Lucile Elliott Concerning Jung’s Influence in California
Contact with Jung: Essays on the influence of his work and personality
For me the heritage from Jung is a challenge.
With others who feel similarly, this challenge is for each of us to find his own way of growth into his own wholeness.
The implications of the challenge seem infinite.
They include striving to know ourselves, to find our right place with reference to both our outer world and our inner world, to be kind to ourselves and to be strict, to take responsibility and to be free.
As human beings we live in a world of human beings.
Our fellow men are part of our outer world, and contribute to our inner world.
We cannot take responsibility for ourselves without taking responsibility for our human relationships and for our place among men.
Those of us who are analysts are aware that our primary tool is our own personality.
That the personality be the primary tool in no way precludes the necessity for formal training, nor does it dismiss the need to be aware of the other person-the patient and to have the background and knowledge for understanding.
But regardless of the knowledge and awareness we develop regarding the other person, we are limited and handicapped and blinded if we cannot take ourselves as our primary concern.
In the current literature on psychiatry and psychology, the fact that the personality of the therapist plays an important part in healing is being stressed as a new discovery.
Jung stated it over thirty years ago in 1931 (CW 16, pp. 73-75).
Jung’s career was based on a thorough training in the psychiatry of his time.
His independent observations made him see the validity of Freud’s work, and later made him grow beyond it.
As a result of this growth we have analytical psychology, and Jung’s thoughtful, intuitive, and original contributions on the structure, contents, and development of the personality.
These are unique and invaluable guide posts for those who have felt his challenge for their own growth and also for those who deal professionally with others.
In the San Francisco Bay Region of California, one person pioneered the introduction of Jungian analysis.
There are many who are grateful to her and whose lives have been changed and enlarged by her sympathetic understanding, intuitive awareness, and her apt application of Jung’s contributions.
When I think of the help I received from her, I am aghast at what the lack would have been had she not been available.
Elizabeth G. Whitney worked with Jung and with H. G. Baynes.
She had the courage to start practising as the only Jungian west of New York.
Her husband, James Whitney, was an internist.
He had also worked with Jung and was sympathetic.
In his last invalided years he was able to carry some practice in analytical psychology.
For several years after his death Elizabeth Whitney had no co-workers near. Her intrepid courage, her wide sym, pacrnes, Knowlage, anct ner rugn 1ctea1s createct rn our area a receptive attitude toward analytical psychology.
She welcomed newcomers and was the central figure around which the professional group was organized. Her unflinching adherence to high standards has strengthened us and graded us in our growing organization.
In accordance with the concept of analytical psychology that the analyst be responsible for his own personality, she has consistently worked on the complex problems of her personality and has grown in rich understanding.
Those of us who had the privilege of analysis under Jung felt the impact of his challenge in a very personal way.
We also realized that he himself had taken on the challenge with all of his tremendous energy, insight, and humanness.
The discipline of finding oneself means taking responsibility and taking risks.
Jung (1945, CW7, p.237) says of this way that’ … it is sharp as the edge of a razor’.
Many who are not Jungians take seriously the problems of their personality.
To be a Jungian one must find the concept of analytical psychology meaningful and applicable.
These concepts appeal to me because they give room.
One can breathe deeply.
Within our individual limitations there are inexhaustible opportunities for work, for growth, and for living.
Jung said repeatedly that his insights were but beginnings.
For such limitless beginnings I am grateful. ~Lucile Elliot, Contact With Jung, Pages 207-209
