Psyche moving: “Active imagination” and “focusing” in movement-based performance and psychotherapy

Abstract

This paper looks at how “focusing” (Gendlin, 1978) and “active imagination” (Jung, 1935) can operate to enhance one another in therapeutic and creative environments. These approaches to working with psychic material allow an embodied engagement with psychic material which encompasses all of the senses as well as a something more which can be understood in Jung's use and development of the term “transcendent function” and Gendlin's belief that the felt sense is more than sensation. The relationship between these two approaches is charted and examined using case illustrations from the author's creative processes and facilitation work. This paper concludes that bringing these two methods together in creative movement environments is a powerful and often necessary tool for the expression of psychic contents.