135 Psychoanalytic Theory-In This Case Erikson's-And Is a Model for Future

BOOK REVIEWS 135 psychoanalytic theory-in this case Erikson's-and is a model for future hermeneutic study in its utilization of salient psychoanalytic concepts. Wallulis displays his understanding of the hermeneutic tradition as well as his insight into contemporary questions that are significant and complex. Michael W. Barclay Cotati, CA Roger Brooke, Jung and Phenomenology. New York: Routledge, 1991, 200 pp., $45.00 (cloth), $17.95 (paper). This is a book that should be taken seriously, if not for what it has accomplished, then at least for what it has attempted to accomplish: "to understand and articulate the psychological insights of C. G. Jung in the light of existential phenomenology" (p. 1). In pursuing this task, Brooke proceeds with a dual conviction. First, that analytical psychology, as developed especially by Jung, has considerable substantive and valuable psychological insights, intuitions, interpretations, and understandings that can contribute significantly to the psychological enrichment of existential hermeneutical philosophy. At the same time-his second conviction-he concedes with no hesitation whatsoever that existential hermeneutical philosophy bequeaths to analytical psychology a theoretical foundation, strength, and comprehension of which it stands in sore need, but which it has had, at least to date, only minimal success in establishing. To use his own words, I want to argue more than that Jung's psychology can be reworked phenomenologically, or even merely that Jung and phenomenology are intimately compatible. I want to explore the more daring claim that Jung saw and understood as an existential phenomenologist but that he lacked the conceptual tools to ex- press his insights in a phenomenologically rigorous way. (p. 2) As Brooke phrases it elsewhere, "Jung saw as a phenomenologist even as he generally continued to think theoretically as a natural scientist" (p. 10). Spelling out this dual conviction creates for the author one weighty challenge and for the reader one meaningful experience. There are serious issues to be faced: Jung's philosophical limitations despite 136 his intuitive brilliance; his vague and even at times ambivalent ar- ticulations with their own share of theoretical and/or empirical in- consistencies ; his adherence to the Cartesian mind-body dualism, along with his repudiation of crass materialism and rationalism. Brooke honestly faces these issues; some, to be sure, are handled better than others, but they are faced nonetheless. Meanwhile, he also confronts and acknowledges the dangers entailed in attempting to rephrase profound philosophical considerations in language that is often highly psychological, at times quite religious, and on occasion even mystical. Difficult and dangerous though it may be, such was Brooke's project; and in the overall picture, it should be said, he does meet the challenge honestly and well. Thus the serious and/ or professional reader, whether convinced in toto or skeptical in part, will find that the book provides genuine food for thought and is worthy indeed of serious study. The work is divided into three sections: the first encompasses chapters 1-4; the second, chapters 5-8; and the final two chapters (sec- tion three) are in effect a wrap-up, consisting of a clinical study and a brief summary, respectively. As Brooke puts it, "There is a sense in which these first four chapters lay the ground work for the chapters that follow. The focus thus far will have been introductory (chapters one and two), methodological (chapter three), and empirical (chapter four). The following chapters discuss in detail the central concepts of analytic psychology" (p. 11). It is this pattern that Brooke follows, although, interestingly enough, when he treats Jung's method in chapter 3, he does so by anticipat- ing Merleau-Ponty's definition of phenomenology as found in his Phenomenology of Perception. In the light of this work, Brooke addresses the methodological treatment, dealing specifically with the issue of phenomenology and the "return to the things themselves," as well as the questions of phenomenological reduction, eidetic reduction, and, finally, the concept of intentionality, showing therein that Jung himself was indeed seriously preoccupied with the pursuit of mean- ing in his own phenomenological way. Jung, however, did so in a manner whose methodology was far from convincing to the formal philosophical school. As Brooke explains, His success as a phenomenologist owes to his skill as a psychologist and hermeneut, but the necessary philosophical understanding was severely lacking. Thus the heart of the method, the phenomenological reduction, was entered without sufficient rigour or self-criticism. The result is that he sees through rationalist and materialist prejudices, .

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