The Child Structure and Dynamics of the Nascent Personality

In the closing chapters of The Origins and History of Consciousness Erich Neumann spoke of the importance of demonstrating ‘how the basic laws of the psychic history of mankind are recapitulated in the ontogenetic life history of the individual in our culture.’ Implicit in his words was the promise that an exploration of the detailed psychology of the various stages of life would follow. The Child – an examination of the structure and dynamics of the earliest developments of ego and individuality – is the first of these explorations. In it we progress from the primal relationship of child and mother through to the emergence of the ego-Self constellation, via the child’s relationship to its own body, its Self, the thou and being-in-the-world. We move from the matriarchate to the patriarchate; from participation mystique to the ‘standpoint of the Self around which the ego revolves as around the sun’.

Erich Neumann, one of C.G. Jung's pupils, was among the most creative in building on Jung's work and carrying it forward in new explorations and syntheses. Before he met Jung he was trained in philosophy and medicine. He was also a poet and novelist. A native of Germany, he completed his medicinal studies in Berlin but, owing to the activities of the Nazis, left Germany in 1934 and, after studying with Jung in Zurich, emigrated to Tel Aviv. His range of understanding is apparent in his writings of which the major works have been translated into English. These include: 'The Great Mother; Art and the Creative Unconscious; Depth Psychology and a New Ethic' and 'The Child: Structure and Dynamics of the Nascent Personality'.