Thirty years ago the British Journal of Psychotherapy published a paper by Dr Farhad Dalal entitled ‘Jung: A racist’ (Dalal, 1988). No adequate acknowledgement or apology for what Jung wrote, and Dalal critiqued, has ever been forthcoming from the field of analytical psychology and Jungian analysis. In the paper Dalal argued that Jung’s perception of black people is racist and consequently that such attitudes are reflected in Jung’s theories. To contextualize what follows, the Abstract to Dalal’s paper has been placed in an Appendix to the letter.
This letter expresses the concerns of a number of Jungians – analysts, clinicians and academics – about our collective responsibility to respond to critiques of the overt and implicit racial biases within Jung’s work, and its implications for our own work today. The signatories to this letter hope that its wide circulation and inclusion on websites (including that of BAATN) will signal our commitment to an open exploration of these matters.
Ruth Williams MA (Jungian & Post Jungian Studies)
Jungian Analyst, Integrative Psychotherapist and Supervisor