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This book is a collection of essays in memory of Susan Bach. The key to understanding her analytical work is her axiom that ‘life points its own span’. Her work centred on the analysis of the significance of spontaneous pictures of severely ill children. The contributors, who are drawn from all parts of Europe, have been influenced by Susan Bach's personality and work. Having fled to London from Nazi Germany in 1930, she began there her pioneering practice in the use of art with patients in mental hospitals. In 1947, she discovered how spontaneous pictures give expression to the inner world, accurately reflecting psychological as well as somatic states. She developed her findings and methods over a 50-year period.
The two first chapters, by Susan Bach and Dr K. Kiepenheuer, introduce us to this method, showing how children's drawings provide a deep insight into the sick patient's state of mind, the progress of illness towards an ‘inner knowingness’ about the child's prognosis, as well as providing a meaningful bridge for psychotherapeutic work with the patient and his family. The other chapters show how this work links a unique research into the pictorial with the wider stream of Jungian thinking. A substantial range of topics is covered.
Synchronicity is discussed with regard to psychosomatic illness (Dr K. Kiepenheuer), to clinical practice (Dr Frey-Wehrlin), and linked to personal experience (Dr Cedrus Monte). Relationships between the individual's story and the collective myth are analysed by B. Burritt. The reader is offered a glimpse into art history through an examination of Picasso's Minotaur Series, tracing animus and anima through the engravings. I found this essay by Goldstein and Harborne particularly meaningful and enlightening. Dr P. Brutsche discusses the healing capacity of a symbol, Dr Lorenz provides a stimulating essay on inner knowingness and understanding and M. Edwards writes on the topic of apprehension. Transference and countertransference are