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Copyright 2002 The Imaginal World The nature of active imagination The idea of active imagination derives from Jung's belief that the unconscious has an independent symbol-producing capacity. In traditional Jungian thought, active imagination is a special type of fantasy involving the participation of the ego and with the goal of a connection to internal objective reality. Thus viewed, active imagination is a channel for messages from the unconscious (Samuels, 1985, p. 12; see generally Powell, 1998; Singer, 1994, pp. 272-315). "Properly understood and pursued, the imagination is perhaps our most reliable way of bringing the world of the unconscious into some degree of consciousness and our best means of corresponding with the graces offered us in the life of the spirit" (Ulanov & Ulanov, 1999, p. 3). In its simplest form, active imagination is an imaginal dialogue – a conversation between me, the ego, and something else that is not-me, the unconscious, of which I am not normally aware (Cwik, 1995, p. 138). Most important, the dialogue with the contents of the unconscious is with a person – "exactly as if," says Jung, "a dialogue were taking place between two human beings with equal rights" (Jung, 1958/1997, ¶ 186, p. 58). Thus Jung states that "the essential thing is to differentiate oneself from these contents by personifying them, and at the same time to bring them into relationship with consciousness" (Jung, 1962/1963,p. 187). Personifying, says James Hillman, "allows the multiplicity of psychic phenomena to be experienced as voices, faces, and names. Psychic phenomena can then be perceived with precision and particularity, rather than generalized in the manner of faculty psychology as feelings, ideas, sensations, and the like" (Hillman, 1983a, p. 62). The concept of active imagination originally embraced every form of interaction with a symbol – dramatic, dialectic, visual, acoustic, or in the form of painting, drawing, sculpting, writing, even dance (e.g., Jung, 1947a/1997, p. 159). With the passage of time, the term has come to be more restricted, and generally refers now to imaginal pictures and conversations (Kast, 1993, p. 166), although the original usage survives in many forms of art therapy, sandplay, and other forms of expressive therapy (e.g., Powell, 1998). In this discussion, I will use the term in its more restricted sense. References Cwik, G. (1995). Active imagination: Synthesis in analysis. In Stein, M. (Ed.), Jungian analysis (2d ed., pp. 137-169). Chicago, IL: Open Court. Hillman, J. (1983). Archetypal psychology: A brief account. Woodstock, CT: Spring Publications. Jung, C. (1963). Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Winston, R., & Winston, C., Trans.). New York, NY: Pantheon Books. (Original work published 1962) Jung, C. (1997). On the nature of the psyche. In Chodorow, J. (Ed.), Jung on active imagination (pp. 158-162). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Excerpt from Jung, C. (1953-1977). The structure and dynamics of the psyche. In Read, H., Fordham, M., & Adler, G. (Eds.). Collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 8) (Hull, R., Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1947a) Jung, C. (1997). The transcendent function. In Chodorow, J. (Ed.), Jung on active imagination (pp. 42-60). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Excerpt from Jung, C. (1953-1977). The structure and dynamics of the psyche. In Read, H., Fordham, M., & Adler, G. (Eds.). Collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 8) (Hull, R., Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1958)¶ Powell, S. (1998). Active imagination: Dreaming with open eyes. In Allister, I., & Hauke, C. (Eds.), Contemporary Jungian analysis (pp. 142-155). London, UK: Routledge. Samuels, A. (1985). Jung and the post-Jungians. London, UK: Routledge. Singer, J. (1994). Boundaries of the soul: The practice of Jung's psychology (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: Anchor Books. Ulanov, A., & Ulanov, B. (1999). The healing imagination: The meeting of psyche and soul. Einsiedlen, Switzerland: Daimon Verlag. | ||
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