Along with many others in analysis, I learned to honor the world of dreams, of active imagination, and begin to ask questions such as “But what is that choice in service to inside?” A simple enough question, but it begins the forensic deepening. The problem with the unconscious is that it is unconscious.
Recently, while in the hospital, I was asked by a nurse what I did for a living.
“How does that work differ from ordinary psychology?” she asked.
“Well, for one thing, we try to evoke a conversation with the unconscious.”
She thought awhile, and replied, “Oh, I get it. You work with folks in a coma.”
This book by James Hollis may well be his last; he’s recently had knee and hip replacements, spinal surgery, deep vein thrombosis and cancer with surgery, radiation and chemo. He and his wife have moved into a retirement cooperative, but he continues to work as a psychoanalyst and to write. He says, ‘…I can only conclude that the work of Carl Jung and psychodynamic psychology continue to animate, direct and feed the life of the soul – at least this soul.’
I’ve read and re-read many books by Hollis. I count him as a mentor, or even a friend in some strange way; many of his ideas and insights have registered so strongly with me that they now form part of the way I think about myself. And yet –
Now, with this new book, I find myself liking the things he says while not liking the way he says them. Put very, very simply – too many words. Too many big words. Too many winding sentences and (big word alert!) too much circumlocution. My progress through this book has been tediously slow, so slow that the sense of excitement, of learning, of encountering new and helpful insights about later life has drained away. But Living with Borrowed Dust is not a dead loss, not at all. Hollis is truly an elder. As a Jungian analyst in a world of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and quick-fix psychology he stands out as a believer in the human soul, and I love him for that.