David Holt (9 February 1926 – 31 March 2002) was a British psychotherapist based in London and then Oxford who trained in the tradition of

Analytical psychology Analytical psychology ( de , Analytische Psychologie, sometimes translated as analytic psychology and referred to as Jungian analysis) is a term coined by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, to describe research into his new "empirical science" ...

developed by

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

. As an analyst he broadened his approach to include

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

(especially

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

and

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

(

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

psychosis Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

alchemy Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...

and the relationship between Analytical psychology and

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

Life and career

Background and education

David Holt, the son of

Lawrence Durning Holt Lawrence Durning Holt (17 November 1882 – 1961) was a businessman with interests in shipping. Together with Kurt Hahn, he founded the Outward Bound organisation. Lawrence Durning Holt was born in 1882 to Robert Durning Holt and Lawrencina ...

, was born in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

in 1926 into a Liverpool shipping family. After service during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, on Atlantic and Russian convoys in 1944 and in the Pacific in 1945, he went up to

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

, to read modern history, where he was influenced by Christopher Hill and

R. G. Collingwood Robin George Collingwood (; 22 February 1889 – 9 January 1943) was an English philosopher, historian and archaeologist. He is best known for his philosophical works, including ''The Principles of Art'' (1938) and the posthumously published ...

. He chose

Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Af ...

as his special subject.

Career

After Oxford, Holt worked for some time in publishing and then went to the

C. G. Jung Institute in Zürich C. or c. may refer to: * Century, sometimes abbreviated as ''c.'' or ''C.'', a period of 100 years * Cent (currency), abbreviated ''c.'' or ''¢'', a monetary unit that equals of the basic unit of many currencies * Caius or Gaius, abbreviated as ...

to train as an analyst, graduating in 1966. His thesis, "Persona and Actor", brought together his interests in

, history and theatre. Thereafter he was in private practice as an analyst until his death. As a teacher and supervisor at the Westminster Pastoral Foundation from 1971 to 1982, he introduced a course on

counselling Counseling is the professional guidance of the individual by utilizing psychological methods especially in collecting case history data, using various techniques of the personal interview, and testing interests and aptitudes. This is a list of co ...

and

ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...

. He also led the Jung and

hermeneutics Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate c ...

weekends at Hawkwood College near Stroud, Gloucestershire, between 1978 and 1991. These incorporated group performance of stories from the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

and

. His published work on the subject is ''Theatre and Behaviour: Hawkwood Papers 1979 – 1986''. For many years Holt was involved with the Guild of Pastoral Psychology contributing talks and papers and as its chair for 1970. He was a founder member of Oxford Psychotherapy Society in 1985. He was also chair of the C. G. Jung Analytical Psychology Club in London between 1988 and 1992. His book ''The Clermont Story: arguing christian '' is a life-long amplification of a dream during the night of 27 February 1948. He died in Oxford on Easter Day 2002. His funeral included an address, "Keeping Time", which he had written for the occasion. Since 2009 an annual David Holt Prize is awarded at the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the an ...

where his library is now housed in the special collections section of the Albert Sloman Library.

Influence

The intensity and relevance of Holt's thought is well recognised by Jungians and Post-Jungians. In his introduction to Holt's ''The Psychology of Carl Jung: Essays in Application and Deconstruction'', James L Jarrett refers to the range of Holt's psychological interests, to the ways that his essays strike deeply "into what Jung loved to call the rhizome of the psyche", to his combination of geniality and toughness and he concludes his introduction by saying, "I feel from his uninterrupted presence in his writing that he must be wholly there to his clients, a partner in the enquiry, a fellow witness, a sharer in the unending negotiation of meaning, an enricher of the shared time."

James Hillman James Hillman (April 12, 1926 – October 27, 2011) was an American psychologist. He studied at, and then guided studies for, the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich. He founded a movement toward archetypal psychology and retired into private practi ...

begins a discussion of the relevance of alchemy to contemporary therapy by referring to Holt's paper ''Jung and Marx'' in Spring 1973 and writes, "There Holt shows that Jung imagined his work to be theoretically and historically substantiated by alchemy ... As Holt indicates, it is to alchemy that we must turn to gain the proper placing of Jung's entire endeavour."

Stanton Marlan Stanton Marlan, Ph.D., ABPP, FABP is an American clinical psychologist, Jungian psychoanalyst, author, and educator. Marlan has authored or edited scores of publications in Analytical Psychology (Jungian Psychology) and Archetypal Psychology. Three ...

cites Holt's article ''Alchemy: Jung and the historians of science'' in Harvest as providing "a reference guide to the historical literature for those who have an interest in Jung's work in relation to the history of science and to scientific ideas." These references indicate how Holt's thinking has been a catalyst for other writers: a further example is an article in which Paul Bishop discusses

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, Prose poetry, prose poet, cultural critic, Philology, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philo ...

and

Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

in relation to alchemy and the work on the self, taking his cue from Holt's discussion of Jung and Marx in relation to alchemy, Christianity and the work against nature. Claudette Kulkami refers to Holt's essay ''Jung and Hermeneutics: The Hidden Reality'' and comments that it is an interesting meditation that demonstrates "how Ricoeur's hermeneutics can be of help in reading Jung".

Sonu Shamdasani Sonu Shamdasani (born 1962) is a London-based author, editor in chief, and professor at University College London. His research and writings focus on Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), and cover the history of psychiatry and psychology from the mid-n ...

acknowledges Holt's detailed work on correcting errors in Hull's translation of one of Jung's essays. Holt's work on speaking and listening and on the nature of the therapeutic relationship is also well caught in Roger Brooke's classic text ''Jung and Phenomenology'': "David Holt (1975) sees 'the withdrawal of projections' ... as a shift from speaking to listening ... from habitually speaking at the world in terms of one's egoic needs and anxieties to listening to the things and people that speak (whisper, cry, shout) the calls and meanings of one's life. The shift from speaking to listening realises one's capacity for faith, which, as Holt puts it, 'is the activity which lets the world be, which allows Presence to sound'." The influence of Holt's thinking can also be seen in the articles Remembering David Holt in the Oxford Psychotherapy Society in 2002 and in the papers given to the Guild of Pastoral Psychology in 2011 by Michael Whan and Jessica RoseWhan, Michael and Rose, Jessica, ''Surprised by Words: Psyche and Symbol in the Work of David Holt'', The Guild of Pastoral Psychology, Guild Paper No. 306, 2011, .

Family

In 1955. Holt married Susan Sharpe. Their daughter Sarah Julia was born in 1957 and son Nathanael Oliver in 1959. The marriage was dissolved in 1966 and he subsequently married Edith Polten. Their son Jonathan was born in 1970.

Publications

Books

* Theatre and Behaviour: Hawkwood Papers 1979 – 1986 (1987). * The Psychology of Carl Jung: Essays in Application and Deconstruction (1992) Edwin Mellen Press. * Psyche in the Operating Theatre (1998). Printed by Parchment (Oxford) Ltd. * Eventful : fifty years of dreaming remembered (1999) Axxent Ltd. * The Clermont Story: arguing christian (2001) Validthod Press.

Papers of the Guild of Pastoral Psychology

* Hypokrites and Analyst (1968) No. 145 * Idolatry and Work in Psychology (1970) No. 155 * Jung and the Third Person (1981) No. 205 * Sacred Hunger: Exponential Growth and the Bible (1999) No. 267

References

External links

David Holt Online

Guild of Pastoral Psychology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holt, David 1926 births 2002 deaths Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Scientists from Liverpool English psychotherapists