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George Bright continues in the spirit of his paper ‘Synchronicity as a basis of analytic attitude’, published in the Journal of Analytical Psychology in October 1997. Here again he states in positive terms the specificity of the Jungian approach. In this paper he pursues his interest and appreciation of the non-ego, in the unconscious dimension of the relationship between patient and analyst. Here too he is concerned with the analytic attitude: with technique. Again Bright demonstrates his analytical identity as clearly post-Jungian, in that, while going back to Jung, he also redefines the Jungian approach, making his own contribution to it. It makes me think of Lacan's ‘return to Freud’: in Lacan's claim that his work is a return to Freud, he is seeking legitimacy and parentage, but, as a well-parented son, predictably ventures his own way.
The beauty of Bright's paper is to marry the intensive frequency of analytic work as valued by the Society of Analytical Psychology with an affinity for something specifically Jungian, which he both discovers and defines. This is not a text that leans nostalgically towards psychoanalysis for inspiration. Bright clearly positions himself within his ‘extended family’, referring to the writings of several analysts from the Society of Analytical Psychology, but again, he has something of his own to say.
It is a militant text, in that it takes up an area of controversy between psychoanalysis and analytical psychology, and does not aim for a rushed reconciliation of opposites. The French title - with the words ‘la compréhension psychanalytique’ - could wrongly give the impression that Bright's point is merely to contrast a (bad) Freudian understanding with a (good) Jungian one. It might be helpful to emphasize that in France, Jungians call themselves ‘psychanalystes Jungiens’, while in the U.K. we call ourselves ‘Jungian analysts’, the ‘psych(o)’ being restricted to Freudian/post-Freudian analysts. The aim of Bright's paper is therefore