Hester McFarland Solomon obituary
My friend, Hester McFarland Solomon, who has died aged 78, dedicated her professional life to the treatment of psychological illness, as a noted Jungian psychoanalyst of the developmental school. She rose to the heights of her profession as an analyst, author, teacher and administrator, and in 2007 became only the second female president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP).
Hester was American by birth. She came from a modest background in New Haven, Connecticut, and was a war baby who started life in a garage, later upgraded to a log cabin on a hillside dotted with virgin forest. She was the elder of two children born to Emily Tutak, a nurse, and Orrin McFarland, who was in the building trade.
Hester was a top student at North Haven high school and dreamed of exploring the world. One of her teachers told her the gateway to that came through learning languages, particularly French. Although Hester gained a place at university, the family were unable to finance her so she took a secretarial job in New York City to try to attain her goal.
Having gained a full scholarship to study French at Tufts University in Massachusetts, she found her desire to spend her third academic year in France was thwarted by the cost of the airfare. She solved that by finding fellow passengers to pay for a chartered flight to Paris. She attended the Sorbonne
and during that Christmas, on a trip to London to meet a friend, she met Jonathan Solomon, a civil servant. They were married in 1966.
Hester trained at the British Association of Psychotherapists, qualifying in 1977. She became a training analyst and chair of the Jungian training committee in 1986. Her responsibilities as chair of the ethics committee (2001-04), president elect (2004-07) and president of the IAAP took her frequently to its headquarters in Switzerland. She remained loyal, too, to her parent organisation, the British Association of Psychotherapists, subsequently the British Jungian Analytic Association (BJAA).
Her profound commitment to ethical practice was always apparent, and she achieved her youthful goal of travelling the world by working in South Africa, Latin America, Russia and China. In addition to this demanding work, she contributed to analytical psychology and, despite periodic bouts of ill-health, was chair of the BJAA from 2017 until shortly before her death; an outstanding example of dedication and endurance.
Her work as an author was brought together in her professional autobiography, The Self in Transformation (2007). Hester was a much respected and popular colleague with an infectious sense of fun.
The good fortune of meeting Jonathan led to what turned out to be a lasting, happy marriage. Throughout his illness with cancer, Hester was a devoted carer.
Jonathan died in 2000. She is survived by their son, Gabriel, and grandchildren, Moselle and Jonathan, and by her brother, Brian.