From the Classroom to the Consulting Room

Destiny directed me to the door of Dr. David Livingston Hart in the summer of 1973. It was ihearing of the detour that his destiny took in 1945 that I began to see how words become flesh.

During our first meeting, I was interviewing him about the prospect of my becoming an analyst. At that time I was teaching psychology and philosophy in high school, and I had been reading all the books by and about Jung that I could get my hands on. Jung’s words compelled me to consider a career change. In order to qualify for training, one had to have 100 hours of analysis with a certified analyst.

David Hart was eminently qualified. By the time my destiny directed me to his door, he had been a training analyst for many years. And, in addition to training personally with Carl Gustav Jung, the master himself, he graduated magna cum laude with a doctorate in psychology from the University of Zurich.

Listening to David, I suddenly saw how words can redirect our life, and become the flesh of our destiny. And now, looking back, I see that it was words in books by and about Jung that redirected my destiny from the classroom to the consulting room.

As David told me the story of how he ended up in Zurich after the war, I noticed how his hair and features reminded me of an older J.F.K. , had our revered president lived longer. And, as he spoke, I kept thinking, This man was taught by Jung himself!


David Hart described the events leading up to the moment when destiny called. The waves were lapping up against the small boat he was riding in on his way home from the South Pacific. He decided to return home by way of mainland China and on across Asia. Here he was now heading home on a slow boat from China. Only now he was on the famed Ganges in India; he had heard the fables of Indian saints dipping people in its obviously unclean waters and healing all sorts of infirmities.
Since David had begun to make his way home, he had been reading whatever he could find. The Integration of the Personality, a book by Jung, is the one that had captivated him. The words in the title described him after the war: he was in search of a unity within himself in what was still a divided world.

There were still a few hours of daylight left as the boat that David Hart was on docked in Benares for the night. Sitting by the river, he dined on a steamy bowl of Indian curry, and he continued reading. Jung’s words spoke directly to his soul. He read where Jung referenced the ancient wisdom of the shamans who believed all disease was due to a loss of soul. And the treatment was the restoration of the soul.

The river’s murky waters mirrored David Hart’s mood. Yes, the war was over, but his future was unclear. What kind of world was this?

Newsreels all over the world displayed the hauntingly horrifying images of those menacing mushroom clouds billowing in the sky over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What kind of world was this? A soulless world? The title of Jung’s Modern Man in Search of a Soul suggested where we were before and after the war.

A generation who came to be called the Baby Boomers was born in the wake of war and grew up under the mushroom-cloud threat of nuclear war. People built bomb shelters in their backyards and stocked them with cans of food. In elementary schools all over America, this generation—my generation—huddled in school halls when sirens sounded signalling air-raid drills. Little children got on their knees with hands clasped behind their heads and waited. . . .

• Today, reflect on how the words you once read in a book or heard from a mentor or friend became a determining factor in the direction of your life.