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One of the problems of Jung's legacy is that he deliberately left us very few indications to help us in the task of defining what exactly is the theory of clinical practice that is specific to analytical psychology. As Mario Trevi wrote, all Jung left us was:
A brief series of hermeneutic prescriptions, among which dominate the image of analysis as a dialectical process, the necessity of an unconditional respect for the patient's personality, the obstacle-instrument of the personal equation of analyst and analysand, the mutual influence of doctor and patient and the immense (and potentially dangerous) value of the analyst's personality understood as the only, true and concrete ‘method’ of therapy. (2000, pp. 19-20)
This collection of writings by ten senior analysts, each with their own very personal take on the thorny problem of the relationship between theory and practice, goes some way however in helping us to find as, George Bright writes, ‘the underlying basis for defining the clinical task of analysis from a point of view true to Jung's insights, which might help in developing a contemporary clinical approach specific to analytical psychology’ (p. 89).
The book opens with William Meredith-Owen's re-reading of the initial chapters of Memories, Dreams and Reflections. If in an earlier work Meredith-Owen, in line with Winnicott's reading of Jung's autobiography, stresses Jung's dissociative pathology, here his attention is focused more on an aesthetic appreciation of the poetic quality of Jung's writing, of the ‘remarkable degree of integration and coherence’, and of the ‘exceptional capacity for symbolizing and thinking’ shown. As the author says, ‘Jung by allowing himself to write in an idiom whose coherence is essentially poetic rather than philosophic, he reaches towards meaning through clusters of affects and image rather than through defining concepts’ (p. 13). This type of appreciation is important precisely because it orientates us towards a more aesthetic vi