Toni Wolff

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Toni Wolff in 1911
CG Jung Institute, Gemeindestrasse Zurich

Toni Anna (Antonia) Wolff (born September 18, 1888 in Zurich , died March 21, 1953 there ) was a Swiss analyst of Jungian psychology and a close collaborator of CG Jung . During her analytical career, Wolff published relatively little under her own name, but she helped Jung define and describe some of his most important and well-known concepts, such as anima and animus and persona , as well as the theory of psychological types. Her best known publication was an essay on the four "types" or aspects of the female psyche: the Amazon, the mother, the hetaira and the medial woman.

biography

Toni Wolff was born in 1888 as the eldest of three girls into a wealthy Zurich family. Encouraged by her parents to pursue creative interests, she became enthusiastic about philosophy and mythology as well as astrology . Her father refused her a university education on the grounds that it was not opportune for a young woman of her class to have an official education. Wolff pursued her studies as an unenrolled student.

In December 1909, when she was 21 years old, her father died and she fell into a deep depression . On September 20, 1910, she began analytical therapy with CG Jung, who was immediately impressed by her intellect . Jung treated her depression by encouraging her to use her intellect. She became one of many women who were attracted to Jung because he allowed them to use their intellectual interests and abilities to serve analytical psychology.

Wolff assisted Jung in his research and accompanied him and his wife Emma Jung to a psychiatric conference in Weimar in 1911. At that time, Jung described Toni Wolff in a letter to Freud as his new discovery, one with a remarkable intellect and an excellent sense of religion and philosophy be blessed. Jung ended Wolff's therapy at the end of 1911. After a while, he got in touch with her again, as he continued to feel very drawn to her.

Wolff's relationship with Jung was central to her development as an analyst and as a member of the early “Analytical Psychological Circle” in Zurich. She became a widely recognized analyst. Many insiders rated her therapeutic skills higher than that of Jung. Tina Keller Jenny attested: «I see your work as art. She was an extremely talented therapist. I said Dr. Jung, that he could never have helped me the way Toni Wolff did. " Irene Champernowe describes: “I always felt closer to Jung's inner wisdom when I was with her and not with him. She was ... the inner companion on his journey into the unconscious. " After Wolff was the first woman to be elected to the board of the Psychological Club Zurich, she was also elected president, which she remained for 21 years.

She was junior editor for Jung's papers, primarily for the publication of Jung's collected works. She collected them and prepared them for further distribution. In addition to the aforementioned essay on the four basic female structures, she wrote several articles. Most concerned the education of the increasing number of students who came to Zurich to learn analytical psychology. When the CG Jung Institute in Zurich was opened in 1948, Wolff gave training seminars for the candidate analysts.

In her later years, Wolff suffered from severe arthritis , which probably resulted from her voluntary military service in neutral Switzerland during World War II. She also smoked her entire life, which had an impact on her health. Toni Wolff died suddenly on March 21, 1953 at the age of 64. The cause of death remained unknown, it was probably a heart attack . Her final resting place is in the Enzenbühl cemetery in Zurich.

The relationship with CG Jung

A year after the termination of Wolff's therapy, Jung had several dreams that led him to re-establish the relationship with his former patient. He wrote her a letter in 1913. She soon became his most important intellectual collaborator. At the same time, an intimate relationship developed more and more. The intensity of this relationship created tension in Jung's marriage. Somehow, however, an agreement was reached, as it was clear that Jung didn't want to give up either of the two women. He called Wolff his "second wife". Jung was looking for an "anima", and Wolff fit the role. She was a frequent visitor to Jung's house, mostly to work with Jung on his projects in the "home office" from late morning until lunch time. However, she was excluded from the family dinner, although work continued in the afternoon. Toni Wolff usually attended Sunday lunch.

In 1916 the three succeeded in opening the "Psychological Club Zurich". Jung was always accompanied by both women on official and private occasions. This arrangement satisfied Jung's "polygamous inclinations", as Jung himself put it, and fitted into his behavior, throughout his life, distributing his affections to a number - as he called it - "virgins". Some of his biographers, however, complain that this arrangement hurt Tonis and Emma's self-esteem very much and caused them both enormous suffering.

Jung began to be interested in alchemy in the early 1930s, but Wolff refused to follow him. It was suspected that she did not participate, as she felt that Jung was maneuvering himself off the beaten track by dealing with these mysterious subjects. But according to Marie-Louise von Franz , who became his most important colleague in researching alchemical literature, Wolff's attachment to Christianity was the real reason. Despite Wolff's refusal to accompany Jung in his studies of alchemy, she remained loyal and closely connected to Analytical Psychology for the rest of her life. After his heart attack in 1944, Jung distanced himself emotionally from Wolff. After her death in 1953, he did not attend her funeral. His colleague Barbara Hannah said that his poor health and deep sadness were the reasons for his absence. In memory of Wolff, Jung designed a stone. He arranged Chinese characters vertically that said: "Toni Wolff Lotus Nun Mysterious". Shortly before his death, Jung told his colleague Laurens van der Post that Wolff was the "scent" of his life and that Emma was his "foundation".

Works

  • Studies on CG Jung's psychology. Daimon-Verlag, Zurich 2003.
  • Structural forms of the female psyche. (Written in 1951, published in Studies on CG Jung's Psychology in 1956 ) ISBN 3-85630-627-7

literature

  • Nan Savage Healy: Toni Wolff & CGJung: A Collaboration. Tiberius Press, Los Angeles 2017, ISBN 978-0-9981128-0-0 .
  • Bair Deirdre: Young. Little Brown, New York 2003, ISBN 0-316-07665-1 .
  • John Kerr: A Dangerous Method , Rowohlt Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-49962754-5 .
  • NR Goldenberg: Reinventing the Body. 1993.
  • Claire Douglas: Translate this Darkness. 1997.

Web links

Commons : Toni Wolff  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nan Savage Healy, Toni Wolff & CG Jung: A Collaboration , Tiberius Press, Los Angeles 2017, ISBN 978-0-9981128-0-0 , p. 9.
  2. ^ Bair Deirdre, Jung , Little Brown, New York 2003, ISBN 0-316-07665-1 , p. 293.
  3. ↑ Nan Savage Healy, Toni Wolff & CG Jung: A Collaboration , Tiberius Press, Los Angeles 2017, ISBN 978-0-9981128-0-0 , pp. 179-183.
  4. ↑ Toni Wolff, Structural Forms of the Female Psyche. (Written in 1951, published in Studies on CG Jung's Psychology in 1956 ) ISBN 3-85630-627-7
  5. ^ John Kerr, A dangerous method , Rowohlt Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3499627545
  6. ^ Bair Deirdre, Jung Little Brown, New York 2003, ISBN 0-316-07665-1 , p. 198
  7. ↑ Toni Wolff, diary, quoted in Nan Savage Healy, Toni Wolff & CG Jung: A Collaboration , Tiberius Press, Los Angeles 2017, ISBN 978-0-9981128-0-0 , p. 34
  8. ↑ Bair Deirdre: Young. Little Brown, New York 2003, ISBN 0-316-07665-1 , p. 199
  9. ^ William McGuire, ed. The Freud / Jung Letters , Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1974, p. 440
  10. ↑ Tina Keller-Jenny, Beginnings of Active Imagination - Analysis with CG Jung and Toni Wolff, 1915–1928 Dallas, Spring Publications, 1982 p. 257.
  11. ↑ Irene Champermowne, A Memoir of Toni Wolff , San Francisco: CG Jung Institute of San Francisco, p. 5
  12. ↑ Hans Schär, address of abdication in memory of Toni Wolff , Zurich, CG Jung Archive, 1953, p. 18
  13. ^ John Kerr, A Dangerous Method, p. 205
  14. ^ NR Goldenberg, Reinventing the Body , 1993, p. 140
  15. ^ Claire Douglas, Translate this Darkness , 1997, p. 134
  16. ^ CG Jung Protocols, Library of Congress; in S. Owens, Jung in Love , The Mysterium in Liber Novus, p. 46
  17. ↑ Barbara Hannah, Jung: His life and work, a biographical memory, 1976, p.312-13
  18. ↑ JL Henderson in Irene Champermowne, A Memoir of Toni Wolff , San Francisco: CG Jung Institute of San Francisco, p. 4
  19. ^ Laurens van der Post, Jung and the story of our Time , New York: Pantheon, p. 177
personal data
SURNAME Wolff, Toni
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wolff, Anna Antonia (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss psychoanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH September 18, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 1953
Place of death Zurich