Active Imagination Research Articles

After Termination: Cultivating the ‘Other’ Within

AbstractNaomi Ruth Lowinsky, “After Termination: Cultivating the ‘Other’ Within,” The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, 2005, 24:3, 43-73. What happens when an analysis is over? Who comes from the other side to guide the psyche in one who has been held, for most of her adult life, in the container of a Jungian analysis? The magnet has been strong, the center has held, then it is gone. Does she fly into many fragments? Does she find an ‘inner other’ to carry the analytic function? There are as many versions of this story as there are those who come to the end of a long analysis. This is the story of one such journey and the curious characters who emerge in dream, active imagination, poetry and alchemical writings to guide this particular soul.

“The Tumbler”: Writing An/Other in Fiction and Performance Ethnography

This article dissolves the binary between science and literature with a performance text set in rural Australia. This performance suggests that the imaginative act of fiction writing and the social scientific act are kept apart in a false binary that reifies the privilege of presence and the audacity of authenticity. Inspired by a poststructuralist suspicion of any truth as sacred originary, the author takes a chance on an imaginative writing practice that enables researcher/writer/performer and audience to encounter the Other in positive, touching, affective, and meaningful ways. The voice of this Other speaks us into an aggressively embodied sense of geographic and social isolation, the inadequacies of community support for women in crisis, and the possibilities for agency in an impossible situation. Her monologue becomes a more nuanced and discursively complex way of confronting these issues than could be achieved with a traditional social scientific analysis.

Surveying the Psyche:

The Guyanese novelist, poet and essayist, Wilson Harris is widely regarded as a key contributor to the postcolonial dialogue. However, Harris stands apart in that he is less concerned with conventional notions of cultural identity, and instead explores issues of postcolonial identity through encounters with the human psyche. Indeed, Harris’ writing takes on a profoundly psychological dimension when one considers it in relation to Jung’s seminal work with the collective unconscious, archetypes, and the restorative processes of alchemy and active imagination. In The Guyana Quartet, Wilson Harris uses Jungian thought to create a dream text that functions both as a map for identifying conflicting fragments of the Guyana psyche, and a mechanism for restoring these fragments to a state of unity.

The Dark Wood of Postmodernity (Space, Faith, Allegory)

As a way of restaging certain questions about postmodernity (is it marked by rupture or repetition, or is it all illusory?), this essay imagines Fredric Jameson's iconic disorientation at the Bonaventure Hotel as a reenactment of Dante's crisis in the selva oscura. That imaginative act allows one to see how a nonmodern measure makes postmodernism visible (the concept of “cognitive mapping,” for instance, derives from Kevin Lynch's appreciation of the urban fabric of Florence). And it allows one to perceive how Jameson's response to our contemporary condition assumes a Dantean cast, becoming an incorporative act of totalizing, manifest stylistically and conceptually, that deploys allegory to trans-code phenomena into the terms of the dominant system. To what degree does the internalization of such a hermeneutic enterprise (a medieval Christian legacy) render religion as such imperceptible, compelling us to perceive acts committed in the name of Islam as merely a displacement of (proper) politics?

Art, dreams and active imagination: A post‐Jungian approach to transference and the image

The term active imagination is sometimes applied rather uncritically to describe all forms of creative activity that take place in depth psychology. Whilst there are many forms of expression that evoke or are evoked by active imagination, they cannot automatically be classed as active imagination. In this article investigation of visualized mental imagery, dreams and art reveals three distinct forms of image-based psychological activity. Integrated and mediated within the transference and countertransference dynamic, it is proposed that the engagement in active imagination reflects and is influenced by the transference. Distinctions between sign and symbol, simple and big dreams as well as diagrammatic and embodied imagery clarify the differences. Examples from clinical practice demonstrate each mode in action within the analytic frame.

Kenneth Burke, John Dewey, and the Pursuit of the Public

In Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin argue for creation of a national holiday, Deliberation Day, in which citizens come together over a two-day period in their local schools and community centers to deliberate over merits of presidential candidates and their platforms (Ackerman and Fishkin 2004). While Ackerman and Fishkin propose that government pay each citizen a $150 stipend for voluntary participation, purpose is not so much to monetarily to reward citizens for showing up as it is to foster an enriched civic culture that would send Shockwaves through America's political infrastructure: If Day succeeded, everything else would change: candidates, media, activists, interest groups, spin doctors, advertisers, pollsters, fund raisers, lobbyists, political parties. All would have no choice but to adapt to a more attentive and informed (3). The task of Day would be to create a new social context in which citizens could become enlightened through public participation. As authors conclude book, We can, through an act of political imagination, create new institutions for redeeming ancient promise of democratic citizenship. Ordinary men and women need not be hapless playthings of powerful. They can and must find new ways to hold their leaders to account, and redeem their dignity as human beings by responsibly shaping their collective destiny (219). Ackerman and Fishkin's proposal is indeed filled with political imagination. I bring their proposal to light not to critique possibilities and limitations of but to understand way in which authors understand the public. At bottom, what polity needs, Ackerman and Fishkin believe, is a public space dedicated to reinvigo-

Liberation historiography: African American writers and the challenge of history, 1794-1861

As the story of the United States was recorded in pages written by white historians, early-nineteenth-century African American writers faced the task of piecing together a counterhistory: an approach to history that would present both the necessity of and the means for the liberation of the oppressed. In Liberation Historiography, John Ernest demonstrates that African Americans created a body of writing in which the spiritual, the historical, and the political are inextricably connected. Their literature serves not only as historical recovery but also as historical intervention. Ernest studies various cultural forms including orations, books, pamphlets, autobiographical narratives, and black press articles. He shows how writers such as Martin R. Delany, David Walker, Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, and Harriet Jacobs crafted their texts in order to resituate their readers in a newly envisioned community of faith and moral duty. Antebellum African American historical representation, Ernest concludes, was both a reading of source material on black lives and an unreading of white nationalist history through an act of moral imagination.

Establishing a Context for P.K. Page’s Interest in Eastern Religions: When Papier-Mâché Angels Descend among the Metals and the Flowers

This essay demonstrates that the desires for selfhood and wholeness propel P.K. Page’s poetic vision. In an attempt to establish a context for the studies that focus on Page’s later interest in Eastern religions - especially Sufism - the article investigates the spiritual principles that drive the poet’s early works, with particular attention paid to her second volume of poetry, The Metal and the Flower (1954). Although the volume depicts a spiritual drought in the postlapsarian world that hinders its individuation, glimmers of the active imagination provide a vehicle for redemption. Appropriating Jungian symbology, the study argues that, for Page, the imagination is a divine faculty whose figures hint at the completeness embodied in the archetype of the God-image. A thorough investigation of the interrelationship between the paradigms of the self and the God-image reveals the spiritual implications of self-actualization as they pertain to the individual and to the collective progression of humankind towards individuation.

Dream poetry as dream work.

This paper explores the relationship between dream poetry and dream work by presenting a representative dream poem, along with the text of the dream that inspired it; examining some of its poetic qualities and showing how these figured in the writing of the poem; and comparing the dream writing process to dream interpretation and to Jungian active imagination work. The formal demands of poetry introduce a unique type of critical thought into the creative process that develops the dream material in ways different from other forms of dream work. Writing dream poetry differs from both dream interpretation and active imagination in important ways, but can be viewed as a form of non-interpretative dream work. These observations are probably generalizable to all forms of dream writing and dream art.

The swaying form: Imagination, metaphor, embodiment

How is it that metaphors are meaningful, yet we have so much trouble saying exactly what they mean? I argue that metaphoric thought is an act of imagination, mediated by the contingent form of human embodiment. Metaphoric cognition is an example of the productive interplay between intentional imagery and the body scheme, a process of imaginal modeling. The case of metaphor marks the intersection of linguistic and psychological processes and demonstrates the need for a multi-disciplinary approach not only in philosophy of language, but in cognitive science and consciousness studies as well.

SIND DIE EPIKUREISCHEN GÖTTER 'THOUGHT-CONSTRUCTS?'

AbstractThis paper examines the tacit implications of the theory proposed by A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, according to which Epicurus did not believe that the gods were eternal living beings consisting of body and soul—this would be in conflict with the general atomistic principle of compounds as subject to eventual dissolution—but assumed instead that they are created in the human mind by the very act of imagination. Thus, they are eternal, not as living beings but as imagined living beings, and as concepts. It is argued that this alleged solution to the question how the Epicurean gods could be eternal does not do away with the problem; on the contrary, the implications and consequences of the arguments given in support of the theory, when made explicit, turn out to result in a scenario that is wholly inconceivable. Taken together with the long recognized fact—not contested by L & S—that the primary sources speak against the theory, these results should lead to its definite dismissal. Admittedly, if the Epicureans held the gods to consist of some kind of body and soul, there is a conflict, but a conflict much easier to live with than the difficulties accompanying the proposed solution.

Dreaming with Open Eyes

Dreaming with open is a tagline for Spinoza's critique of Descartes; the dreams in question are principally those of volition and the active imagination. In this article, I compare the Cartesian theory of imagination as an active, but not fully rational, power of the mind and the Cartesian account of the volitional self to Spinoza's views. Descartes's own dreams and theories of dreaming are the focus of the first part of the article. Thereafter I examine Spinoza's critique of Descartes and his alternative account of imagination. Finally, I argue that there is a positive sense of dreaming with open eyes to be recuperated in Spinoza's thought. Construed positively, to dream with open eyes is to understand dreams and imagination as natural phenomena and so to be able to respond constructively to them in ethical and political, as well as epistemological, life.

The goal as process: music and the search for the Self.

This paper explores and compares the processes of music and analysis from the author's experience as a musician, piano teacher and analyst. It explains how the use of music improvisation in analysis (with simple percussion instruments) can powerfully enhance the dialogue between the unconscious and conscious psyche, as well as deepen the relationship between analyst and analysand. This is connected theoretically to Jung's active imagination and Winnicott's concept of play within the analytic encounter. Finally, the question is raised whether analytic trainings could do more to expose trainees to the possibility of using music within the analytic encounter. This touches on the more basic and controversial issue (which often separates analytical psychology and psychoanalysis) of whether expressive therapy should be used in analysis at all.

Inscape revisited

This article is concerned with the way in which things come to me sometimes, the way in which images arise. In particular it is concerned with imaginal perspectives on image-making processes and, in seeking such perspectives, draws on the literature of poetry and psychology. This includes a discussion of the work and ideas of Gerard Manley Hopkins, who is generally credited with inventing the word inscape, a word which may be understood to describe an approach to process. Consideration is given to Jungs ideas about active imagination and to writing by Yeats from the same era. The final part of the article presents recent explorations into art-making processes involving frequent photography of emerging images, and concludes that such exercises designed to attune us to the close observation of emerging images may help to inform our practice.

Dreams, Visions and Nightmares

We extend and review some empirical work we previously carried out by reinterpreting the psycho-structure in the light of complexity theory. In particular, we apply the concepts of complexity to a number of Jungian constructs we deployed in a previous paper. The main Jungian concepts considered are assimilation, projection, psychological rebirth, archetypes and a (modified) active imagination technique used to access the synergistic energy of tacit processes in teams. Blending Schon's (1995) intuitive artistry of an activated, intelligence-in-action concept into the techniques and models assists us in facilitating an empowered community-of-practice amongst our co-enquirers as we prefer to call the ‘subjects’. We thereby facilitate a self-organised form of collaborative action-inquiry and visioning in this community. The enactment of the resultant corporate story within the activity system of a community of practice leads to a coherently embodied form of what Boje calls mythmaking (Boje etal, 1982). The latter process also serves as an ‘attractor basin’ in terms of complexity theory within emergent narratives of the community storytelling activity. These processes can be seen as, in a sense, reuniting C.P. Snow’s ‘two cultures’ of arts and sciences in a symbiotic and creative dialogue within the wider community of practice.

Symbolic attitude and reverie: problems of symbolization in children and adolescents.

In comparison to the 1970s and 1980s, we now treat more children and adolescents who, because they have had traumatic experiences of violence, child abuse, deprivation or chronic physical illness, are not able to adequately use their symbolizing function. The question is which qualities and which analytical attitude we should and can offer in analysis to help a child regain his or her capacity to symbolize, irrespective of how poorly developed or blocked this capacity may be. In contrast to Jung and some Jungians, the author argues that although the transcendent function is a 'natural process' and hence archetypally grounded as Jung maintained, the transcendent function does not work spontaneously. Rather it requires a matrix based on the child's earliest relationship, which can later be re-enacted in treatment. Jung's general concept of a 'symbolic attitude' can be complemented and focused in a specific way through the use of Bion's concept of 'reverie', which contributes in a fundamental way to symbol formation within the transference/countertransference. This idea is illustrated by clinical material from a nine-year-old boy who suffered from a severe congenital intestinal disease and was blocked in his capacity to symbolize. From the perspective of treatment technique, the author shows how the drawing of 'comic book' narratives in a reciprocal exchange was brought into the treatment. The drawings evolved in a way that he understood as a modified form of active imagination with children. The drawing process helped the boy gradually to develop a symbolic space in the therapy and to contain a psychic space in his mind.

An Archetypal Model of the Self in Dialogue

From the standpoint of Jung's analytical psychology, the empirical, ego-aligned `self is always in dialogue with an ego-alien `other'. By carefully attending to what a client experiences as self and as other, a Jungian analyst can identify various subpersonalities in dialogue. The valuations expressed by subpersonalities can be further differentiated through the use of Jung's theory of psychological type to reveal a definite pattern, which can be represented through an archetypal model that consists of a fourfold self shadowed by a fourfold other. This template is illustrated with an analysis of Woody Allen's movie Husbands and Wives, seen as the film-maker's active imagination of various subpersonalities attempting to establish dialogue with each other through gestures of marriage, separation and remarriage. It is argued that the patterning of subpersonality `complexes' provides a structural basis in the psyche for H.J.M. Hermans's notion of movement within the `dialogical self.

Dancing for an Oath: Salomé's Revaluation of Word and Gesture

The aestheticist philosophy of the late nineteenth century effectively countered a gradual but pervasive cultural degradation of language by revaluing the concept of action for art. Oscar Wilde, the most well-known exemplar of aestheticism in Britain, noted that "action belong[ed] to the sphere of ethics", but would deny it a place in art for that very reason. For Wilde, in true dandiacal spirit, the less practical the action, the more artistic and, paradoxically, the more utilitarian it would be. He wholeheartedly suggested that art itself was the better for being divorced from practical action: "Action! What is action? It dies at the moment of its energy. It is a base concession to fact. The world is made by the singer for the dreamer". Likewise, Havelock Ellis wrote of the "artist for art's sake" that "in turning aside from the common utilitarian aims of men [hel is really engaged in a task none other can perform, of immense utility to men". Thus aestheticism was patently concerned, if only in a negative way, with the concept of action. Rather than severing the link between action and utility (which always carried with it the nuance, at least, of physical or political enactment), Wilde and other aesthetes simply dislodged action from its strong association with the physical body, its labor, and its products. From this perspective, the best actions were the rarefied products of the imagination. For Wilde, literature in particular distinguished itself as the imaginative act par excellence.

Bears, Zoos, and Wilderness: The Poverty of Social Constructionism

AbstractIt is the purpose of this short article to defend the realism of Holmes Rolston and other environmental philosophers against the social constructionism of Neil Evernden and others who have written on the social construction of nature. This defense is attempted through appeal to a deceptively simple example: seeing a bear in a zoo.The following four claims are defended in the effort to show the deficiencies of the anthropocentrism of social constructionists like Evernden: (1) there is a difference between a bear in a zoo and one in the wild; (2) this difference legitimates the belief that the former is an attenuated version of the latter; (3) the danger posed by a bear in the wild is not due to an overly active imagination; and (4) experience of sublime beauty (in contrast to mere cuteness) in the presence of a wild bear is only partly of one's own doing.

The Ethics of Indeterminacy: Theatre de Complicite's ‘Mnemonic’

Theatre de Complicite was founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni, and has since established its reputation as one of Britain's leading experimental physical theatre companies. Here, Helen Freshwater discusses the construction, performance, and implications of one of their recent works, Mnemonic, which premiered at the Salzburg Festival in 1999, and has since toured to London's National Theatre and the John Jay College Theatre in New York. The work questions our metaphorical conceptualization of memory, displacing the conventional model of retrieval with an understanding of memory based upon a performative paradigm. This is memory as an act of imagination: transient; grounded upon narrative; open to interpretation; intrinsically corporeal. Freshwater interrogates the impact of the performance's incompletion, addressing the ethical issues raised by recognzing the indeterminacy of the past. Under Simon McBurney's direction, the original cast comprised Catherine Schaub Abkarian, Katrin Cartlidge, Richard Katz, Simon McBurney, Tim McMullan, Kostas Philippoglou, and Daniel Wahl. Helen Freshwater is currently completing her PhD on performance and censorship in twentieth-century Britain at the University of Edinburgh and will shortly be taking up a post as Lecturer in Drama and Performance at the University of Nottingham. She is a contributor to the Edinburgh Review, and the forthcoming anthology Crossing Boundaries (Sheffield Academic Press, 2001).