Case History, Case Story: An Enquiry Into the Hermeneutics of C. G. Jung

Abstract

The case histories written by C. G. Jung, from his 1902 Doctoral Dissertation to his 1950 case of Miss X, are evaluated as pieces of evidence in support of his theories. Evidence is shown to rely for its validity on an ‘evidential context’ which has altered over time. Jung's case histories change over the course of his writings and become more like stories. The reason for this difference is his move from an interpretative schema based on the natural sciences when a psychiatrist, through that of psychoanalysis, to one based on the human sciences, and in particular to one based on hermeneutics ‐ the study of interpretation and meaning ‐ when he developed his theory of analytical psychology. Jung moves from a form of hermeneutics based on what constitutes a ‘valid’ interpretation to one that concentrates on meaning and understanding. In writing his later case histories like stories, Jung is using them as merely part of the wider cultural context of evidence required by analytical psychology rather than as privileged pieces of evidence in themselves.

The hermeneutic background of C. G. Jung

“…Furthermore, the passage just quoted was omitted from a later version of the essay and, thereafter, Jung referred to his method as 'synthetic', 'constructive' or, in one instance, as 'synthetic-hermeneutic' (Jung 1935(Jung /1966) rather than strictly as hermeneutic. Elsewhere in the Collected Works, Jung made a few scattered references to Biblical hermeneutics (e.g., Jung 1955Jung /19701921/1971 and to Mercurius (Hermes) as a 'hermeneut' (Jung 1943(Jung /1967 but he never returned to an explicitly hermeneutic characterization of his method of inquiry, even though, as Hewison (1995) has documented, his case histories take on an increasingly 'hermeneutic' character over time. Nor is there any reference to the work of hermeneutic philosophers such as Schleiermacher, Dilthey or Heidegger, even though Schleiermacher had a special familial significance for Jung.…”

“…Commentators who have attempted to make a case for the hermeneutic nature of Jung's approach to inquiry (e.g., Barnaby & D’Acierno 1990; Beebe 2004; Clarke 1992; Hewison 1995; Hogenson 1983; Steele 1982) frequently point to a passage in an early essay of Jung's in which he explicitly characterized his method as ‘hermeneutic’, in contrast to what he considered was Freud's more ‘semiotic’ approach. The essay, ‘The structure of the unconscious’, was based on a lecture Jung presented at the Zurich School for Analytical Psychology in 1916 that was first published, in French translation, in Archives de Psychologie later that year; it appears as an appendix to Volume 7 of the Collected Works (Jung 1916/1966).…”

“…22) and to Mercurius (Hermes) as a ‘hermeneut’ (Jung 1943/1967, para. 278) but he never returned to an explicitly hermeneutic characterization of his method of inquiry, even though, as Hewison (1995) has documented, his case histories take on an increasingly ‘hermeneutic’ character over time. Nor is there any reference to the work of hermeneutic philosophers such as Schleiermacher, Dilthey or Heidegger, even though Schleiermacher had a special familial significance for Jung.…”

“…One immediate difficulty in this undertaking is that, as alluded to earlier, Jung's own references to hermeneutics in the Collected Works are few and inconsistent. Hewison (1995) claimed that 'throughout Jung's writings there are frequent references to his method being that of hermeneutics' (p. 384); however, a close examination of Jung's published corpus does not support this claim, as the General Index of the Collected Works shows that the term is mentioned only seven times in three of its 18 volumes.…”

“…Over the past three decades, only a handful of publications have sought specifically to relate Jung's psychology to hermeneutic traditions of scholarship. Some have brought hermeneutic conceptions to bear on understanding the conflicting psychologies of Freud versus Jung (Hogenson 1983; Steele 1982); others have brought out parallels between Jung's ideas and those of the main hermeneutic philosophers such as Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer and Ricoeur (Barnaby & D’Acierno 1990: Beebe 2004; Hewison 1995; Rauhala 1984); still others have explored the relevance of Jung's psychology of religion to biblical hermeneutics (Dourley 1990; Rollins 1987; Stein 1985). Hermeneutics is also integral to Pietikainen's (1998, 1999) recasting of Jung's theory of archetypes in terms of Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms.…”