Two Cases from Jung's Clinical Practice

The Story of Two Sisters and the Evolution of Jungian Analysis

Vicente L. de Moura

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429631986
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Two Cases from Jung's Clinical Practice places two key cases, those of Mischa Epper and Maggy Reichstein, into the context of Jung's work in the 1920s and provides a complete assessment of their place within his writings. Presented in three parts, it first examines Jung's disappointment with contemporary treatments and theories andhis break from Freud and the development of his own ideas, and then summarises the history of his more famous patients. In Part 2, de Moura examines Epper's case, which is recognised as an essential part of the development of the concept of active imagination, as well as how it is connected to the work of Jung's collaborator Maria Moltzer. Finally, Part 3 assesses the case of Reichstein, which emerges as a key contribution to Jung's writings on Eastern and Western psychology, transference and countertransference, mandalas and, in particular, synchronicity. Two Cases from Jung's Clinical Practice provides a comprehensive and personable picture of Jung and his interactions with these two patients, giving us valuable data about a time when his practice was still evolving.

A unique and insightful study, this book will be an essential work for academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian theory, analytical psychology, and the history of psychoanalysis and psychology. These cases will also be of great interest to analytical psychologists and Jungian analysts in practice and in training.

Part 1
C.G. Jung

1
Introduction

Historical research on Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) has constituted the focus of much scientific research in recent years. Different authors unveiled the story of some of his patients, such as, for instance, the case of Sabina Spielrein published in Carotenuto’s book from 1982, which describes the connection between Jung, Spielrein and Freud.¹ Later books and articles on other patients followed, such as the works of Shamdasani (1990) on Frank Miller,² of Ellenberger (1991) on Helene Preiswerk,³ of Douglas (1993) on Christiana Morgan,⁴ of Reid (2001) on Catharine R. Cabot,⁵ or of Swan (2011) on Tina Keller-Jenny.⁶ However, besides the story of his patients, the development of his method has also been in focus since the publication of The Red Book in 2009.⁷ In this publication, one can follow the process Jung went through exploring his own fantasies. Contemporaneous with the break with Freud, he began a personal process, a phase of self-experimentation, which had a major impact on both his concepts and on his way of working. This development was mirrored in the way he treated his patients.

According to Ellenberger, the impact of the theorist’s personal experiences and of some patients on the formulation of hypotheses can be observed throughout the history of psychiatry.⁸ In the 1960s, Ellenberger stressed that many of the most important psychiatric discoveries were frequently the result of irrational speculations, personal intuitions and emotional preoccupations of all sorts. He described two additional typical situations in this respect: first, a psychiatrist who had a personal crisis, which he succeeds in overcoming and, second, a patient who becomes a special object of investigation.

In the first case, that out of a crisis a new method or theory may appear, Ellenberger gave examples in the works of Robert Burton (1577–1640) and his description of melancholy; George Cheyne (1671–1733) and hypochondria; George Beard (1839–1883) and neurasthenia. In the 19th century, he mentioned Pierre Janet (1859–1947), the crisis in his youth and his later writings on psychasthenia and Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), who observed neurasthenic symptoms in himself and through a process of introspection discovered the hate for his father, which later led him to formulate general concepts based on it.

With reference to the second case, Ellenberger mentioned how concepts and ideas in psychiatry emerged out of the encounter of the doctor with patients, usually women suffering from hysteria. As examples, he mentioned in the history of Anton Mesmer (1734–1815) the importance of the case of Francisca Oesterlin in 1774 for his discovery of animal magnetism, and the case of Maria-Theresa Paradis in 1777 for the development of his career. Further, he cited Justinus Kerner (1786–1862), an important figure in the history of dynamic psychiatry, and the case of Friedericke Hauffe, about whom Kerner wrote in 1829 the book The Seeress of Prevost. Kerner studied her clairvoyant gifts and published one of the first monographs dedicated to the study of one single patient. Next, Ellenberger mentioned Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893), the French neurologist, who studied the case of Blanche Wittmann, who became the prototype of the phenomenon of the three stages of hypnotism he described. Ellenberger also mentioned the importance of the case of Leonie Boulanger in the beginning of the career of Pierre Janet and his studies on hypnotism and somnambulism and, finally, the case of Bertha Pappenheim for Freud and his studies on hysteria with Josef Breuer (1842–1925).⁹

There are many factors which may exert an impact on a theorist while he or she is developing a concept or method, such as the personal events in his life, the academic background, the Zeitgeist, contemporaneous theories, events in society and politics, and so on.

However, among the most important factors for the development of the theorist are the personal events in his life and the encounter with paradigmatic patients, as presented previously in Ellenberger’s essay about how some of the most important theories in psychology originated out of this complex interaction. This book follows Ellenberger’s historiographical approach in focusing on Jung’s self-experimentation related to the development of his method and its impact on the treatment of two of his patients in this crucial phase of the development of his theory.

The first part of the book is concerned with the development of Jung’s psychotherapeutics. I initially focus on the early days of Jung as a psychiatrist, his work at the Burghölzli hospital in Zürich and his disappointment with the manner in which he believed psychiatry approached the patients. Subsequently, I present his studies on the word association experiment and the encounter with Freud’s psychoanalysis, following their collaboration until their break in 1913. Thereafter, I present a section on the psychotherapeutics contemporaneous with Jung’s self-experiment, giving an overview of the available treatments and theories in those days. This section shows the scientific surroundings in which Jung developed his ideas after his break with Freud.

Special attention is then given to his self-experimentation which occurred from 1913 onwards. It was a key personal event, for it had great impact on the development of his method and, particularly, on the development of the technique of active imagination. Concerning Jung’s method, in an interview with Helene Hoerni-Jung from 2012, the daughter of C.G. Jung, I asked her about the method her father used with his patients. She stated with reference to her father that Er habe keine Methode! – to English: He would have no method! This interesting statement triggered a question, which will be later addressed. Next, I summarised the history of Jung’s patients, who attracted historical attention to the present day, in order to situate these two unknown cases that are unveiled in my research in a comparative framework. In Part 1, therefore, I present the development of Jung’s ideas and practice with his patients based predominantly on published sources.

In the second and third parts of the book, I present the story of and Jung’s interaction with two patients, two sisters, about whom little was known until now: Mischa Epper and Maggy Reichstein. Epper’s and Reichstein’s stories, Epper’s analysis with Jung’s collaborator, Maria Moltzer, the development of her analysis, the interpretations and active imaginations and further elements of the story of the two sisters form the essence of this part of the book. To this subject, I will add information about the case of the Dutch patient described in Rene van Helsdingen’s book Images from the Unconscious – A Case of Jung’s.¹⁰ Jung wrote in the preface for this book that van Helsdingen’s patient was Reichstein’s sister, but Jung’s comment was flawed. I present the available material about the case in van Helsdingen’s book, which shows the parallels and similarities between the story of Reichstein, Epper and this third case, and the possible reasons for Jung’s flawed comment.

After the presentation of Epper’s and Reichstein’s stories, the book focuses on Jung’s use of Reichstein’s case in his writings. It was Reichstein’s wish to help her sister, who had suffered a psychic disturbance, which led Reichstein to come to Zürich and enter treatment with Jung after her sister. I will discuss the important topics of her analysis, focusing on those which Jung used as example for his postulations. The next section will describe and contextualise the development of Jung’s ideas related to the themes present in Reichstein’s story. As we shall see, Reichstein’s case was particularly important, and deepened Jung’s interest in Eastern symbolism; he also used her drawings in his publications as examples of European mandalas. Besides, Reichstein’s case challenged Jung’s therapeutic relationship and his understanding of the concepts of transference and counter-transference. Furthermore, Jung wrote that her case was unique concerning the concept of synchronicity. Finally, I will present the correspondence between them after 1940 on religion and psychology, which indicates that Jung extensively discussed his concepts with Reichstein.

Jung did not include detailed information about his patients in his publications. My intention in this book is to add information about the lives of the patients and to discuss them in relation to Jung’s concepts mentioned previously. I use unpublished sources and interviews with relatives and persons close to these patients, offering a comprehensive picture of the interaction between them and Jung. Their treatments give us further information about Jung’s development of his psychotherapeutic practice and ideas. As we shall see, the encounter with these sisters gives us valuable data about a time when Jung’s practice was still evolving and offers us an example of how Jung shaped case material in his publications.

My goal is to offer additional information on a critical phase of Jung’s development, namely, when he began to use the insights of his self-experimentation with patients and to teach them to his collaborators. Additionally, the research unveiled important cases of Jung, cases which have not been studied to date and that he used as examples for his concepts.

Notes

1 Carotenuto, 1982.

2 Shamdasani, 1990.

3 Ellenberger, 1991.

4 Douglas, 1993.

5 Reid, 2001.

6 Swan, ed., 2011.

7 Shamdasani, ed., 2009.

8 Micale, ed., 1993.

9 Ibid., pp. 239–249.

10 van Helsdingen, 1957. Original in Dutch: Beelden uit het Onbewuste – een geval van Jung.

References

Carotenuto, A. (1982) A Secret Symmetry: Sabina Spielrein between Freud and Jung (New York: Pantheon).

Douglas, C. (1993) Translate This Darkness: The Life of Christiana Morgan (New York: Simon & Schuster).

Ellenberger, H. (1991) “The story of Helene Preiswerk: A critical study with new documents” in History of Psychiatry 2:41.

Micale, M., ed. (1993) Beyond the Unconscious: Essays of Henri F. Ellenberger in the History of Psychiatry (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

Reid, J.C. (2001) Jung, My Mother and I: The Analytic Diaries of Catharine Rush Cabot (Einsiedeln: Daimon Verlag).

Shamdasani, S. (1990) “A woman called Frank” in Spring: Journal of Archetype and Culture 50:25–56.

———, ed. (2009) The Red Book: Liber Novus/C.G. Jung (New York: Norton & Company).

Swan, W., ed. (2011) The Memoir of Tina Keller-Jenny: A Lif...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Photographs and drawings
• Foreword
• Preface: inside Jung’s study
• List of abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• PART 1 C.G. Jung
• PART 2 Mischa Epper
• PART 3 Maggy Reichstein
• Bibliography
• Index