Travel for Pennies

When on the lookout for the world’s most luxurious boutique hotel, Cape Town needs to go on the list. Considered to be one of the most gorgeous places in the world, this South African city is connected to some of the most stunning natural resources on the planet. A coastal city with amazing beaches, it is also extremely cosmopolitan, with a long history of contact with all parts of the world. There are multiple African languages spoken here, and a good number of European tongues as well. There is a rich and vibrant night life, and amazing tours through the day, enough to keep anyone busy and relaxed all at once. One of the most important sites here is the infamous Robben Island, which held world leader Nelson Mandela prisoner for many years.

It is a place of great complexity and great contradiction. There is perhaps no other western doctor more capable of addressing contradiction than the Swiss Psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. His ideas of the psyche have a lovely complexity, but one of the more juicy notions in his body of work is the thought that opposites not only attract, but are actually twins. As in the Yin and Yang symbol of Eastern philosophy, each thing contains the seed of its opposite. This idea is particularly interesting here, and a curious traveler might be amused or stunned to find themselves visiting the C.G. Jung Centre here in Cape Town . The centre is deeply entwined with the history of its founder, Dr. Vera Buhrmann. Born in Cape Town, she did her doctoral work in London, looking at the complexity of mother-daughter relationships. She has practiced in Cape Town since then, but her work took a very curious turn when she started to become more aware of the local population she was part of. As in many stories like hers, examining the complexity of the here and now is often more illuminating than the there and then, she became a student of the traditions of the local !Xhosa peoples.

This turn toward studying traditional healing practices dovetailed very elegantly with her previous work as a Jungian analyst, and it began to feed her practice until it opened it up. Now that is has grown into a much larger entity, the Centre is located in a unique position, that is both past and present. An interesting mix of European thought with some traditional African sensibility makes the C.G. Jung Centre a place worthy of a visit, and some deep contemplation.

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