Notes on the Open Letter on Jung and ‘Africans’ published in the British Journal of Psychotherapy, November 2018

Abstract

In November 2018, the British Journal of Psychotherapy published an Open Letter on the topic of Jung and ‘Africans’. The Open Letter (not a petition) was signed by 35 Jungian clinicians and academics from diverse and international backgrounds. The signatories take responsibility for attending to the many difficulties arising from Jung’s writings on ‘race’. Rather than proceeding to castigate Jung, the signatories delineate actions which might be taken with regard to the ‘decolonialisation’ of Jungian psychology. The Open Letter is reprinted here in full. Notes explaining the context and providing examples of Jung’s attitudes are provided by the author, one of the signatories to the Open Letter.

Appendix

Abstract of Dalal (1988)

Dalal, F. (1988) Jung: A racist. British Journal of Psychotherapy 4(3): 263–79.

The paper examines Jung’s perception of the non-European. It is argued that his perception of black people is racist and that these same views permeate the entire fabric of Jung’s psychological theory and, further, that these views are woven into the theoretical foundations of two major Jungian concepts: the Collective Unconscious and Individuation. Finally, the paper examines the consequences of these theories as perceived by Jung in terms of the possibilities or otherwise of people of different races living together.

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