Active imagination

Domain I · Psychodynamic & depth psychology · C. G. Jung · 1916

What it is

Active imagination is a method in which the waking ego deliberately lets an unconscious image, mood or figure arise. It then gives that material concrete form (writing, painting, clay, movement) and enters into a real, two-sided exchange with it. Jung called the resulting union of conscious and…

Format

• 2d. Format and dosage
• Setting: Classically the analysand does it alone, between sessions (Hannah p. 16: alone and uninterrupted) and brings the record to analysis. Jung rarely commented on Hannah's active imaginations, to avoid influencing them (Hannah pp. 12–13). The analyst's job is to assess readiness, teach, contain…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Using the tray for interpretation-heavy work, which runs against the non-interference principle.
• Choosing a pleasant image to avoid charged material. Working: the fragment opens into a scene that carries feeling.
• Your own urge to interpret or to admire. Working: the client increasingly trusts their own process and needs the therapist less.
• Writing answers the client thinks the therapist would give. Working: the answers have a tone distinct from the client's and from the therapist's.
• Using it to fantasise about the real client, which breaches the living-persons rule. Work with the inner image the client evokes, not with the person.

Problems the guide addresses

• Contraindications and screening (psychosis risk, fragile ego)
• Overwhelm and flooding during an episode
• Nothing comes (blankness)
• Passive "cinema" (watching without engaging)
• Ego-scripting and wish-fulfilment
• Kaleidoscope (image-hopping)
• Frightening or hostile figures
• Inflation and taking voices as oracles
• Living persons in the fantasy and manipulative motives
• Literal acting out

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.