The mind gamers

Jung: Man and Myth 
by Vincent Brome

I read the book for a specific reason: to understand why Jung and Freud broke up their friendship of ten years.  Here is a quick summary in a nutshell. At the beginning, Young Jung was attracted to Freud because of the latter's revolutionary new theory regarding the the play sexuality played in the development of mental diseases. he wrote to Freud to express his admiration and the two became pen pals. Jung's first visit to Freud in Vienna played out like a romantic scene: they couldn't stop talking to each other so it lasted for 13 hours! eventually Freud regarded Jung as his "heir apparent".

Jung, however, had more reservations on both personal and professional levels. He liked Freud enough to admit candidly that Freud arose homo-sexual feelings in himself and was like father figure (I suppose the implicit message was that Jung needed to outgrow him? ). Jung also created distrust (and disgust) in Freud by denying his affair with Sabina Spielrein, his then patient (this point came more from the movie "A Dangerous Method", http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1571222/). more significantly, of course, was Jung's lack of total conviction in Freud's sexual suppression theory, which he expressed often in his letters to the latter even in the early years of their communication. adding to that is Jung's supreme intelligence and dominant personality: when the time was ready, he had no choice but to break clean from the old father and became his own master.

Freud had other complains of Jung. he was dismissive of Jung's fascination of "supernatural power" and suspicious of his apparent anti-Semitic tendency.

of the two, Freud impressed me as relatively more sensible, tolerant and forgiving; while Jung was the aggressor and the cause of breakup. but these were only impressions from a book which was not particular insightful. the author was of average capability and very much overwhelmed by his subject, whom he knew a little as a bystander to a towering figure: too close to be comfortable, yet not close enough to have first hand unique materials to showcase.  i may have to find a much newer and better biography to finally "settle the score".