A term derived from the Church Fathers, according to whom the imago Dei (image of God) is imprinted on the human soul. When such an image is spontaneously produced in dreams, fantasies, visions, etc. it is, from the psychological point of view, a symbol of the self, of psychic wholeness.
C. G. Jung: “It is only through the psyche that we can establish that God acts upon us, but we are unable to distinguish whether God and the unconscious are two different entities. Both are border-line concepts for transcendental contents. But empirically it can be established, with a sufficient degree of probability, that there is in the unconscious an archetype of wholeness which manifests itself spontaneously in dreams, etc., and a tendency, independent of the conscious will, to relate other archetypes to this centre. Consequently, it does not seem improbably that the archetype produces a symbolism which has always characterised and expressed the Deity… The God-image does not coincide with the unconscious as such, but with a special content of it, namely the archetype of the self. It is this archetype from which we can no longer distinguish the God-image empirically.” (Psychology and Religion: West and East, Collected Works, Vol. 11, p. 468.)
“One can, then, explain the God-image… as a reflection of the self, or conversely, explain the self as an imago Dei (image of God) in man.” (Ibid., p. 190.)