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Copyright 2002 The Imaginal World The role of the ego Jungian analysts have drawn a variety of conclusions about the relationship of these imaginal persons to me, to the ego. There is agreement that the nature of the ego-complex changes through engaging in active imagination; but how? For example, why are the contents of the unconscious personified? Jung says, "That is the technique for stripping them of their power" (Jung, 1962/1963, p. 187); Hillman says that is how one "encourages animistic engagement with the world" (Hillman, 1975, p. 52). In the first case, the imaginal persons are brought under the domination of the ego; in the second case, they spill over polycentrically into the world. Traditional views Traditional Jungian therapists tend to see active imagination in the service of centering, cohesion, convergence. Some see active imagination as a means to strengthen the ego. For example, imaginal persons may appear who directly support the ego, comfort and encourage, stand up for the rights of the ego when the ego faces external threat. Such an encouraging and ego-supportive imaginal figure, says Cwik, often disappears when it is no longer needed (Cwik, 1995, pp. 156, 159). Alternatively, personifying an unconscious content – naming it, giving it a face – can separate it from ego awareness, free the ego, disidentify from complexes, turn the ego-alien part of me into not-me (Cwik, 1995, p. 159). Others see active imagination as a means shifting the center from the ego to the self. As Cwik puts it, active imagination shifts the personality from ego-centeredness to a place much deeper within the psyche; a continued path of relativizing the ego – the individuation process – eventually leads to an ultimately unknowable center called the Self (Cwik, 1995, p. 161). James Hillman What traditionalists have in common is the center. Other, more radical Jungians, such as James Hillman and Mary Watkins, see the value of active imagination in precisely the opposite way – as decentering the ego, dethroning it, leading to a personality which is more polytheistic, more polycentric, more democratic. Here the imaginal others remain autonomous, rather than being dissolved and integrated into the broader self. James Hillman, of course, is an outspoken proponent of what he calls polytheistic psychology. "Of all the moves," he writes, "none is so far-reaching in cultural implication as the attempt to recover the perspectives of polytheism" (Hillman, 1983a, p. 41). He equates the classical Jungian focus on the self to a species of monotheism. "The preference for self and monotheism," he says, "strikes to the heart of a psychology which stresses the plurality of the archetypes" (Hillman, 1971/2000, p. 21). Instead, he says, "[t]he plurality of archetypal forms reflects the pagan level of things and what might be called a polytheistic psychology. It provides for many varieties of consciousness, styles of existence, and ways of soul-making" (Hillman, 1970/2000, p. 17). Hillman stands against "the strong ego, the suppressive integration of personality, and the unified independence of will" when they are at the expense of ambivalence, partial drives, complexes, images, vicissitudes. "A polytheistic model of the psyche," he says, "seems logical and helpful when confronting the many voices and figments that pop up in any single patient, including myself. I can't even imagine how we could ever have got on in therapy without a polytheistic background" (Hillman, 1971/2000, p. 49). And Hillman says, provocatively, "Multiple personality is humanity in its natural condition. In other cultures these multiple personalities have names, locations, energies, functions, voices, angel and animal forms, and even theoretical formulations as different kinds of soul" (Hillman, 1983a, p. 62; emphasis added). Thus, Hillman considers the purpose of analysis to be the relativization of the ego by the imagination. "[T]herapy consists in giving support to the counter-ego forces, the personified figures who are ego-alien … [B]oth the theory of psychopathology and that of therapy assume a personality theory that is not ego-centered" (Hillman, 1983a, p. 62; emphasis added). The imagination relativizes – radically decenters – the ego, demonstrates that the ego too is an image, one among many, and not the most important one at that (Adams, 1997, p. 107). The imaginal, Hillman says, "not only relativizes ego consciousness but also relativizes the very idea of consciousness itself. It is then no longer clear when we are psychologically conscious and when unconscious. Even this fundamental discrimination, so important to the ego-complex, becomes ambiguous." The ego, therefore, regards the imaginal as "elusive, capricious, vacillating." But these words "describe a consciousness that is mediated to the unknown, conscious of its unconsciousness and, so, truly reflecting psychic reality" (Hillman, 1985, p. 141, quoted in Rowan, 1993, p. 60). Mary Watkins In contrast, Mary Watkins, who has written several classic texts on active imagination (1976, 2000b), has more recently come to view the decentering power of active imagination as essentially political action – a "depth psychology of liberation" (Watkins, 2000a, p. 222). In a new afterword to her 1986 Invisible Guests, claiming that what she says was implicit in the earlier text, Watkins asserts that the path of active imagination "aims at the allowing of the other to freely arise, to allow the other to exist autonomously from myself, to patiently wait for relation to occur in this open horizon, to move toward difference not with denial or rejection but with tolerance, curiosity, and a clear sense that it is in the encounter with otherness and multiplicity that deeper meanings can emerge" (2000b, p. 179). Watkins cites Buber (1970, pp. 5-6) for the Hasidic idea of holy converse. The term, she says, "describes equally well our relations with others, as it does our relations with ourselves, imaginal others, the beings of nature and earth, and that which we take to be divine." Relationships with imaginal others that are dialogical are a subtext of holy converse more generally (Watkins, 2000b, pp. 179-180). Thus, active imagination, she says, by keeping the ego from controlling psychic experience, means moving to a "place of witnessing which invites the other, the marginalized, to appear." Having "a place to stand amidst multiplicity that is not fettered by efforts at control and domination [is] deeply in the spirit of a psychology of liberation" It is thus the repositioning of active imagination which has a healing effect, regardless of the content of the imagery (Watkins, 2000a, p. 222). Active imagination teaches political liberation. References Adams, M. (1997). The archetypal school. In Young-Eisendrath, P., & Dawson, T. (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Jung (pp. 101-118). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Buber, M. (1970). The way of man. New York, NY: Citadel Press. 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. (1975). Re-visioning psychology. New York, NY: Harper Perennial. Hillman, J. (1983a). Archetypal psychology: A brief account. Woodstock, CT: Spring Publications. Hillman, J. (1985). Anima. Dallas, TX: Spring Publications. Hillman, J. (2000). Why "archetypal" psychology?. In Sells, B. (Ed.), Working with images: The theoretical basis of archetypal psychology (pp. 11-18). Woodstock, CT: Spring Publications. (Original work published 1970) Hillman, J. (2000). Psychology: Monotheistic or polytheistic. In Sells, B. (Ed.), Working with images: The theoretical bases of archetypal psychology (pp. 21-51). Woodstock, CT: Spring Publications. (Original work published 1971) Jung, C. (1963). Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Winston, R., & Winston, C., Trans.). New York, NY: Pantheon Books. (Original work published 1962) Rowan, J. (1993). The transpersonal: Psychotherapy and counseling. London, UK: Routledge. Watkins, M. (1976). Waking dreams. New York, NY: Harper Colophon. Watkins, M. (2000a). Depth psychology and the liberation of being. In Brooke, R. (Ed.), Pathways into the Jungian world: Phenomenology and analytical psychology (pp. 217-233). London, UK: Routledge. Watkins, M. (2000b). Invisible guests: The development of imaginal dialogues. Woodstock, CT: Spring Publications. | |||
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