>His work seems to me to be more
>philosophy than clinical psychology.

True, though the philosophers would say his work is more about religion than philosophy.

See Philip Reiff's "The Triumph of the Therapeutic" (1965) for: "The Therapeutic as Theologian: Jungs's Psychology as a Language of Faith."

>His ideas about archetypes and >collective unconscious seem more >relevant and widespread year after year.

Jung's ideas have been increasingly irrelevant since he had them and have led to no further developments (Hillman and Bly are examples) in psychological thinking, or, more importantly, therapeutic technique and practice in the last 50+ years.

Summary of Reiff: Freud's therapetic is based on removing illusions (deconversion); Jung's is based on substituting new illusions (archetypes) and reconversion.

Also see D.W. Winnicott's review of "Memories, Dreams, Reflections" in "Psychoanalytic Explorations."

These are times when we need to face up to our endless appetite for lies and illusions, not comfort ourselves with new ones. Bion, Winnicott, Gill and Langs are the psycho-therapeutic thinkers whose work "seem more relevant and widespread year after year" though it is true psychoanalysis itself is still in a state of resistance to dynamic intersubjectivity.

I guess I missed this getting ready for vacation, but I agree with Al: Jung may not be a therapist for today, but he certainly is a philosopher, and even if you don't believe literally in the collective subconscious, it is still a metapphor that explains an awful lot about mass behavior. What is the "zeitgeist" if not Jung's collective subconscious. My favorite Jungian work of literature is Conrad's "Secret Sharer."