Art as a therapeutic instrument in analytical psychology: active imagination, symbol and individuation in the work of C. G. Jung

Abstract

This article examines the therapeutic function of artistic production in C. G. Jung's analytical psychology, covering four distinct clinical uses of the image: active imagination as a method of deliberate confrontation with autonomous psychic contents; plastic figuration as an operator of symbolisation and transformation of psychic energy; the amplification of dream motifs through cultural parallels; and the reading of series of productions as a resource for process evaluation. It is argued that these uses are not interchangeable, and that failure to distinguish between them accounts for much of the imprecision with which Jungian-oriented art therapy is usually described. It is further argued that the ground of the efficacy attributed to the image lies neither in its aesthetic quality nor in its verbal decipherment, but in the transcendent function — the operation by which a third position emerges from the tension between consciousness and the unconscious. The examination concludes that plastic production holds consistent clinical value as a route of access and as a record of process, but limited reach as a diagnostic instrument, since it lacks standardised criteria of reading and parameters of validation external to the analytic relationship itself.