Analytical Psychology and the English Mind by H.G. Baynes
Analytical Psychology and the English Mind (Psychology Revivals): And Other Papers
I write these few introductory words to this collection of essays and lectures in affectionate memory of their author.
The late H. G. Baynes was my assistant for several years, my travelling companion on our African expedition, and my faithful friend till his all too early death, which has left a painful gap in the circle of his friends and colleagues.
His first published work was his most excellent translation of my book Psychological Types.
Later he became well known as the author of two important works, Mythology of the Soul and Germany Possessed.
The first of these deals with the daily reality of the psychotherapist, and the second with contemporary events.
In Mythology of the Soul the author uses raw material—such as the psychotherapist meets with daily in his consulting hours—as a clue to guide the reader through the maze of individual reflections, opinions, interpretations and attempts at explanation which a psychologist gathers in the course of his experience.
The empirical material stimulates such considerations and they are also indispensable in order to integrate it in consciousness.
Germany Possessed is concerned with the great contemporary problems which form a direct challenge to the psychologically minded doctor.
This book made the author known to a very wide public.
His shorter writings, which have been collected in this present volume, deal with the complex psychic conditions characteristic of medical psychology.
Psychology is thus a discipline which obliges the medical psychologist to deal with complex psychic factors, for the psychotherapeutic process can only take place on this level.
Therefore analytical psychology is also rightly called ‘complex psychology’.
A simplifying theory is naturally exceedingly popular in this highly complicated field, but the author has wisely resisted any such temptation.
In its place he has drawn from a really remarkable wealth of theoretical and practical points of view, and has opened up possibilities and connections worthy of further discussion.
H. G. Baynes left us too soon. May this volume, which he has left to us, become a milestone on the road of psychological research.
C. G. JUNG
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