You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
It is difficult to believe that Hester Solomon is no longer amongst us. She was such a ‘big’ presence professionally and personally in so many different ways. She will be much missed both internationally within the Jungian analytic community, and closer to home in her own Society, British Jungian Analytic Association (BJAA), and by her family and friends.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, US, she was raised as a Catholic. After graduation from college, she was keen to come to Europe and she attended study programmes at the Sorbonne, later coming to settle in the UK with her British husband, Jonathan, and their son, Gabriel. She trained within the Jungian stream of the British Association of Psychotherapists in the 1970s that later became the British Psychotherapy Foundation. She was the first Jungian Chair of the joint Freudian/Jungian Council.
I first got to know Hester when we were both part of a long-running Anglo-French clinical group, meeting two or three times a year to work together discussing the theory that influenced us and how we worked with our patients. It was clear that our French colleagues came from a culture with different analytic influences, and this led to sometimes heated exchanges about what it meant to be a Jungian for each of us. The choice of location for our meetings was a very important planning ingredient. I remember two in particular. The first was in a wonderful hotel in Normandy overlooking the sea with the best oysters I have ever tasted, and the second in the beautiful St George's Chapel in Windsor. Hester's sharp mind and curiosity were immediately visible to us all then. She spoke fluent French thanks to her time at the Sorbonne and her breadth of knowledge acquired from reading across different disciplines stimulated us all into new academic and clinical adventures. She too loved good food and wine!
Hester was a dedicated and active member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Analytical Psychology until very shortly before she died