isbn 781958263068 284 pages hard cover
TREASURES FROM THE ARCHIVE is essential reading for those interested in active imagination, expressive modalities, the work of C. G. Jung, or the history of psychoanalysis.
The integration of expressive modalities into psychotherapy, as well as Jung’s practice of active imagination, deserve renewed interest beyond practitioners of Analytical Psychology. Contemporary research in the neurobiology of affective self regulation and healing from trauma situates the locus of healing in the right brain, which collects information about somatic and affective processes from both sides of the body. This work has validated the centrality of right brain, nonverbal, implicit communication and expressive methods, both emphasized by Jung a century ago.
This volume contains essays and thematic catalogues compiled from the Picture Archive of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich-Kusnacht, including 304 illustrations, primarily full-page color photographs of pictures created by patients in conjunction with their analyses.
The Archive includes 4500 pictures made by patients of C.G. Jung, as well as thousands of images made by the patients of first generation analysts, including over 6000 from Jolande Jacoby‘s patients.
Starting in 1917, C. G. Jung encouraged his patients to draw or paint their dreams and fantasies. The imaginative act, the elaboration of images, the understanding of pictures as symbols, as well as the therapeutic effect of working with imagery, the use of symbolic design to eliminate splits in the psyche – all of this constitutes the very core of Jungian therapy and theory. In his “Definitions” Jung writes: “For me fantasy as an imaginative activity is simply the immediate expression of psychic vital activity, psychic energy which is only given to consciousness in form of imagery or contents, . . .” (Collected Works 6, ¶722).
—from the Preface by Verena Kast