Ronald Hayman

A Life of Jung

"Engrossing. . . . Hayman's masterful life of this awesome megalomaniac pivots on a chilling paradox."—The Independent on Sunday

Carl Jung was one of the world's most influential psychoanalysts. With the exception of Freud, who chose him as the first president of the International Psychoanalytic Association, no psychologist has achieved more. He initiated groundbreaking ideas, yet trusted only his impulses. He astonished patients by reading their minds and answering questions they hadn't yet asked. He saved some from psychosis, but drove others to despair. His outspokenness was sometimes brutal and sometimes impressive. Throughout his life his charisma attracted both women and men, including numerous patients and a priest, yet he rarely returned the fondness he inspired. He would empty his chamber pot out of the window of his tower house without checking whether someone was underneath, but was rightly regarded as a great man.

Previous biographers have either made Jung an idol or condemned him for his failings. Ronald Hayman neither ignores Jung's faults nor exaggerates them in investigating the most crucial questions surrounding this enigmatic figure. What actually went on during Jung's sessions with patients? Was his mother insane? Was he a borderline case? What were the consequences of a homosexual episode in his boyhood? Was he pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic? How many affairs did he have with his patients? Why did he fail to sustain any of his friendships with men? Did he believe in ghosts, magic, and miracles? Did he sometimes mean "God" when he said the "Unconscious"? Why was he so secretive? Was his grandfather Goethe's illegitimate son? Did he see himself as a reincarnation of Goethe or as the man who could save humanity from nuclear destruction by psychologizing Christianity?

Hayman has been given access to a substantial amount of unpublished material that has not been used by previous biographers. Impeccably researched and written with notable objectivity, A Life of Jung offers a rare insight into how Jung's revolutionary ideas grew out of his own extraordinary experiences.