Psychotherapy is the third volume in the series of collected essays of Marie-Louise von Franz. This volume originally appeared as a kind of celebratory volume for the author’s seventy-fifth birthday. This occasion was celebrated on January 4, 1990, in the presence of many friends and former students.
The overall theme in all the articles in this book is psychotherapy. The various chapters deal with important aspects of the therapeutic and analytic process—for example, projection, transference, active imagination—as well as with essential standards for the training of therapists and analysts. All articles are characterized by a direct concern with actual practice. Clearly this is not abstract theorizing, but down-to-earth writing based on the rich experience of decades of practical work with patients and students in training. Many examples drawn from therapeutic practice accompany Marie-Louise von Franz’s expositions, making this volume into a living and enriching account of the work of an extraordinary analyst in whom we find warm and earthy humor blended with intellectual stringency.
These articles appeared independently of each other over a period of twenty years. They were originally published in a variety of anthologies, professional publications, and journals, of which many are now out of print and almost impossible to find. In the list of sources that follows, the reader will find all available information on the first publication of the individual articles.
It should be pointed out that, as a matter of editorial policy, the essays in this volume have not been arranged chronologically according to the time of their appearance but rather according to their thematic content. References to and citations from the writings of C. G. Jung in all the articles previously revised by the author have been made consistent with the Collected Works of C. G. Jung as published by Princeton University Press. This particularly applies to footnote references. In accordance with the author’s wishes, an integrated index of persons and subjects was also appended to the volume.
We would like to give special thanks to Marie-Louise von Franz, who aided the editors through word and deed, to Mr. René Malamud for his valuable assistance in gathering the articles and for his much-appreciated support, as well as to the Foundation for Jungian Psychology (Stiftung für Jungsche Psychologie), whose grant-in-aid went far toward making this publication in its present form possible.
Robert Hinshaw
Daimon Verlag
Einsiedeln, Switzerland