, the volume shows its age.
The author is not concerned to satisfy stringent modern requirements in regard to presentation, argument and evidence. Interestingly, in an ‘Epilogue’, Meier anticipates criticism of Jung as old-fashioned and provides some justifcation for his own method and style. If, however, the reader is able to enter into the spirit of Meier's study, there are some illuminating viewpoints offered in the rather different treatment of familiar concepts and ideas. Particular examples are the extended discussion on the Shadow and the sections dealing with the Anima and Animus.
From the approach first explored in his Psychological Types , Jung maintained that the development of the personality required a lifelong endeavour to extend consciousness from the more differentiated of the functions in the personality (thinking, feeling, intuition, sensation) and attitude (extraversion or introversion) to the undeveloped, unconscious ones. The objective of this struggle between