Layard - Lady Of The Hare

The Lady of the Hare

This work is the first document, relating to the practice of Jungian psychology, which records in detail the analysts own past in the practice of analysis as well as the patients. John Layard sought to bring to psychology the illuminating study of all the humanities. This is an extraordinary and fundamental book.

JOHN LAYARD was a pioneering anthropologist and author of Stone Men of Malekula.

First published in 2002 by
Kegan Paul International

This edition first published in 2011 by
Routledge
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Kegan Paul, 2002

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 10: 0-7103-0716-0 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-7103-0716-3 (hbk)

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint
but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be
apparent. The publisher has made every effort to contact original copyright
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CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

PART I

Acknowledgements

T he authors gratitude is due in the first place to the Lady of the Hare, appearing in this work under the pseudonym of Mrs. Wright, who has kindly allowed it to be published and from whom the author learnt quite as much as she learnt from him; and in the second place to the members of the Psychological Study Group in Oxford to whom , dealing with the Dream Analysis, was first communicated, and who by their encouragement, criticism, and support have materially assisted him. In accordance with his view that Psychology should not restrict itself to the narrow field of curative medicine, but should illuminate and be illuminated by all the Humanities, this study group has as its foundation members a Professor of Logic, a Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion, a College Tutor, a College Chaplain, a Priest, an Anthropologist, a Psychologist, and a Psychiatrist, whose initials with their consent appear here as a mark of his grateful esteem.

The author is further indebted to the following friends who kindly read and criticized all or parts of the manuscript during its preparation for the press: Canon L. W. Grensted, Nevill Coghill, Esq., Dr. H. G. Baynes, Dr. Gerhard Adler, the Rev. Father Victor White, O.P., Dr. William Cohn, Dr. H. Meinhard, and Mrs. E. Martin-Clarke.

He also wishes to tender thanks to the firm that has undertaken to break new ground by the publication of this narrative, and in particular to the two partners most directly concerned : T. S. Eliot and Richard de la Mare.

JOHN LAYARD

1 Northmoor Road, Oxford

Introduction

M any books have been written setting out the theory and practice of psychology, but few give full accounts of case histories. This is partly because the subject-matter is often too intimate to publish, and in any case is apt to be very lengthy, and partly also because of the difficulty experienced by the analyst in giving what is equally essential to a critical understanding of the analytical process, namely, an accurate account of his own role in the human drama.

So far as I know this is the first document relating to the practice of Analytical Psychology (which is the branch of psychological practice founded by Jung) in which any serious attempt has been made to record in any detail the analysts own Part in the process as well as the patients.

In mentioning Jung in this context I do not mean to throw any of the blame for whatever mistakes may be detected in the handling of this case on to his method. Indeed, no method is more than a guide or framework within which each individual practitioner deals with a problem to the best of his personal ability, adding a little bit here and taking away there. Rather do I deliberately risk censure for the sake of giving the public some insight into a minute corner of that vast field of psychic experience concerned with the integration of personality through the activation of the redemptive process imminent but so often unrecognized within us all, both inside and outside religious communities, which it is the task of psychology as well as of religion to further.

Psychology is at once a new science and a very old one. It is old in that it seeks to unite the two opposing forces in human nature by means of a third factor, which is that of acceptance by the conscious mind of those primitive contents that form part of our psychic heritage, which, if not admitted, operate as negative autonomous complexes, but, when accepted, prove to be the keystone supporting the bridge. It is new in so far as it provides a new technique by means of which this unity may be approached and that which has hitherto been most feared or despised may be thereby transformed into spiritual strength.