Dr. James Kirsch was born in Guatemala City in 1901. When he was 6, his family returned to Berlin, where he attended school, and he received his medical degree from the University of Heidelberg in 1921. In the late 1920’s, he entered analysis with C.G. Jung and also Toni Wolff in Zürich, and he remained in correspondence with both of them until their deaths decades later. When Hitler came to power in the 1930’s, Kirsch emigrated first to Palestine, then London, and finally, in 1940, to Los Angeles, where he lived and practiced until his death in 1989. He was an active analyst, teacher and writer in each of the places he lived, and was (along with his wife, Hilde) a co-founder of the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles.