What is Active Imagination

Active imagination consists of observing images that pass through the mind. These images can be induced or spontaneous.

Spontaneous in the sense that their development in the mind is followed without any deliberate intervention, as in the case of Freudian free associations.

Induced, in the sense that they can be stimulated to appear starting from a recent dream motif.

The subject starts from the dream image and follows its development without intervention.

Why active imagination? Because the subject can be asked to actively participate in the imagery scenario, that is, to emotionally experience what he sees, to take an attitude, etc.

The purpose of this technique is to purge the accumulated affective charge (stasis) with the immediate effect of relieving the neurotic symptom.

In Robert Desoille's version of this practice, itineraries can be suggested to the patient - for example, an ascent followed by a descent, on the anabasis-katabasis model.

The development of spontaneous or induced images is narrated during their production or simply recorded in writing.

Subsequent analysis of the entire process should lead to memories, traumas from the subject's childhood or more recent that are responsible for the appearance of neurotic symptoms.

Active imagination is one of the methods of analysis that are part of Jungian analytical therapy.

Carl Jung about the participation in the imagination scenario:

The judging attitude implies a voluntary involvement in those fantasy-processes which compensate the individual and-in particular-the collective situation of consciousness. The avowed purpose of this involvement is to integrate the statements of the unconscious, to assimilate their compensatory content, and thereby produce a whole meaning which alone makes life worth living and, for not a few people, possible at all. (The Conjunction, CW 14, par. 756.)

Read also:

• Active imagination and the method of free associations
   
• Jung's Analytical Therapy

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