Emma Jung
Psychoanalyst and writer
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The basics
Quick Facts
| Intro | Psychoanalyst and writer | ||
| Places | Switzerland | ||
| was | Psychologist | ||
| Work field | Healthcare | ||
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| Birth | 30 March 1882, Schaffhausen, Canton of Schaffhausen, Switzerland | ||
| Death | 27 November 1955Zurich, Canton of Zürich, Switzerland (aged 73 years) | ||
| Star sign | Aries | ||
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The details
Biography
Emma Jung (born Emma Rauschenbach, 30 March 1882 – 27 November 1955) was a Swiss Jungian analyst and author. She married Carl Gustav Jung, financing and helping him to make him the prominent psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology that he became, and had five children with him. Enduring his infidelities and mood swings, she was his "intellectual editor" to the end of her life. After her death, Jung described her as "a Queen".
Early life
Emma Rauschenbach was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, Johannes Rauschenbach, the then owner of IWC Schaffhausen. At the time of her marriage she was the second-richest heiress in Switzerland.
Family life
Marriage and children
Jung first met Emma Rauschenbach in 1896 when she was still a schoolgirl, through a connection of his mother. Jung reported at the time that he knew then that one day Emma would be his wife. The couple married on 14 February 1903, seven years later. They had five children (four daughters and one son): Agathe, Gret, Franz, Marianne, and Helene.
Upon her father's death in 1905, Emma and her sister, together with their husbands, became owners of IWC Schaffhausen - the International Watch Company, manufacturers of luxury time-pieces. Emma's brother-in-law became the principal proprietor, but the Jungs remained shareholders in a thriving business that ensured the family's financial security for decades.
Emma Jung not only took a strong interest in her husband's work, but assisted him and became a noted analyst in her own right. She developed a particular focus on the Grail legend. Her independence of him in this field has been contested. She had a brief correspondence of her own with Sigmund Freud, during 1910-11. In 1906, Freud interpreted several of Jung's dreams of the period as portending the "failure of a marriage for money" (das Scheitern einer Geldheirat). .
Husband's affairs
Around the birth of the couple's last child in 1914, Jung is said to have begun a relationship with a young female patient and trainee, Antonia Wolff, which was to last for several decades. Shortly after the child's birth, Jung and Wolff set off for a "vacation" in Ravenna. In her biography of Jung, Deirdre Bair describes Emma Jung as just tolerating it when her husband inserted Wolff into the household, but she was excluded from all meal times and evenings. For Jung, Wolff was "his other wife". Wolff tried to persuade Jung to divorce Emma, but this did not happen.
A former patient of Jung's and later a psychoanalyst, Sabina Spielrein, claimed to have been Jung's lover, keeping a diary to document the relationship.
Death
Emma died in 1955, predeceasing Jung by almost six years. After her death from a recurrence of cancer, Jung carved a stone in her name, "She was the foundation of my house". He is also said to have wailed, "She was a queen! She was a queen!" ("Sie war eine Königin! Sie war eine Königin!") as he grieved for her. Her gravestone was inscribed: "Oh vase, sign of devotion and obedience."