Emma Jung and Toni Wolff in the Jung-Keller Correspondence
From then on, only Jungian analysts belonged to the Association for Analytical Psychology—the majority of them psychiatrists—among them Alphonse Maeder and Franz Riklin.
Otto Mensendiesck was a philologist and pedagogue.
Keller was now the only remaining theologian.
Toni Wolff and “Sister” Moltzer were accepted as “extraordinary” members.
They were among the earliest analysands of Jung and also worked as analysts and were colleagues of Jung.
Emma Jung too was also seen at the Association more frequently.
The lively discussions at the meetings continued, but there were fewer disagreements with Jung’s theses than before.
Keller certainly continued to attend, bringing ever new questions and objections, but also with strongly persistent interest and fundamental agreement.
The fissures that opened between him and Jung initially had more to do with their differing attitudes toward the First World War, as became evident during the discussion of a talk by Jung. ~Jung-Keller Letters, Introduction, Page 38
Members who were friends of Flournoy sometimes gathered separately; in a letter to Maeder, Jung writes of “Flournoy meetings” and complained in passing that Keller had not prepared adequately for one of these meetings.
Be that as it may, Keller was well-versed in Flournoy’s writings: between the end of 1915 and early 1916 he gave three lectures on Flournoy’s Une
mystique moderne, which stimulated long discussions. Jung was present on every occasion; E. Claparède, who along with Flournoy was the most significant psychologist from French speaking Switzerland, attended as a visitor for the second time.
In Flournoy’s publication a female patient is presented who considered herself a Christian.
Toni Wolff referred to her in the discussion, saying “her personal concept of God shows that she is an extravert.”
And also: “In analysis one reaches God through love and will, not only by being overwhelmed, as K. [Keller] believes.”
Jung added: “In analysis it is more that we are prepared for it. Otherwise one can be overwhelmed.”
After a lecture by Emma Jung some months later, Keller pointed out that inner reality had already been discovered not for the first time in analysis but “in the mythological symbolism in religion,” to which Jung replied “Analytical psychology was the first to reveal this consciously as a psychological reality—in mythology and in religion it was as if they were external to us. ~Jung-Keller Letters, Introduction, Page 40
Through consciousness one purifies oneself and is liberated from the constraints of the unconscious = the ascent of the mountain of salvation = union with his soul = the liberated individual can integrate his being (his soul).… When the union with the soul occurs man is also united with the cosmos reflected in the unconscious. In this way he becomes godlike, and not clearly defined. What is individual is felt, but man is undifferentiated from the world, in mystical participation with it.… ~Carl Jung, Jung-Keller Letters, Page 40
For the first part of an analysis the psychology of the Christian worldview should be used. Later we come up against the problem of the one-sided definition of the concept of God. ~Carl Jung, Jung-Keller Letters, Page 40
Early in 1916 a committee was formed, which included Jung and Emma Jung-Rauschenbach, Harold and Edith McCormick-Rockefeller, Toni Wolff, and two others, for the purpose of setting up a Psychological Club.
This would be open to a wider public than the Association for Analytical Psychology. Jung and Keller were involved in both organizations.
On 26 February 1916, a first constitutive general meeting of the Club took place, with a second meeting on 11 March, with forty people present.
Emma Jung, who was also working as an analyst, took on the role of president of the Club.
Adolf Keller was considered for membership on the board.
While he did not take up this position, he was named to the library committee along with C. G. Jung and one other member.
In 1916, the McCormicks made a villa available to the Club and took up the financial reins of its rapidly developing activities.
A good year later they had to vacate these premises, and in 1919 following an interim arrangement it moved into the basement flat of the former manor house at 27 Gemeindestrasse in Zurich-Hottingen, where the Club is still based today. ~Jung-Keller Letters, Introduction, Page 46-47
In September 1921 Edith McCormick returned to the United States after eight years in Zurich, and they were now faced with financial problems alongside the structural and personal issues.
On 25 November 1922 C. G. and Emma Jung resigned from the Club, along with Toni Wolff.
The standing orders were revised and stricter entry requirements were introduced.
From now on, one would have to apply for membership and be introduced by two sponsors.
The body of members would then vote on whether an applicant should be accepted.
Keller acted as sponsor at least once, together in fact with C. G. Jung.
In 1924 the Jungs and Toni Wolff rejoined the Club, and shortly after this Tina Keller was unanimously re-elected to membership. ~Jung-Keller Letters, Introduction, Page 48
Jung knew that destructive effects could be triggered by the inner images. “The images of the unconscious place a great responsibility upon a man.”
Although he considered individuation a path reserved only for the few, he came to this conclusion:
“As a result of my experiment I learned how helpful it can be, from the therapeutic point of view, to find the particular images that lie behind emotions.”
So Tina Keller was one of the first clients Jung guided on the journey “into the dark.”
In 1937 he wrote: “If you want to cure a neurosis you have to risk something.”
He [Jung] gained Tina’s trust, often inviting her to his tower in Bollingen, along with Toni Wolff and some others: a privilege! ~Jung-Keller Letters, Introduction, Page 52
In her analyses with Jung and Toni Wolff, Tina Keller conducted active imaginations and also painted.
Far from being a solitary endeavor, Jung’s confrontation with the unconscious was a collective one, in which he took his patients along with him.
Those around Jung formed an avant-garde group engaged in a social experiment that they hoped would transform their lives and the lives of those around them. ~Jung-Keller Letters, Introduction, Page 53
In the meantime she had recommenced the analysis, this time with Toni Wolff, who had also got into a “mess” during her own analysis with Jung and so had a good deal of empathy for Tina’s problems.
She experienced the most important part of her analysis with Toni: “I believe she saved my sanity.”
The “black doctor” often appeared to her, constantly informing her: “I have messages for you” and ordered her to lend her voice to his communications: “If I did, I would go insane.”
“[Toni Wolff] was fully present and intuitively said the right thing at critical moments.”
Tina learned to accept “the black doctor” as the dark side of her Self.
Her anxieties waned. Toni Wolff became a good friend of Tina Keller and the godmother of her younger son, Pierre.
“I also came to the place where I knew that I must separate from Jung.”
From 1934 Tina was no longer a member of the Psychological Club, although friendly letters survive between her and Jung from the years 1931 through 1958.
They were on first-name terms.
In 1938 she gave a talk at a “Ladies Evening” of the Psychological Club in Zurich entitled, “From Animus to Fuhrer. Inner experiences during analysis.” However, Tina was careful not to undertake depth analyses, because having once done so—against Jung’s advice by the way—she had landed herself in a crisis.
She was glad to have studied medicine and thus to have acquired thorough knowledge of physical illnesses.
She was especially concerned “to help troubled people where a long and complicated psychoanalysis does not seem indicated.”
She considered herself a “gardener” accompanying the growth of her patient.
Alongside talking therapy she developed the use of autosuggestion following the Coué method, as well as relaxation, breathing, and movement exercises coupled with healing methods and nutrition programs of the Zurich doctor Dr. Maximilian Bircher-Benner.
With Toni Wolff she discovered the use of dance as therapy.
Adolf Keller attests that Tina was a skilled, perceptive doctor. ~Jung-Keller Letters, Introduction, Page 53-54
Toni Wolff (1888–1953), colleague of Jung, president of the Psychological Club for many years.
Although her personal relationship with Jung had been less intense for some years, Jung was evidently so affected by her death that he was unable to take part in her funeral.
Five years later Jung wrote of the “multifaceted nature and the depth of her spiritual personality” and of the “friends who lament her death,” Jung to Dr. Daniel Brody, publisher of the Eranos yearbooks 1933–1969, 18 March 1958 (C. G. Jung Letters I, pp. 424–425.) ~Jung-Keller Letters, Page 181, fn 319
At the board meeting in late 1916, Edith McCormick had already stressed the necessity of being more careful in the selection of new Club members than had been their habit.
Emma Jung agreed with her.
The proposal revealed a conflict that would be drawn out over many years and that was closely interwoven with the differing needs of the Club members, although in principle they were in agreement that the Club should serve the “community of the individually analyzed.”
Warning signs included frequent changes in the board and the fact that many Club members were leaving. Numbers participating in the members’ meetings also left much to be desired. ~Jung-Keller Letters, Introduction, Page 47
And despite all differences there was an intellectual and familial connection among Keller, Jung, and their wives.
Jung and his wife often invited Adolf and Tina Keller to Open Evenings and to eat at their private residence in Kusnacht, even before the official separation from Freud, as Tina notes.
The Kellers also maintained a hospitable household.
Both couples had five children. Jung was godfather to Margrit, the Kellers’ second daughter, born 1916.
Keller baptized Helene, Emma, and C. G. Jung’s youngest daughter, in the library of their house in Kusnacht.
On one occasion Jung sends greetings to Adolf Keller in a letter to Tina Keller and asks in a confidential tone: “Has he grown his beard again? “Nonetheless, even if they said “du” to one another, the relationship between them was always one of reserved friendship, wrote Keller in 1940. Furthermore, it was not an equal friendship; Jung was the master.
And Jung was and remained a psychologist, albeit one with religious interests, while Keller remained a theologian, albeit with psychological interests. ~Jung-Keller Letters, Introduction, Page 57