The Shadow of Jungian Psychology

Remembering Jung is a series of interviews with the first generation of Jungian analysts. All 32 DVDs are available for purchase from Amazon, or to stream online from the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles (link fixed Jan. 6, 2021).

Marie-Louise von Franz’s interview is in 3 parts, and in part 2 she answered the question, “What is the shadow of Analytical Psychology as it has developed since Jung?”

“The shadow of Jungian psychology I see mostly in the fact that Jung has found out everything he has found out through groping in the dark and tremendous suffering, and we are given that in our hands – what he has found out. We are, so to speak, dispensing a medicine which we have not made, and therefore people get inflated. They forget that they have not suffered, they have not found out those truths, they are merely using them. And because they are useful and you can cure people with them, then you get inflated. You think, ‘Oh, I am the great healer.’ ... You forget that it is not your doing, it is Jung who found these things out. Many Jungians forget, where am I? How far have I gotten with my own dreams, my own visions, my own shadow and my own animus or anima? And there the results look much more poor sometimes. They forget that that is the important thing. That is especially an illness of men – they feel crushed by Jung and therefore they say, ‘I must say different!’ For instance, they take a concept of Jung and they give it another name, but it means exactly the same thing – just to be original and creative and not just a Jungian or so on. And that all shows that they haven’t understood that it is a reality with which one is confronted, that one’s task is to confront oneself with the same reality with which he has confronted himself. That's the same thing. And then if one does that oneself and if one stays loyal to one’s own work on one’s self – one is constantly by one's own shadow, dreams, etc., reminded that one is not Jung and hasn't gotten that far as he got. But the danger is inflation.”

From the DVD, Remembering Jung: A Conversation about C.G. Jung and his work with Marie-Louise von Franz - II, 1977