© 2012 gottfried.heuer@virgin.

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Shamans and Analysts. New Insights on the Wounded Healer, by John Merchant, London
and New York, Routledge, 2012, 206 pp., £ 60.00 (hardback), 21.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-
0-415- (hbk), ~ 55826-3 (pbk, ~ 55826-3 (ebk).i

Dr. Gottfried M. Heuer, Londonii

‘What is the connection between shamanism, wounded healers and the “true Jungians”?’ is the
question Merchant has set himself is, and his answer is well worth engaging with. He locates
the role of the shaman within the tradition of Jungian archetypal psychology, and gives what he
calls a ‘Case study’ from the ‘Siberian Sakha (Yakut) tribe’ (pp. 99ff.), in order to argue for the
link between the two approaches, that Jung himself and some first and second generation
Jungians have been aware of and written about. There is thus both a psychohistorical as well as
a contemporary aspect to this theme, as on the one hand the shamanic tradition goes back to
times immemorial, while on the other hand there are currently contemporary cultures in which
shamans continue to play important roles: both have links to current analytical theory and
clinical practice.

Thinking about shamans is, in a way, thinking about where we ― academics as well as
clinicians ― come from, as there was a time — still is, in some cultures — where those
engaged with the furthering of knowledge, science, were/are not separate from those engaged
with healing. In 1945 Jung wrote, ‘the main interest of my work is with the approach to the
numinous’, and, actually, ‘the approach to the numinous is the real therapy’ (1973, p. 377).
This is an important aspect shamans and analysts — at least some of the latter, although by no
means all — share. Both may be seen as, if not exactly living in two worlds, then at least as
having access to more than the one that we are ordinarily aware of: their job is the building of
bridges.

But there is a problem that starts already by saying what I am saying in the only language that I
have: these considerations are based on the assumption of a split, and our very language
mirrors this. Just as we say ‘conscious and unconscious’ — and here the limitations become
glaringly clear, as whatever the ‘other’ is, we have no proper name for and only call it by what
it is not: we are duality-based. Since when? In the symbolic language of scripture it is the fall
from grace. At a panel that brought indigenous healers and analysts together at the IAAP
Congress in Montreal in 2010, one of the healers, speaking of trauma handed down the
© 2012 gottfried.heuer@virgin.net 2

generations, said, ‘You in the Old World [Europe], you are still in the process of recovering
from the trauma of christianisation suffered by your ancestors’ (Jenkinson, in Ammann et
al.) . . . Irrespective of when we believe the split to have happened, it has been with us for
awhile, and, really, the fault line basically seems to be perceived to run between nature and
culture.

Contemporary discourse addresses this perspective and increasingly questions its continuing
viability. For example, in his recent book on this subject, the Lévi-Straussian philosopher
Philippe Descola rather poetically and with a fine irony describes this split as a spacious flat on
two levels in which for centuries we have made ourselves comfortable — altogether not
dissimilar to Jung who spoke of his psyche as a multi-layered house (1963, p. 160). Yet some
‘tactless detractors’ are discovering that the staircase connecting both levels has become so
dangerously rotten that only very few dare to use it in order to draw the attention of the
scholars present to certain discrepancies in their world view. And even the walls separating
humans and non-humans become porous (2011, pp. 12 – 13). Jerome Bernstein, in his work
(2006), has been pioneering this direction of thought with his concept of the borderland type
and the borderland where these dualistic notions become redundant in a way that is not
regressive but, on the contrary, opens the doors to future possibilities ― if not actually, urgent
necessities, vital for future survival. Bernstein is echoing the shamanic voice of, ‘I am he who
puts together, he who speaks [. . .] I am he who looks for the spirit of the day [. . .] I am he who
cures’ (in Halifax, 1979, p. 3).

Jung’s own attitude is an ambivalent one: on his 1925 ‘psychological expedition’ to East
Africa, he longs to reconnect with the ‘primitive’ world (Burleson 2005, p. 16), to ‘encounter
his ‘inner” savage”’ (ibid., p. 61), whilst he simultaneously harbours fears of ‘going black’
(ibid., pp. 187ff.), of ‘racial infection’ that he sees as ‘a most serious mental and moral
problem’ (Jung 1930, § 966) from which it is important to keep a safe distance. In this
ambivalence, Merchant seems to follow Jung: both see a potential for renewal and healing in
those ‘primitive’ levels, yet both express a fear through the need of simultaneously distancing
themselves. In Merchant’s book, this takes the form of pathologisation, which has a sinister
history and can be linked to some of the worst events during the previous century. Still in the
mid-1950’s, for example, George Devereux, wrote that, ‘there is no excuse for not considering
the shaman as a severe neurotic and even psychotic. [. . .] Briefly stated, we hold that the
shaman is mentally deranged’ (in Narby 2003, p. 15). Merchant’s ‘new insights’ consists of
© 2012 gottfried.heuer@virgin.net 3

consulting the latest edition of DSM (vol. IV) to there find evidence that the psychology of
‘Siberian shamans’ — the ‘case’ under discussion — ‘exhibits something less “full-blown”
[than Borderline Personality Disorder], hence “proto-borderline”’ (p. 130).

‘Imperialist scholarship, which distanced the African from the European, was used by
colonialists to justify their political and cultural hegemony over indigenous peoples.
Colonialism needed racism’ (Burleson, 2005, p. 121) ― and still does, as in current
exploitation of shamanic remedies by 1st world drug companies (Narby, 2003). Today, a
diagnosis like Merchant’s is offensive. I feel reminded of Andrew Samuels’ suggestion, made
2007 at a plenary meeting of the 17th IAAP Congress in Cape Town, that ‘Jungians should
apologise to black and coloured people for the way they have been treating them both
theoretically as well as clinically in the past.’ At the time, there was no public reaction (Heuer,
2009, p. 280). Four years later, this apology remains outstanding ― and is increasingly urgent.

Notwithstanding these limitations, Shamans and Analysts does provide a valuable model by
which to understand the phenomenon and archetype of the wounded healer by providing
evidence as to how this dynamic arises and forms one of the important sources from which
arises both the quest for knowledge as in academic scientific research, as well as the efforts to
assist healing in clinical work. Most valuably, Merchant extends his considerations to the
psychodynamics of the transference/countertransference relationship and to current analytic
training issues. I agree with him writing

that it is imperative that Jungians do not deviate from the model of training where an
unimpeded and open-ended personal analysis is central. It is noteworthy that the
experiential nature of the personal analysis actually parallels the ‘ecstatic’ aspect of
shamanic initiation (p. 164).

Merchant thus conceives of shamanism as an archetype linked to ‘the good analyst’ (p. 151):
what if that were extended to ‘the good academic’? Might it possibly be fruitful to suggest that
Jungian academics, too, consider a personal analysis as part of their training?

Shamans and Analysts also presents an impressive and comprehensive bibliography on the
subject, although conspicuous by its absence is the name of the French anthropologist Lucien
Lévy-Brühl (1857 – 1939), from whose 1910 book How Natives Think Jung borrowed the term
© 2012 gottfried.heuer@virgin.net 4

participation mystique which became such an important cornerstone for his theoretical and
clinical thinking.
As I wholeheartedly prefer the whole-hearted, my initial reaction to opening John Merchant’s
book and reading, ‘To E and all those who prefer the broken-hearted’ (p.V), was to close it and
think, ‘This is not for me’, especially as this dedication is followed by a quote from Plato in
Greek which I do not read. It is only thanks to the gently persisting coaching by Edward
Bloomfield, this journal’s book reviews editor, that I did give the book another try, and I am
very glad I did — thank you, Ed!

Ammann, P., M. McMahon, conveners (2010). Anealers Panel: Analysts meet Healers.
E. R. Atleo, J. Bernstein, S. Jenkinson, D. Longboat, C. White. 18th. International IAAP
Congress, Montreal.
Bernstein, J. (2006). Living in the Borderland. London and New York: Routledge.
Burleson, B.W. (2005). Jung in Africa. New York: Continuum.
Descola, P. (2011). Jenseits von Natur und Kultur. Berlin: Suhrkamp.
Halifax, J. (1979). Shamanic Voices. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Heuer, G. (2009). The Gospel of Judas. Spring, 81, 265 – 290.
Jung, C.G. (1930). The Complications of American Psychology. CW 10.
Jung, C.G. (1963). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Vintage.
Jung, C.G. (1973). Letters. Vol. I. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Lévy-Brühl, L. (1910). How Natives Think.
http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/How_natives_think.html?
id=8ckgAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y (Accessed Jan. 2012).
Narby, J. (2003). The Cosmic Serpent. London: Phoenix.
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Heuer, Gottfried M. (2012). Shamans and Analysts. New Insights into the Wounded Healer. By
John Merchant.[Book Review]. International Journal for Jungian Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 164 –
167.
ii
Dr. Gottfried M. Heuer, Jungian Training–analyst and –supervisor with the Association of
Jungian Analysts, London, and Neo-Reichian bodypsychotherapist, clinical practice for well over
35 years; independent scholar: more than 70 published papers on the links between analysis, radical
politics, body-psychotherapy, spirituality and aesthetics, as well as on the history of analytic ideas
in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, The Journal of Analytical Psychology, The
International Journal of Jungian Studies, Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Harvest, Psychotherapy and
Politics International, Spring, et al. His books include Täglicher Terror (Berlin, 1974), A
Translucent Turtle Ascends to the Stars (London/Berlin, 1984), 10 congress– and symposium–
proceedings (2000 – 2015) for the International Otto Gross Society (www.ottogross.org/) which he
co-founded; Sacral Revolutions. Reflecting on the Work of Andrew Samuels: Cutting Edges in
Psychoanalysis and Jungian Analysis (Routledge 2010); Sexual Revolutions: Psychoanalysis,
History and the Father (Routledge 2011) and Freud's 'Outstanding' Colleague/Jung's 'Twin
Brother': Otto Gross (Routledge, in press);. Heuer is also a graphic artist, photographer, sculptor
(one-man and group-shows in the UK and abroad), and a published poet.