Post-Jungian Vertex

The post-Jungian vertex is Samuels’s term, borrowed from Bion (1965), for the six theoretical and clinical variables which together constitute “the common core or base derived from Jung with all subsequent additions” (Samuels 1985, p. 14). The three theoretical variables are: (1) the definition of archetypal, (2) the concept of self, and (3) the development of personality. The three clinical variables are: (1) the analysis of transference-countertransference, (2) emphasis upon symbolic experiences of the self, and (3) examination of highly differentiated imagery (Samuels 1985, p. 12).

The vertex is not a doctrine but a field of engagement. What defines an analytical psychologist, for Samuels, is not the specific answers they give to these six questions but the fact that they enter the debate at all:

What defines an analytical psychologist will be whether he relates actively to debates which arise from the differing emphases which may be given to the six headings. (Samuels 1985, p. 14)

The concept does two kinds of work. It grounds the three-school taxonomy — the Classical, Developmental, and Archetypal schools emerge as distinct orderings of the same six variables, not as separate disciplines. And it supplies the philosophical licence for the schools to disagree without fragmentation: disagreement is itself a mode of participation in the shared vertex. In this sense the post-Jungian vertex is the ark-principle of the post-Jungian field — the shared vessel that carries a contested tradition forward.

Relationships

• post-jungian-taxonomy
• classical-school
• developmental-school
• archetypal-school

Primary sources

• samuels-jung-postjungians (Samuels 1985, pp. 12–14)