2009/01/01 by Betty Coon Wheelwright · 1 citation
Psychology · #Jungian Analytical Psychology #Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications #Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology
paper · doi:10.1525/jung.2009.3.1.10
openalex publication_date 2009/01/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This is the story of how two first-generation Jungian analysts encountered C. G. Jung and made the decision to become Jungian analysts. Their story is embedded in and influenced by family history and circumstances, and it takes place during the years between the two World Wars of the twentieth century. In 1931, Joseph Balch Wheelwright and Jane Hollister Wheelwright were traveling around the world on an extended honeymoon, which was ended by rising political unrest while they were in China. Jane Wheelwright traveled from Beijing to California with her infant daughter, Lynda, and Joseph Wheelwright traveled north to Harbin, where he caught the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow. While visiting her family in California, family members asked Jane Wheelwright to accompany her aunt and uncle, Laura Steffens Suggett and Allen Holman Suggett, to a consultation with C. G. Jung in Zürich, Switzerland. Joseph Wheelwright joined the family group in Marseilles, and the Suggetts and Wheelwrights arrived in Zürich in early March 1932. Laura Suggett, who had suffered a severe mental breakdown, had several interviews with C. G. Jung, and the Wheelwrights met with Jung several times to discuss Jung's opinion of Laura’s mental state. Joseph Wheelwright also met individually with Jung to discuss his marital relationship. Meeting Jung was a turning point in the Wheelwrights' lives. Joseph Wheelwright decided to embark on the long course of study that was necessary for him to become a physician and Jungian analyst, and for the following six years, both of the Wheelwrights returned many times to Zürich for analysis or to attend Jung's lectures.