ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses Analytical Psychology in South Africa by a short description of its forebears by focusing on the issues surrounding a particular traditional custom. While change and evolution are inherent to all cultures, the striving towards the western model as a “better one” needs to be questioned, particularly in the African context where colonization of the people and their land has had devastating consequences. Although C. G. Jung never came as far as Southern Africa, he was the only one of the founding fathers and mothers of psychoanalysis to have ventured beyond the known world. While Jung was on his expedition, a young girl was growing up on a farm on the southern part of the African continent; she was living in close contact with black African people and speaking their language. This girl was Vera Buhrmann whose destiny it was to bring Analytical Psychology to South Africa.