Jung and Feminism: Liberating Archetypes

Carl Jung wrote that women are, by nature, passive and ""indefinite''; his writings implied that a woman can most fully realize her identity in the service of a man. Jung's home life was divided between his wife Emma, a mother figure, and his mistress-collaborator Toni Wolff. Wehr, who teaches psychology of religion at Boston University School of Theology, attributes Jung's messy family life to a split image of the feminine operating in his psyche. The author, a Jungian therapist in training, feels uncomfortable with the sexist bias that she and other modern Jungians have detected in the master's system. Although her cautious, academic approach in this revised Ph.D. dissertation may not satisfy feminist critics, she does offer a useful critique of Jung's gender bias, his patronizing of women and his misogyny. The Jungian collective unconscioustimeless and universalfails to take into account the way women's negative self-images are molded in societies where women have second-class status. (August 1)