Complexes

Book excerpt: Complex groups of associations arising out of the unconscious have been known and described in all cultures and are integral to the healthy psyche. Breuer first coined the term complexes to describe certain personalities. Jung developed the concept further, assigning the shell of the complex with its amplifications and associations to the personal unconscious and postulating a core that is archetypal in nature and rooted in the collective unconscious. In this book, Hans Dieckmann fills a lacuna by developing a general theory of the complexes that gives both the student and the practicing analyst an overview of this concept for the purposes of diagnosis and therapy. Illustrated throughout with clinical vignettes and diagrams, Complexes provides a clear and orderly path through the chaotic contents of analysis. Hans Dieckmann, M.D., was president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology. He founded the C. G. Jung Institute of Berlin, where he taught for a number of years. A patron of the Cape of Good Hope Center in South Africa and the C. G. Jung Institute of Perth, Dieckmann is the author of many articles and books, among them Twice-Told Tales: The Psychological Use of Fairy Tales.