Introduction

This chapter explores the conscious, and perhaps unconscious, motivations against an integrative model of Jungian psychology that could possibly exist in service to African Americans. The problem of racism in America is complicated, while the central idea of race itself is simple. African Americans have been at the psychological suffering end of America’s racial problem for centuries. The psychological effects of prejudice and racial hatred, embedded in every aspect of American life, have been a profoundly painful experience, in every way imaginable, for African Americans. C. G. Jung was able to use African ideologies, indicating the importance of the need for them with Europe’s deprived “modern man,” while being disparaging of the African–the primitive and savage, from whom he took the ideas. Many more African Americans seek psychological services than ever before. Yet, the number of those who enter Jungian psychology for clinical work, or to be trained as analysts, continues to be exceedingly low.