Since the publication of The Red Book in 2009, Toni Wolff has taken a higher profile. She was the collaborator, friend, lover and guide of Carl Jung. We must be thankful to her for supporting and guiding Jung through his experience of the collective unconscious, recorded in The Red Book. Wolff had a fine and strong intellect, an enormous heart, and an exceptional quality of intuition. She was a collaborator in the dangerous work to uncover the mysteries of the unconscious. Wolff gave Jung boundaries, helped to stop his impetuous temperament from carrying him away. She gave him the human support and courage to make an experiment with his own life. As Helen Luke, the Jungian psychologist said:
No man can safely enter the dark gate of the shadow world without knowing that some deeply loved and trusted person has absolute faith in the rightness of his journey and in his courage and ability to come through.
Toni Wolff was born in Zürich. Her activity with Jung begins at the turn of the 20th Century. At that time, Switzerland had more fierce respectability than Victorian England. Her relationship to Jung was tolerated but disapproved of. Jung insisted on the openness of their relationship, she was more to him than a mistress on the side. They researched together, went on holiday together, they listened to each other’s dreams, went to conferences. For Sunday lunch she visited the Jung household and joined the family openly. Although much younger than Jung, she died before him and seemed forgotten. These four talks bring Toni Wolff to the fore, and her great importance in the development of Jung’s psychology. We discuss her paper: The Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche. These are: Mother, Amazon, Hetaira (friend) and Medial or Mediumistic woman.
Session Topics:
- The spirit of Toni Wolff and the feminine forms.
The first webinar introduces Toni Wolff and her special qualities in relationship to Jung. There is an overview of the feminine forms.
- The Mother
This session looks at the mother structure in a woman. This is not at all concerned with the physical mother; there are many ways of seeing this.
- The Amazon and the Hetaira
Here we look at the comparison between the Amazon who doesn’t count on relatedness for self-development, and the Hetaira, whose soul essence is in relationship.
- The Medium or Medial Woman.
The last session looks at the coming importance for the development of the feminine psyche for the future. This is based on the mediumistic woman and her ability to see beyond the moment.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the four webinars you should be familiar with:
- The significance of Toni Wolff in the development of analytical psychology
- An understanding of the four feminine forms of the psyche
- A strong feeling for the importance of the feminine psyche in our times
- Be witness to the development and difficulties of an unusual though profound relationship between a man and a woman
- Be in a questioning and questing state about the path that relationships take and what is their mystery
Required Reading
Tony Wolff & C G Jung: A Collaboration – Nan Savage Healy
Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche – Toni Wolff (Can be downloaded from the internet, as it is a very short paper)
Recommended Reading
The Red Book: Readers Edition – C G Jung
The Return of the Feminine and the World Soul – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
End of course essay describing the impact on your life of studying this material
- For BA students – 6-9 pages in length
- For MA students – 10-15 pages in length
- For PhD students – 20-25 pages in length
All Thursdays: 13,20 & 27 April, 4 May 2023 at 10 AM pacific / 7 PM CET