Labyrinths: Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis

Summary (from the publisher): A sensational, eye-opening account of Emma Jung’s complex marriage to Carl Gustav Jung and the hitherto unknown role she played in the early years of the psychoanalytic movement.

Clever and ambitious, Emma Jung yearned to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich. But the strict rules of proper Swiss society at the beginning of the twentieth century dictated that a woman of Emma’s stature—one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland—travel to Paris to "finish" her education, to prepare for marriage to a suitable man.

Engaged to the son of one of her father’s wealthy business colleagues, Emma’s conventional and predictable life was upended when she met Carl Jung. The son of a penniless pastor working as an assistant physician in an insane asylum, Jung dazzled Emma with his intelligence, confidence, and good looks. More important, he offered her freedom from the confines of a traditional haute-bourgeois life. But Emma did not know that Jung’s charisma masked a dark interior—fostered by a strange, isolated childhood and the sexual abuse he’d suffered as a boy—as well as a compulsive philandering that would threaten their marriage.

Using letters, family interviews, and rich, never-before-published archival material, Catrine Clay illuminates the Jungs’ unorthodox marriage and explores how it shaped—and was shaped by—the scandalous new movement of psychoanalysis. Most important, Clay reveals how Carl Jung could never have achieved what he did without Emma supporting him through his private torments. The Emma that emerges in the pages of Labyrinths is a strong, brilliant woman, who, with her husband’s encouragement, becomes a successful analyst in her own right.

 

Review: I received an uncorrected proof copy of this book from HarperCollins.

 

Born in 1882, Emma Rauschenbach was "one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland" (3). Clever and ambitious, Emma always wanted to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich, but was discouraged because of her family's desire for her to follow the dictates of Swiss society that decreed that she must prepare for marriage. However, her mother did encourage Emma to marry Carl Jung, "the son of a poor pastor of the Swiss Protestant Reformed Church" (3). Carl was just embarking on a career as a doctor for the insane, which was regarded as the lowest rung in the medical profession. It was an odd choice for a wealthy young woman, but Emma was intrigued by her husband's profession and from very early in their marriage assisted him closely with his professional work.

 

More than a biography of Emma Jung, this is truly a portrait of a marriage, one that was complex and full of both hardships and love. Carl seems to have been a difficult husband. Clay describes him as having a split personality that Carl himself referred to as "Personality No 1" and "Personality No 2;" the two differed in nearly every way: "sure and unsure, optimistic and pessimistic, introverted and extroverted, sensitive and insensitive, brilliant yet obtuse, genial yet given to violent rages, cold under warm, dark under light - always split, and that split always hidden. Secret" (26-27). The vastly variable versions of her husband made their home life difficult throughout their over fifty years of marriage. Emma too struggled, primarily with the strictures placed on a wife and mother, as their eventual five children together kept her largely at home while her husband was still free to pursue his intellectual pursuits. Another major point of contention in the marriage was Carl's insistence on the need for their marriage to be "polygamous" or an open marriage, in which he brazenly flaunted his infatuations (often with patients) and mistresses in front of his faithful wife.

 

Throughout all of their struggles, the internationally renowned work in psychoanalysis made famous by Jung would likely not have happened without Emma's quiet presence in the background. "Without Emma keeping the steady rhythm of family life going he might have cracked" (214). Emma was also a huge support to her husband professionally, helping him keep up with patients, correspondence, and paperwork during his many travels. In nearly every way, theirs was a "joint career" (320).

 

After fifty-three years of marriage, Emma died of cancer in 1955, survived by her husband, five children, and nineteen grandchildren. Disappointingly, after a biography that was intimately intertwined with the life of her husband, the author failed to include any insight into Carl's remaining days after his wife's death. This biography was an interesting inside look into the woman who is much lesser known to history but deserves just as much renown as her husband. I found Emma's choice to defy social convention and marry a man with no social standing or personal wealth inspiring and an indication of her affection for Carl but also her deep interest in intellectual pursuits, which she knew would be fueled by Carl. By the many sources referenced in this book, Emma appears to have been a thoughtful, down to earth, clever woman that fulfilled her familial expectations while also still managing to carve out some time for her own interests and academic pursuits.

 

Stars: 4