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IAAP INTERVIEWS

INTEVIEW WITH VERENA KAST (CGJIZ)

Ann Casement (BJAA/JPA)

Ann Casement Verena Kast

Ann Casement Thank you for agreeing to do this interview. I have quite a
few points I want to raise with you, so I’ll start.

Verena Kast Yes. Sure

AC You have had a distinguished career in the Jungian world and you
are a much-respected figure there. Please tell the readers of the Newsletter
how that came about. We will be covering other things obviously that relate
to it but would you give a general idea.

VK Well, okay… I started to study psychology in 1965 at the University

of Basel and of Zürich. And in this time, psychoanalysis, Jungian psycho-
logy, any school dealing with depth psychology was very interesting and it
was understood by itself: if you are studying clinical psychology you have
to have an analysis. You have to go somewhere and so I came from Basel to
Zürich and I visited all the institutes there and there had been a lot of insti-
tutes: The Jung institute, Freud institutes, many others. In the Jung Institute
I liked it most because I attended by chance a lecture about fairy tales and
people have helped me to understand something about symbols and so I
found it inspiring and especially it spoke to me that this Institute was the
most chaotic I met in Zürich. All the other institutes had much more regula-
tions. The Institut was in the Gemeindestrasse at this time and was kind of
chaotic and I liked that very much.

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AC Nice answer. So, the next point I was going to raise with you is what
drew you to Jung, which you have partly touched on but perhaps you would
elaborate on that?

VK Say that again please.

AC What drew you to Jung?

VK Ah. Well, I think it was very much this…the image of the human
being not seen from the deficits, but from the potentials. This corresponds
with Jung’s idea, that life is creative, that something creative permeates the
whole universe but also the whole individual personality and if you are con-
nected with this creative urge then you can transform, get whole or you can
get a good life in a way. So, I think it was this idea about creativity. And then
I found that the Jungian books have been very, very difficult to read. I find
it even now but reading it at that time, it left a lot of space for imagination.
And this is perhaps a second part – I like imagination. When I was a little
child, I was used to have some games with little figures or even pieces of
wood and these pieces have been talking together. And so other people told
me afterwards, you did monodrama as a child. In my opinion I was in my
phantasy life. When Jung says psyche only can show its energy or itself in
imagination, this really speaks to me. So, I would say it is creativity, imagi-
nation, the image of the human being. His concept of the unconscious.

AC You mentioned in response to the first point that you were a clinical
psychologist. Is that how you started your professional life, as a clinical psy-
chologist?

VK Yes. I was studying in the same time at the University for becoming
a clinical psychologist and at the Jung Institute for becoming an analyst. So,
in this time it was possible to do this at the same time. So, I commuted from
the Jung Institute to the University and back to the Institute. As the Jung In-
stitut in those times was only 8 minutes from the University, it was very easy
for me to go backwards and forwards.

AC I want to touch on something here that we are going to come onto

later, which is the excellent training that you sent me on the C.G. Institut
Zürich. I noticed that there was a lot to do with psychiatry and clinical subje-
ct matters as part of the training, which I can see now why you would have
thought that was really important to include in the training if that was your

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research. Was it you who would have included all that in the training of the
C.G. Jung Institut? The more clinical side of training?

VK Yes, I think it is what we Jungians need in our times because just to

do analysis to know yourself better, that’s fine. But who has the time and
the money to do it? I’m convinced that Jungian psychology is helping many
different people with different problems to get healthy. I think we have to be
clinically trained so that we can really do therapy. But we have not to forget
the soul; the symbols, the imagination and all the other creative methods
with transference and countertransference.

Sure, I am one of these people who tried to bring clinical aspects to the Insti-
tut; but you do never alone such a thing. There had been a lot of colleagues;
for example, perhaps you remember Mario Jacoby? He was very much one
of those people who found we had to have both parts.

AC Yes, I knew him quite well. He only died fairly recently.

VK Yes.

AC You yourself trained at the C.G. Institut Zürich?

VK Yes.

AC Who would have been running the training at that time?

VK It was Doctor Riklin.

AC Oh, yes.

VK That was one of the doctors.

AC Could you tell me what years that would have been when Riklin
was President of the C.G. Jung Institut? Was that when you were doing your
training?

VK I trained from 1965 to 1970.

AC The training started in 1948, but you started your training in 1965
when Franz Riklin was still President?

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VK Yes, and Jung started in 1948 and we had these training regulations
that have been established by the founding of the Institute, and they are even
valid nowadays. Requirements in hours have changed, but not the topic.
This was the formal aspect and the informal aspect was that we had a lot of
very inspiring lecturers such as Franz Riklin, Marie-Louiise von Franz and
Jacobi – not Mario Jacoby. But what was her name?
AC Jolande

VK Jolande Jacobi

AC Yes, indeed.

VK I loved the training, it inspired me a lot – and as we have not been

that many students, we had interesting, long lasting discussions, especially
after the colloquia in a café with Riklin. Riklin was a kind of liberal.

AC Liberal?

VK Liberal because he was very free in his thoughts. And he wanted us

to use our freedom.

AC Right. So was Riklin a psychiatrist?

VK Riklin was a psychiatrist

AC Because Jolande Jacobi wasn’t a psychiatrist.

VK She was a psychologist. Because in this first generation there were

not a lot of psychiatrists. They had different academic backgrounds, mostly
in the humanities.

AC She’s a fascinating figure, Jolande Jacobi, I think in many ways. Do

you want to say anything more about her?

VK Not really. I think she belonged at this time to the Institut, she was
a gifted teacher. There has been a lot of controversy around her, I guess,
because she was slightly outspoken.

AC Yes, so I gather. I heard from people who knew her that she had a
very good mind and she was also an outspoken woman.

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VK Yes, but she had a very good mind. I think she was good, has written
good books. I really estimated her a lot.

AC Can I ask you a personal question? Do you feel an affinity with Jo-
lande Jacobi?

VK Say that again please.

AC Do you feel a personal affinity with Jolande Jacobi?

VK No.

AC That’s interesting, thank you. We have rather run ahead of ourselves

because I was going to come to your Presidency of the Institut later on. But
what you have said is fascinating – we could spend the whole interview just
talking about the early years of the C.G. Jung Institut. One vital question, of
course, is how much did Jung have to do with the Institut?

VK Well he died in 1961.

AC Yes.

VK I started in 1965 so…

AC Did you ever meet him?

VK No, I never met him. I heard his name when I was 18 years old when
he died. It was in the newspaper and we had a teacher of religion who was
absolutely glad that he died. He said, oh this is now great, the old heretic
from Zürich is now dead. And do you have to say such a thing to 18-year-old
people? We all went to the book shops and the library and we started to read
Jung. So, at the Jung Institut, sure he was there in the minds of people, some-
times telling us, that “this” is not what Jung would have agreed. It was ok for
us. It was 1968 you know and we thought that we do not need authorities. It
is the older generation who knew him personally and had really a story with
him that bows to Jung but for us it was not really the same.

AC Did he have anything to do with the founding of the Institut?

VK Yes, sure.

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AC So he was the founder of it? Or Riklin?

VK Actually, it was very much Jolande Jacobi. Jung asked her to do so-
mething like this. And I found out now she wanted to create a university.
And if she would have, that would have been a great thing.

AC What a shame.

VK What a shame, yes. And Jung, first he opposed then he agreed. He

had a talk when the Institut was founded in 1948 and in this talk he men-
tioned his merits and he expressed his wish, that members of the Institut
will continue his research. It was important for him: the training and also
research. But then he left quite soon the board and was replaced by his wife.

AC How very interesting. I didn’t realize that. I knew how closely they
worked together on everything. But I didn’t realise she replaced him; so she
became -what would have been the term – President of the Curatorium?

VK I don’t think she was the President of the Curatorium.

AC Who was the head of the Curatorium?

VK Jung.

AC So, the first President of the Curatorium was Jung. And he would
have been involved in the founding of the Institut as well?

VK Yes.

AC You can tell I am very interested in history and really fascinated by

these historical figures, Binswanger, Jacobi and so on. Another question I
have for you is that as you know there is a spectrum which is often alluded
to which is that Jungians are situated along the archetypal, classical or devel-
opmental spectrum. Where would you situate yourself on that?

VK I would say somewhere in the middle, in the centre of it because I

like archetypal thinking and I like developmental.

AC I think I would do the same. I was watching a video of a Journal of

Analytical Psychology conference not long ago where you gave the main pa-
per. And I was really interested in what William Meredith-Owen said about

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it, that this was absolutely a clinical paper. Which is a great compliment
from William. And I listened to your presentation. It seemed to me that your
presentation itself was quite classical. Would you say that you are perhaps
more on the classical side of the spectrum?

VK What do you mean by classical? I have the idea that it is often an

expression for old fashioned.

AC No, I was thinking a bit more about what you were dealing with
there, and I am going to come back to that later, was with the fairy tale.

VK Yes, I am dealing a lot with the emotions. Emotions are my passion.

And out of emotion you have imagination, you have images, you have sym-
bols. You have archetypal symbols in the fairy tales.

AC You are familiar with the work of the neuroscientist, Jaak Panksepp?

VK Yes. I love it.

AC Because that’s exactly what he is saying, isn’t it. He is talking all the
time about affect and emotions.

VK Yes, what he says about emotional systems. This is archetypal.

AC Yes, I see what you are getting at. As you know he died last year. We
miss him very much because he really was a brilliant man.

VK I love him.

AC Good to hear that. Because you alluded to neuroscience in that pre-

sentation you were giving recently at the Journal conference. So, you keep
up-to-date with Mark Solms and Panksepp?

VK Yes, absolutely, and Damasio. I think this is very important. I don’t

think that neuroscience can explain but I think neuroscience is dealing with
questions we also are worrying about. And sometimes, they challenge our
beliefs.

AC The last conversation I had with Jaak was in New York which would
have been about four years ago…

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VK You have seen him personally?

AC Quite often. I think Mark is going to be in Switzerland soon.

VK Mark Solms spoke at the IAAP Congress in Cape Town.

AC Yes, he came to that Congress as he is based in Cape Town.

VK But we were talking about Jaak. You knew him personally?

AC I knew him a bit, yes. When I talked with him, he always impressed
on me that he was not in any way a psychoanalyst but a neuroscientist. He
understood little about psychoanalysis as he had no analytic insight and was
not able to deal with his own negative emotions. His work was related to
affective neuroscience and psychobiology, which is how he would define
himself.

VK Wow, this is really good.

AC What do you think about that?

VK I think that we are based in emotions because we are like animals as

we are also mammals. Okay it is a hypothesis but out of this is coming our
relation to the world. This is why I think early developmental psychology
is important because it is the relation to the world and the body. I think in
relation with the world there is an emergence of feelings and connected with
these feeling is imagination, and out of this imagination we create the whole
spiritual world. I know that other people say that it has to come from top
down; I think it comes from bottom up.

AC I think Jaak would very possibly agree with you. As you know, he
did a lot of work on the affective systems of animals and was making the
link to human affective systems. We could talk about him for the rest of the
interview but I want to ask you several other things because you have such
a distinguished and varied career that I had to make notes to make sure we
covered the main points for our readers of the Newsletter, who will be inte-
rested to hear. So, to jump if we may, from neuroscience to the IAAP. What I
would like to talk to you about is your Presidency of the IAAP, particularly
what you might see as your major achievements whilst you were President.

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VK Well, I think I had two major achievements. One was that we chan-
ged the Constitution.

AC I was going to come to that.

VK Actually, when you say that this is my achievement, it is not com-

pletely correct, it is also an achievement of my administration. I had a lot of
people helping me. So, I think this change of administration was important.
Then: The Developing Groups had already started and this was the time
when we gave a lot of energy and money to the development of the Devel-
oping Groups especially in Eastern Europe. That was the best thing we have
done.

AC I was at the Delegates’ Meeting where you proposed shortening the

tenure of office of the President of the IAAP from two terms to one term and
I strongly supported you in that. Can you tell the Newsletter why you wan-
ted to do that?

VK Yes, the IAAP was becoming a kind of family affair was always the
same people expecting to be Vice-President and are becoming the President.
For me this is not democratic. What is democratic is where a lot of people
can participate. If you have no chance to be a part of a Board, because all the
posts are taken for years, you are not interested anymore in the Association.
So, each one must have a real chance to participate. This was the idea why it
has to be shortened.
AC Yes, indeed. I agree with you. One point related to that which I took
up on the Executive Committee when I served there, it seems to me the sy-
stem in place to choose between two Vice-Presidents actually can be very
hard on the person who loses.

VK Yes. We are voting and if you are voting there is always a loser. Ac-
tually, I don’t understand why trained analysts who offer themselves to be-
come an officer, can’t deal with losing. Perhaps they can, but the colleagues
are suffering so much. We have always to be nice and no one has to be hurt.
This is an aspect of hidden individual aggression what we can see someti-
mes in Jungians. We have a shadow side. And I agree totally, it is very hard
to lose. It’s hard to lose at this point. But this is democracy. Would be nice, if
colleagues take the one who lost to a nice dinner, I think this is an important
point.

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AC It does seem to have left some of the people who have lost in the
past feeling quite scarred by this experience. It’s about the person who loses,
but I was thinking also about various Delegates’ Meetings, where it has been
very difficult for many of us Delegates to watch colleagues that we have high
regard for losing in this public way.

VK It’s hard for everyone. To make a decision is hard for everyone. But
that is good that we can have a decision.

AC Thank you for this. That is something, I’m sure you know, there has
been a lot of discussion about it.

VK It is raised all the time. This is a problem – a problem of running a

society.

AC Yes. I understand what you’re saying. My idea was if perhaps we

had four Vice-Presidents, then selecting one out of four isn’t quite so difficult
for those one who lost. I raised this possibility when I served on the Executi-
ve Committee.

VK Yes, this is also a possibility, it could be changed in this way because

I think that the President has too much to do. But if there were four Vice-Pre-
sidents then you can have one for each part of the world. Yes.

AC That was what I tentatively suggested and it was discussed but an

obvious stumbling block is the expense entailed as the IAAP is always on
a tight budget. Thank you very much for what you said about this. I mean
there are so many discrete parts of the IAAP each one of which is a huge area
to cover isn’t it?

VK Yes, it is.

AC Right, the other point relating to the IAAP is how do you experience
it now as it was some time ago since you were President. What were your
exact dates as President?

VK I think it was 1995 to 1998.

AC I thought so – I tried to double-check the dates but couldn’t find

them. How do you experience the IAAP now as it is twenty years since you
were President?

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VK Yes, it was twenty years ago. I see a development in the Jungian

world. I see different colleagues from different countries and continents be-
coming analysts and being members of IAAP. I am very happy about this as
if only the West – European people would be members, IAAP would shrink
and shrink. I enjoyed the last Congress in Kyoto. I think it was very stimu-
lating, but it was a different IAAP. I attend the Congresses and am now an
ordinary participant.
For me the question of IAAP is if they can find enough people to do the
work that has to be done. For example, with the Developing Groups.
Then I think, the IAAP should do more for research.
For example, in Zürich we want to do some research with the association
experiment developed by Jung. I don’t think you use the association test in
England but we use it. This test marks the beginning of Jungian psychology,
the complex theory. We have the idea to give this test at the beginning of
therapy and at the end. If our theory is correct, the landscape of complexes
should change through therapy – more different emotions, and that means
more possibilities to deal with life, more different feelings and so on. If we
are doing that research, we need someone like an assistant to collect the data
because as analysts we cannot collect the data – no one has time to do it, and
it would be great if the IAAP could provide money for such an assistant.

AC Have you applied to the Academic Sub-Committee?

VK Yes.

AC Yes, you applied to the Academic Sub-Committee?

VK Not for this research. This research would need much more money
than can be given by the Academic Sub-Committee. We applied for an exhi-
bition. I don’t know if you know that we are seventy years old in the Institut
this year. We have an exhibition of paintings of patients of Jung. They had
been stored in the picture archive of the Institut, we opened the archive and
some of the paintings are exhibited in the ”Musem im Lagerhaus” a museum
for art brut in St Gallen. And for this exhibition we asked for money.

AC That’s a worthwhile piece of research, too. You do that, do you, with

your actual training candidates, give them the association tests at the begin-
ning and then you do another one four years later?

VK Not with training candidates, with patients. We are planning the

research by now.

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AC It is really the transcribing of the data, that kind of thing that you
need. So, you’ve got all these results and all this data but it hasn’t been tran-
scribed yet, is that right?

VK No, we are starting this research project. We can’t start it until we

know that there is someone to deal with the data. We are discussing research
in the German speaking world, we find research – all kind of research – is
vital for Jungian Psychology.
My question is what is IAAP doing in the future? Is it just having this
congress every three years? It is also nice to see people again and belonging
is a very important aspect. It is nice to belong to a big Society but perhaps
now, as the Developing Groups are doing quite well, I think the IAAP could
have a new target.

AC I think the word you used there is vital and that is research. That
would be the area for the IAAP to invest in. So, you would see that as one of
the areas which would take the IAAP into the future?

VK Yes.

AC Good.

VK Actually, I think the IAAP is doing very well because now, we have
congresses all over the world, we have two main congresses, have the Euro-
pean congress, joint Congresses with Universities…It is too much. Someti-
mes an organisation becomes a victim of its success.

AC How true. That is well put. I have actually organised two conferen-
ces which were supported with seed money from the IAAP and that’s just
myself and we have over three thousand members. Yes, there is a lot of acti-
vity to do with Jung’s ideas.
Does the name Jordan Peterson mean anything to you?

VK No, it does not.

AC Ah, I would recommend that you look him up online and have a
listen to one of his presentations. He is a Canadian clinical psychologist and
an academic at the university of Toronto, where he is Professor of Psycho-
logy. He is very much in demand internationally but it is hoped he might
contribute something to The Journal of Analytical Psychology.

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VK Could you say the name again, please?

AC Jordan Peterson. He’s strongly supportive of Jung’s work and is

doing incredible work in the academy promoting Jung’s ideas, particularly
the archetypal work. He is even saying he thinks that Freudian psychology
is an adjunct of Jungian psychology and not the other way around. Even
though he acknowledges that chronologically, of course, Freud came first. I
thought you would be interested in hearing about him. I hope the IAAP will
be in touch with him, because his work is internationally known for spea-
king out on controversial issues and he is not politically expedient. He is also
so supportive of Jungian ideas in the academy, which is an area in which we
feel that we have been lagging behind don’t we?

VK Yes, sure.

AC Now, what are the other questions I have for you? One point I wan-
ted to raise was that it was only at the last Congress that the C.G. Jung In-
stitut became a member of the IAAP. And I believe there were historical
reasons for that. Could you briefly tell the readers of the Newsletter what
that’s about?

VK We became a Group Member of IAAP in Kyoto. We have had a spe-

cial system in Switzerland: the training was at the Jung Institute, there is also
a training at ISAP. The colleagues with a diploma joined and can continue to
join the SGAP or the AGAP The Swiss Society is a Society for all the analysts
living in Switzerland. It has one big meeting in a year. They offer some post
graduate training, in didactics for example.
We are training colleagues coming from abroad: from Japan, the US, Korea
and from the Balkans and so on. When they have their diploma, they could
join the Swiss Society – but they have no relationship to it. They expressed
the wish, to be part of a group “CG Jung Institut Zurich” of IAAP – they feel
they belong to the Institut. We thought it would be okay for the Jung Institut
to belong to the International so we could include all people who have trai-
ned with us. That was the reason and we wanted to do this in a way that we
do not harm the Swiss Society.

AC How did you manage that? You must have had conversations with
the President of SGAP about this?

VK Yes, we had conversations with the SGAP. We are friends and we

had very constructive discussions in a way that the President understood

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our point. Naturally she fought for the old status – but she could accept the
change. We remain also members of SGAP. This is not a split or something
like this.

AC Can I just say we were aware there had been difficulties in Switzer-
land between the various groups.

VK Yes, I think the difficulties are not with the Swiss Society but with
ISAP, when it was founded in 2000 or something like that, due to severe dif-
ficulties at the Institut. This was difficult for those who wanted to go on with
the Jung Institut. But it was not with the Swiss Society. The Swiss Society is
a place where all colleagues meet.

AC Right, because the Swiss Society do not have a training, do they?

VK No, they don’t.

AC They are just a Society.

VK So, it is really different from any other place in the world. Because in
any other place in the world this would be a split but for us this is not a split.
It only meant that we are doing the training and we want to be recognized
for this training direct by IAAP.

AC To clarify, there are two IAAP trainings in Switzerland, ISAP and

the C.G. Jung Institute.

VK The AGAP training, they delegate the training to ISAP.

AC As you mentioned splits, what do you think about the splits that
happen in the Jungian world?

VK In associations you are together, perhaps too close, you split, you
reunite, perhaps with other people – this is change. I think the idea not to
split is for me much more challenging than the idea that we split. If you are
looking at the splits, the splits are very different and there are splits due to
personalities; we have some groups that want their own decisions but some-
times this gives us a different understanding of Jungian psychology. And so-
metimes it is meaningful that we don’t want to use all our energy in fighting
against people. On the individual level we can heal splits in working with
symbols. On the social level it takes time. I think it is okay to have splits but

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it is better if you can dialogue and talk together. I am also thinking there are
a lot of splits in the UK.

AC It has been said that we pioneered splits.

VK I even like that: You had a lot of splits and now you have this Um-
brella Group. I hear that you are much closer than when I was President.

AC Yes, relations are more amicable. There are now five IAAP training
Groups belonging to the Umbrella Group. The latter was actually Hans
Dieckmann’s idea. At the Berlin congress, he said we can’t have all these
Jungians in the UK who are not on speaking terms, why don’t you have
some kind of common forum where you can meet and talk and so that was
what led to the founding of the Umbrella Group.

VK What a good idea.

AC Yes, but it needs a certain amount of time to pass because feelings

run very high for a while after a split like a divorce. Eventually people get
less emotional and can start to think a bit more, become a little more rational
towards each other and become more amicable. But it does need time before
the emotions calm down. In some parts of the Jungian world where there
are fairly recent splits it is still difficult for the divergent parties to have any
forum where they can meet.

VK It hurts a lot. If you are in the process of splitting. And I think we

already have a lot of different opinions about Jungian Psychology in the In-
stitutes. We have to learn in a friendly way to agree that we disagree and that
no one has the truth.

AC Well we could say that Jung pioneered splitting by what happened

between him and Freud.

VK True. But this is normal. There are lots of people who grow apart.

AC Yes, I think I wrote about that because I was asked by The Journal of
Analytical Psychology to contribute a piece on the splits in the UK, that was
for the 40th anniversary of the Journal, in which I suggested that splits may
not be only destructive.

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VK It is not all the time crucial. When you have a loss it’s crucial. And
either you become the victim or you are working on this loss and it becomes
creative.

AC Yes, I was thinking about what James Hillman said about betrayal.
One can feel vengeful and there are various stages one may have to go th-
rough to reach forgiveness and self-forgiveness.

Before we go on to one important area we haven’t covered yet, I just wanted

to say again that I was really impressed with the training at the C.G. Institut
because as you know I featured this in my column. That was the first trai-
ning we covered in the News Sheet. It is really impressive and seems very
demanding.

VK It is really demanding.

AC Do training candidates actually complete that in four years?

VK Only some of them but for most it takes five years or six years. We
are not forcing them and the only thing they need is time but some people
can complete it in four years.

AC A large area that I wanted to look at with you is an important part

of your working life, which is as an author. You have produced so many
books that I could not begin to put them all down. I wanted to mention here
that you did a chapter for a book I produced in 1998 called The Clinical Use
of a Specific Fairy Tale as a Turning Point in Analysis, which I re-read yesterday
because I wanted to see what you were saying there. I was fascinated by the
fairy tale you chose. Could you talk a bit about a particular recurring theme
or recurring themes that you write about in all these many books that you
have produced.

VK Well, just from the beginning of my academic career I was interested

in emotions and I was interested in imagination and symbols. And I started
with a book about the association test. I was at the University and I had to
do anyway, a lot of diagnostics. And this was my first book. But my first
proper book was a book about fairy tales and one book about the process of
mourning. Very often I have been working at the same time on two books –
one more for fun, the other one was hard work. I was writing books about
emotions, symbols and about separation in relationship and more.

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AC And you are incorporating neuroscientific ideas in your writing

now.

VK Yes, I am doing that. I can’t say I am a specialist but I have started to

as I have been working on a book about dreams so I included something by
Mark Solms on dreams. He is very interesting on dreams. And I think now
there is something special to learn about the unconscious. The neuroscien-
tists are now excavating the unconscious. I think the relationship between
the conscious and the unconscious can become creative. But the unconscious
in itself I wouldn’t say it was creative.

AC Mark Solms recent work is on the Conscious Id. Have you heard
him talk about the Conscious ID?

VK No.

AC You might want to check that out online. In London recently he gave
a whole day on the Conscious Id, part of the work he is doing on the hard
problem of consciousness. It might tie up with what you were just saying
about unconsciousness. Is there anything you feel we haven’t covered about
your work that you would like to add?

VK Perhaps about my career at the University? I was a Professor at the

University. I was in the anthropological field, it is a philosophical field and
not a biological field. I was not chosen because I was a Jungian analyst but
because I had written on philosophical anthropology.

AC Have you written on theoretical anthropology?

VK Yes.

AC Right, so that is why you were chosen to be a Professor?

VK Yes. We have one department for psychology and it belongs to phi-

losophical anthropology, which is where I was. I had to give lectures and my
writing had a lot to do with my lectures because then I was talking about
anxiety and all these things and I created my books out of that.

AC You have given us a lot. The readers of the Newsletter should be fa-
scinated by what you have to say because we have covered things like histo-
ry, the academy, research and, may I say, the politics of the Jungian world.

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282 IAAP Interviews

So, I think we have covered the waterfront. Is there anything you want to
add?

VK No, I think it’s fine. It has gone very well.

AC Thank you so much for your time, Verena. You are always so stimu-
lating to talk with.
VK
And there are some very interesting ideas you gave me.

AC I look forward to seeing you in Vienna.

VK Yes, so do I.

AC I will send you a transcript of the interview for you to take out or
add anything you like.

VK Fine, thank you.

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