Memory of Toni Wolff by Helena Henderson

I worked with Miss Wolff for a short time when I was only nineteen.

It was really more like counselling than analysis, since I was so young . But what she did was excellent, and I am sure it had more effect than I consciously realized.

I remember one thing she said, very vividly, which explained the persona to me without actually using the word.

I was shy, and thought I did not know how to behave in a social situation.

She said: “You know good manners, that is all you need to know.”

She also cured me of talking in a high, unnatural voice which some English women seem to have .

She called it a “Christmas child” voice, and I think it must have come from an effort to be too “nice.”

She saw patients at that time in her mother’s house, on a beautiful, quiet, tree-shaded street. I remember it as high-ceilinged, and I thought rather gloomy, full of heavy valuable furniture.

Definitely haute bourgeoisie, and she fitted into it, as well as being strongly individual.

She had very changeable looks, as so many intuitives do, and could sometimes look beautiful and sometimes quite plain.

Her extraordinary brilliant eyes-mystic’s eyes-were always expressive.

To me she fitted perfectly the “medium” type of her own writing .

Also I am sure “hetaira” too, though that was not the side of her that I knew.

I was very impressed by her clothes, at a time when women were either “well-dressed” or not.

Now it is so easy for anyone to dress well , especially in the United States, but coming as I did from Cambridge I found her extremely elegant and worldly. I loved it.

I am sure she did more for me than I consciously realized, and I shall always be grateful to her and remember her with affection. ~ C. G. Jung, Emma Jung and Toni Wolff – A Collection of Remembrances; Page 31.

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