Sex, marriage and infidelity of Carl Jung
A foul-tempered bully from a family of religious nutcases who cheated on his wife and had a penchant for Nazis. One of the legendary psychiatrist’s patients? No, the shrink himself...
side of caution. ‘Whether it was a full sexual relationship remains a moot point,’ she suggests. One biographer, Ronald Hayman, writes of how, early on in their relationship, Jung had an attack of cramp while out swimming and made a vow that if he survived he would become her lover. ‘The prerequisite of a good marriage, it seems to me, is the licence to be unfaithful,’ thought Jung.
For years, ‘Aunt Toni’ stayed with the Jungs in a ménage à trois from which poor Mrs Jung was largely excluded. Aunt Toni kept popping up at their front door for almost 40 years before finally dying in 1953, aged 65. The Jung grandchildren now remember her as grim and haughty, ‘a bird-like woman who smoked like a chimney’. One of them remembers his mother – Carl’s daughter – saying: ‘A normal person would never love such a woman like Toni Wolff.’
Of course, it goes without saying that Jung was not normal. Normal people do not have the power to change the way human beings think about themselves. But, unlike his mentor-cum-rival Sigmund Freud, who was always dignified, Jung was fundamentally uncouth. In a blind rage, he would shout at staff, reducing them to tears. Among his fellow psychoanalysts, he always needed to dominate, bullying any opponents into submission. And out shopping, he was no better: at a bakery, he demonstrated his dislike of a cheese and onion tart by flicking it onto the ceiling.
He was also a terrible loser. Emma would have to let him win at billiards, just to avoid a tantrum. He regularly cheated at badminton, quietly nudging the shuttlecock across the white line in order to win a point. And his table manners also left a lot to be desired. ‘The way he used to sip his soup or soft boiled eggs was simply disgusting,’ recalls a grandchild. ‘One of the most disgusting things you could see in your life.’
Emma, on the other hand, was personable, sensible, highly intelligent and very tolerant. Unfortunately, this makes her less interesting to read about. ‘I can never compete with Carl. In order to emphasise this I usually have to talk extra stupidly when in company,’ she once confessed to Sigmund Freud. Much of her life was spent clearing up after Carl, but she still managed to forge a career of her own, becoming a successful analyst in her own right.
Catrine Clay’s last work was an excellent biography of Bert Trautmann, the German prisonerof-war who went on to play for Manchester City. This one is as different as can be, but – unusual in a work on psychoanalysis – it is written with the same simplicity, chronicling an often foggy tale with great clarity.
I wonder, though, whether she is sometimes too soft on Carl Jung. Concentrating on his marital toing and fro-ing, she skips lightly over his anti-Semitism, ignoring his chilling comments from the mid-Thirties. ‘The SS men are being transformed into a caste of knights ruling 60million natives,’ he wrote approvingly. ‘There is no more ideal form of government than a decent form of oligarchy – call it aristocracy if you prefer.’ He also spoke of ‘parasitic elements in the Jewish psychology’, and suggested that they should wear different clothes. Watching the DVD of the twinkly eyed old sage on John Freeman’s Face To Face, it is only too easy to forget Jung’s darker Personality No2, or even – heaven forfend! – Personality No 3.