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Thomas Kirsch's book, The Jungians: A Comparative and Historical Perspective, is unique in providing an historical overview of the development and spread of the Jungian movement from its beginnings early in the 20th century. This highly readable narrative is equally accessible to the specialist and to the interested reader.
Peter Homans, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Chicago, in his Foreword to the book, asks three vital questions: what are the forms of thought and action which compose any of the depth psychologies; where are their origins; and how do they affect the lives of the people living within that culture. Homans concludes that Kirsch sheds new light on all three.
The book particularly addresses the second question in tracing the evolution of the Jungian movement from its origins with Jung in Zürich around 1912 to its formalization over the ensuing years into groups and institutions. Jung's ideas were disseminated by first-generation German-Jewish males to many parts of the world, e.g., London, Los Angeles, Rome, New York, Tel Aviv. They were deeply interested in spiritual matters and ‘carried the spirit of the numinosum and the “God-image” within’. This missionary zeal found it difficult to adapt to more secular changes that began to encroach on the movement, for instance, clinical ideas about theory and practice from psychoanalysis. Michael Fordham, the British analytical psychologist, was the pioneer of this new movement and Kirsch acknowledges him to be one of the truly innovative minds in the Jungian movement.
Many other characters enliven the pages of the book, including a number of inspiring women such as Marie-Louise von Franz - the Anna Freud of the Jungian movement - Vera Bührmann, Aniela Jaffé, Jolande Jacobi, Esther Harding, Rix Weaver, Toni Wolff and Elizabeth Goodrich Whitney. The latter is described by Joseph Henderson as ‘a wonderful listener and a wonderful analyst’ and it is in part due to her t