Dialogue with the Unconscious: Jung and the Active Imagination

For Jung, as for Freud, dreams are the royal road to the unconscious. But for the great Zurich psychologist, there is another, that of active imagination, which he will experience during his trying years 1913-1916 – after his break with the father of psychoanalysis – and which he will record in the famous Red Book.

Fixing the images that pass through us, allowing an affect or a fantasy to arise allows, always under the vigilance of the conscious, to dialogue with the intimate figures of our soul and to enrich our inner life. Such listening, with sometimes surprising effects, restores the link with our deepest part, and thus offers precious therapeutic support.

Illustrating his point with numerous clinical vignettes, Jean-François Alizon precisely describes the practice of active imagination during treatment. By situating it in the history of culture, he reveals how familiar it was to many artists, philosophers, and poets over the centuries.