Christiana Morgan: rediscovering the co-creator of the TAT and unveiling the enigma of the Tower on the Marsh
- Monica Martinez
- 1 de out. de 2024
- 7 min de leitura
I unexpectedly encountered the name of the psychotherapist, artist, and co-director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic during my years in the psychology program, specifically while studying the application of psychological tests in one of our subjects. Naturally, we discussed the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), which is commonly attributed solely to Henry Murray (1893-1988), who purportedly developed it in the 1930s at the Harvard Psychological Clinic.
Handling the cards that depict social situations and interpersonal relationships in the TAT, I found the projective technique fascinating, as it allowed for insights into a person’s inner world and their perceptions of life experiences through the narratives they created from the images.
From there, I sought more information about the test and discovered details about its co-author, Christiana Morgan (1897-1967). Well, I thought, here’s yet another sad case of a woman who intellectually contributed to the development of something important but was made invisible due to socio-historical factors.
However, as I researched more about Christiana, I was surprised to learn that she had a strong connection with the field of Analytical Psychology and had even undergone analysis with C. G. Jung for nine months in 1926. During my training as a specialist in Jungian Psychology, I had never heard of her. So, it was an even sadder case: not only had she been excluded from the field of psychology, but she was a Jungian psychotherapist who had been excluded from the very studies of the field. This is an issue that has deeply interested me in recent times: those excluded from our own field of study.
Recently, her name resurfaced in my mind. I wanted to write a blog post about her, but I realized I still knew very little about her.
I then discovered the biography written by Claire Douglas, Translate this Darkness: The Veiled Woman in Jung’s Circle, published by Princeton University Press in 1993. It’s a suggestive title, as the 'veiled' woman could represent a figure or aspect not fully revealed or understood, either in a literal sense (wearing a veil) or a figurative one, suggesting secrets, mysteries, or unconscious aspects of the psyche. In contexts related to Jungian psychology, this may refer to archetypes or symbols linked to the collective unconscious, to the shadow, or to elements of personality not fully accessible.
Douglas devoted more than a decade to research, and her biography of Christiana is fluent and well-founded. Speaking of quality narratives, Douglas was the wife of American writer J. D. Salinger (1919-2010), author of the famous The Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951.
During the nine months of therapy with Jung, he suggested that Christiana shared a typology similar to his own: she was considered by him to be an intuitive thinker. Thus, she was equally talented in using the active imagination method Jung had developed a decade earlier. He even said she was diving into her inner world in the same way he had done when he created the method through his own experiments a decade before. Therefore, Christiana’s creative output would allow for significant advances in the understanding of the psychology of the feminine.
The remarkable sequence of images she created during this period later became the subject of Jung’s analysis for the preparation of the Visions seminars, held in English in Zurich from 1930 to 1934.
The audience primarily consisted of analysands from various parts of the world, notably the United States and other European countries, who were undergoing training to become analysts themselves.
Claire Douglas wrote a compelling introduction to the book Visions: Notes on the Seminar Given in 1930-1934, published by Routledge in 2019, where she organized these Jung lectures. According to her, throughout those four years, Jung may not have opened himself to learn what Christiana Morgan's work could teach him about the psyche of a woman. Instead, he likely tried to fit her contributions within the context of his own methodological framework. Furthermore, Jung may have conformed to the mindset of the audience, to the zeitgeist of the time. The result was a devaluation of Christiana’s profound imagistic work, which was interpreted merely as a simple manifestation of the animus´s possession, the masculine aspect of the feminine psyche.
In 2019, the symposium “Coniunctio in Christiana Morgan’s Visions” was organized by the C.G. Jung Foundation in New York. During this event, analyst Iona Melker argued that Jung’s four-year seminar, based on three volumes of manuscripts and drawings that Christiana produced—rich in illustrations and notes from Jung’s analyses—embraced aspects of the dark, earthly, erotic, and destructive feminine archetype. However, it overlooked the direction of the visions, which were moving toward coniunctio, the union of the masculine and feminine as opposites.
For the 2019 conference, Christiana Morgan's granddaughter, Hilary Morgan, literally took the stage. A filmmaker, she had long promised herself to create a documentary about her groundbreaking grandmother. She produced a short documentary for the occasion, titled “Tower of Dreams.”
Here, perhaps, we can delve into the heart of the matter. When seeking analysis with Jung, Christiana’s primary concern was whether she and Henry Murray should consummate their romantic relationship, given that both were married—she to William Morgan and he to Josephine Lee Rantoul.
Jung, who also had an extramarital relationship with Toni Wolff, suggested that they should indeed pursue it, proposing that Murray take Christiana as his “femme inspiratrice,” or muse. They discreetly entered into this relationship, which lasted 40 years, all while remaining married to their spouses.
Upon returning to the United States, both continued their work at the Harvard Psychological Clinic, with Christiana also serving as a lay analyst—a term used at the time to refer to therapists who were not physicians.
When Christiana returned to Switzerland to resume her sessions with Jung, he seemed to advise her to do as he did regarding family: to have more children with William and to be more “feminine.” Christiana chose not to follow this advice, perhaps feeling that she had already ventured too far into the realm of feminism and her own journey toward selfhood to turn back.
Indeed, dedicating herself to her individuation process came at a cost. In her appearance on the podcast This Jungian Life, filmmaker Hilary Morgan shares that her father, William Morgan Jr., became an orphan from his father at the age of 13 and always had a complicated relationship with his mother.
Subsequent letters from Christiana to Jung, which will likely be published someday, suggest that she was not only dissatisfied with the direction the Visions seminars were taking but also seemed disappointed with Jung himself.
Inspired by Jung's Tower of Bollingen, Morgan built “The Tower on the Marsh” in Newbury, Massachusetts, which is just over an hour from Harvard. It became a refuge for her art and psychological research.
Constructed with the help of local carpenter Kenneth Knight, the tower became a symbolic representation of Morgan's individuation journey. Filled with her sculptures, paintings, and stained glass, the tower embodies her exploration of the unconscious and her creative, intellectual, and sexual relationship with Henry Murray.
Murray also disappointed her. Despite their collaborative papers, he struggled to transcend his ego and genuinely include Christiana in his work. Their relationship remained obscured from the eyes of the puritanical Boston society from the 1930s to the 1960s. However, according to Hilary, he was a constant presence at family events.
Christiana Morgan's life came to a mysterious end in 1967 at the age of 69. Murray had become a widower five years earlier, in January 1962. He and Christiana were vacationing in Denis Bay, Saint John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. According to Hilary, friends who visited them there remarked that they had never seen her so happy. Paradoxically, she, a vigorous swimmer, was found dead in two feet of water. According to Murray, Christiana left the ring he had given her and a letter on the beach detailing how she wanted her funeral to be conducted, which may suggest suicide.
In an interview for the podcast This Jungian Life, Hilary Morgan also mentioned that at that stage, her grandmother had been drinking heavily.
It’s difficult to ascertain what transpired between a couple today, let alone speculate about events that occurred nearly six decades ago. Perhaps the allure of the “femme inspiratrice” had faded for Murray, much like what happened to Jung with Toni Wolff when he began studying alchemy, and she stopped supporting him. But this, of course, is my own speculation. However, I don’t believe this is merely gossip, as in Analytical Psychology, life and work are deeply intertwined.
What is known is that during this same period, Murray appeared to be having an affair with a young Argentine colleague, Caroline Fish Chandler (1920-2015), who would become his second wife two years after Christiana's death, in 1969. Caroline was 23 years younger than Christiana (27 years younger than Murray) and, given the changing times, had a formal education and an academic career in child psychology.
After diving into the life and work of Christiana, I am left with more questions than answers. The initial concern regarding her absence from the TAT was just the tip of the iceberg of a rich and complex story. I am also eager to visit the third tower (having already visited Bollingen, though I have yet to see the second one, which belongs to Marie Louise von Franz).
At the end, I was pleasantly surprised by the revival surrounding this Jungian analyst, who had fallen into obscurity.
There is a possibility of a visit, which, according to Hilary, may take place in the coming years. The filmmaker is also developing a more extensive version of the documentary, with new interviews, which should contribute to a deeper understanding of the enigma of Christiana, helping to retrieve this narrative from the murky waters in which it currently resides. Her upcoming works are also promising. Those who wish to contribute to the restoration efforts of the "Tower on the Marsh" can access the link: https://www.towerofdreamsdoc.com/support.
References
1. Douglas, C. Translate this darkness: the veiled woman in Jung´s circle. (Princeton University Press, 1993).
2. Jung, C. G. Visions: Notes on the seminar given in 1930-1934 - Volume 1. (Routledge, 2019).
3. Morgan, H. Tower of Dreams. (2019). Disponível em: < https://www.towerofdreamsdoc.com>. Acesso em: 28 set 2024.
4. Lisa Marchiano, D. S. & Lee, J. The secret life of a woman’s soul: Jung’s American muse: the visions and art of Christiana Morgan. (2024). Disponível em: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDvtGeq2Ufs>. Acesso em: 28 set 2024.
Monica Martinez
Fall, 2024
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