I can only hope and wish that no one becomes a jungian
C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950
To J. H. van der Hoop
Dear Colleague, 14 January 1946
It made me very happy to hear from you again after these terrible years.
I have often thought of you and felt tempted to write to you.
But I didn’t because I was afraid of compromising you.
On account of my critical utterances I was “marked down” by the Gestapo, my books were banned in Germany, and in France they were for the most part destroyed.
During the last five years I have succeeded in establishing pleasant working relations with my one-time opponents, some of the leading minds among the Freudians here.
We have founded a “Teaching Institute for Psychotherapy” at the University, directed by a Curatorium of nine doctors.
The “Institute” consists in regular lectures being held .
The Curatorium, to which some ten guests are invited, meets regularly every fortnight for common scientific work.
At present we are concerned with the psychology of the transference.
Even the president of the Psychoanalytical Society takes part.
The transactions are pervaded by a thoroughly positive spirit, and the discussions are fruitful and in every way enjoyable.
I can only hope and wish that no one becomes “Jungian.”
I stand for no doctrine, but describe facts and put forward certain views which I hold worthy of discussion.
I criticize Freudian psychology for a certain narrowness and bias, and the Freudians for a certain rigid, sectarian spirit of intolerance and fanaticism.
I proclaim no cut-and-dried doctrine and I abhor “blind adherents.”
I leave everyone free to deal with the facts in his own way, since I also claim this freedom for myself.
I can thoroughly approve the facts Freud describes and the way he treats these facts provided they stand the test of critical reason and common sense.
I diverge only when it comes to interpreting the facts, which Freud conceived in a demonstrably unsatisfactory way.
Since the psyche is not personal only and not only of today, we have to draw upon the psychology of primitives as well as the history of the mind in explaining them, avoiding at the same time certain medical and biological prejudices.
An example of faulty method would be Freud’s Totem and Taboo or The Future of an Illusion.
Here doctrinaire assumptions led to erroneous conclusions.
His conception of the incest problem is also unsatisfactory.
The fact that it was just the Allied representatives who would not allow me to resign from the Presidium of the International Medical Society for Psychotherapy is now taking its revenge on me, as I am suspected of collaboration with the Nazis.
For instance, I have been blamed for the death of 6oo Jews.
These insinuations originate demonstrably with the Freudians.
This is called scientific discussion!!
I should be glad to welcome you again in Zurich.
For me long journeys are unfortunately out of the question; my cardiac infarct has left me with a lasting scar and a correspondingly low cardiac performance.
I hope you are now recovering from the terrible time of suffering.
For us the uncertainty and the constant alerts were not easy to bear, but nothing in comparison with what Holland suffered and what we could follow only from a distance with impotent rage.
Heyer had the impertinence to write to me recently that he was only an “ideologist,” of course no Nazi.
If there is anything I can do for you please let me know.
With best regards and wishes,
Yours sincerely,
C.G. Jung
~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 404-405
