Kraepelin's psychiatric treatment method based on his life reflections

Kraepelin's therapeutic arsenal was rather small compared with our present possibilities. In the beginning of his psychiatric activity Kraepelin was confronted with desolate conditions in mental hospitals. He overcame this situation successfully and initiated methods of treatment which in some respects could be model up to the present time. Above all, worthwhile noting, in this context, is Kraepelin's emphatic refusing of restraint and isolation.     

Further reflections on the suicide of Kawabata Yasunari.

The suicide of Kawabata Yasunari has been studied in terms of loneliness, aestheticism, postwar Japan's mass democracy, and ill health and old age. This paper places focus on the Oedipus complex in relation to Kawabata's concepts of beauty, life, and death. This analysis was supported by the psychosocial data which were provided by Jiko no Tenmatsu (An Account of the Incident) by Usui Yoshimi. The book is based on the story told by a maid of Kawabata, who is believed to have played an important role in his suicide. Although it is a novel, Usui claims that he followed events as told by the reporter as closely as possible.     

Some reflections on the influence of Chinese thought on Jung and his psychological theory

Jung claimed that Richard Wilhelm, whose masterful translations of Chinese wisdom literature into a European language (German) and thence into Western consciousness have brought Chinese modes of thinking to so many, was one of the most important influences on his own life and work. The contacts between the two men, which took place from the early 1920's until Wilhelm's death in 1930, were few but intense and for Jung decisive in several ways. Wilhelm's translations of the I Ching and The Secret of the Golden Flower opened new avenues for Jung that had far-reaching consequences on his research and writing after 1930. The latter opened the door to the study of alchemy as a key to the archetypal process of individuation as rooted in the collective unconscious. 'Synchronicity' is a term that grew out of his contact with Chinese thought, in particular with the I Ching. From his contact with Chinese thought, additionally, he received confirmation of the view, independently arrived at, that adult psychological development is not linear but rather circular and spiral-like. The letters between Jung and Wilhelm illuminate the great importance Jung ascribed to Wilhelm's contribution toward bridging East and West and the potential value of Chinese philosophy for psychotherapy.     

Freud's writing: his (w)rite of passage and its reverberations

The study of Freud's personal conception of writing and his use of it illuminates a significant aspect of his relationship with others, and also his sense of his own heroic greatness. In two related periods of his life, acts of writing--which were notably overdetermined in Freud and which informed as well as facilitated a distinctive kind of self-expression--gave rise to veritable (w)rites of passage. In those periods, the transferential dynamics in Freud's relationships with Fliess, his daughter Anna, and certain important analysands were expressed in ways connected with the content and process of various types of writing, including editing and translating. In sum, there is something still to be discovered in Freud's attitudes to his writing and to related intergenerational transactions between analysts and analysands who engage together in compositional activities.     

Freud and hedonism

The Journal of Value Inquiry -     

Interviews on Freud and Jung on Freud and Jung with Henry A. Murray in 1965

Henry Murray became one of the legendary figures in the history of American psychology. Not only was he a leading pioneer in the field of personality theory, but he created (with Christiana Morgan) the Thematic Apperception test. He also took a leading role in making psychological profiles for the American government's Office of Strategic Services during World War II. For years Murray headed the Harvard Psychological Clinic, and also worked on the writings of Herman Melville for almost half of his long life. Murray took a wholly independent path from Freudian and Jungian organizations, yet his memories of contact with Freud and Jung are worth recording. These interviews with Murray were conducted in 1965. To take only one example, the circumstances of Jung's getting his honorary degree from Harvard in 1936 are elucidated, as well as Freud's inquiry to Murray about why he himself had missed out on that occasion. A postcript to the interview, illustrating Murray's capacities as a writer, concerns his spirited response to the Princeton philosopher Walter Kaufmann's inquiry about Roazen's account of the 1936 honorary degree in his 1975 Freud and His Followers.