Jungian Art Therapy

Images, Dreams, and Analytical Psychology

Nora Swan-Foster

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781315456997
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Psicoanálisis

Jungian Art Therapy aims to provide a clear, introductory manual for art therapists on how to navigate Jung's model of working with the psyche. This exciting new text circumambulates Jung's map of the mind so as to reinforce the theoretical foundations of analytical psychology while simultaneously defining key concepts to help orient practitioners, students, and teachers alike. The book provides several methods, which illustrate how to work with the numerous images originating from the unconscious and glean understanding from them. Throughout the text readers will enjoy clinical vignettes to support each chapter and illuminate important lessons.

CHAPTER 1
Introduction

Images are all around. We are bombarded daily with images from various sources, but what we neglect most in these times is to attend to the images that come from within, from the unconscious. These images are often left unattended, let alone remembered, and yet through personal images such as pictures, dreams, poetry, and other creative expressions we are secretly fed. These images carry their own consciousness; they become our guides on the path to transformation.

Our own deep nature is reflected in the living nature around us—it is a mirror of our own inner possibilities. Jung built his psychology around principles from nature: psyche is image, psyche is nature. Image and nature are joined in psyche. Jung’s psychology is both simple and complicated, and filled with paradox. It’s made up of opposites that join together to mobilize eventual sparks of insight, change, and possible transcendence. Jung makes us work hard at learning his psychology, to take up the same struggle with the shadow that he did, and to seek meaning in our lives and our times. When we step onto our own path, we step into a fully lived life.

Contrary to popular belief, Jungian psychology is not simply an intellectual endeavor of interpretation and analysis. Rather it is truly a path of seeking consciousness, through experience and sacrifice, because we release what encumbers us so we can live more fully. We relinquish what we believe we know and invest in our true path, which does not avoid the depth of life, but embraces the unavoidable trials and suffering where a new light may be found. When we embrace the human experience through our various images, we discover the hidden gate that opens us to our life. Life initiates us.

As the late Jungian analyst Elizabeth Ruff said in her “Sacrifice and Initiation” lecture:

The creative challenge of our time is to take our own path of individuation under our feet because if we do not, no one will do it for us and we will be forever undone. To live one’s own life is to take these steps of creativity.

(Ruff, 1988)

Jungian art therapy is a catalyst to take our own path of individuation and embrace the paradoxical found in all creative processes. We gather our visceral and sensory experiences that come with thoughts and feelings and mix them into conscious images that will change not just our individual lives, but potentially also the world around us.

So, as Jung advised us, choose a beautiful blank book and make it yours. Place in it your soul’s longings, thoughts, and free expressions. With unbridled spontaneous love and compassion, you will discover a new way to attend to the psyche, to work with the unconscious. Let the critical voice take a rest and run from those who devour you. Steal away a few moments for yourself so you can have time to get lost in the creative journey of your life. There is only this one moment and then it’s gone.

Honoring the soul through image-making is fundamental to Jungian art therapy. This book was greatly inspired by those who have come into my life, engaged with psyche, and offered their images, including those students who registered for an introductory class called Jungian Psychology: Transpersonal Foundations and Central Concepts, which I teach at Naropa University.¹ I’m grateful for their participation as their sacrifice has meant an early Monday morning class and having to relinquish other coursework. Their questions and musings were invaluable to me and allowed us to join together in the study of Jung’s material.

The purpose of the course is to teach the fundamentals of Jungian psychology, or what is known as analytical psychology. In addition, the course includes several written and art assignments in response to the readings as well as an analysis of a chosen movie using Jungian principles. And finally, each person is required to create his or her own visual “Red Book” over the course of the semester centered around a chosen contemplative practice.

There is a wide range of possibilities for how their books are created; what organically emerges is often consistently reflective of Jung’s structure of the psyche and the archetypal pattern of individuation. Pictures, images, writing, dreams, daily practice notes, class notes, and poetry are all included in the books. Students sometimes hand-make their books, or transform purchased blank books into creative binders. What is consistent is their enthusiasm for the project. The discoveries students make about themselves as individuals sustain them, and they begin to listen to what is most meaningful in their daily lives. They wrestle with their fear of the unconscious, the images that haunt them, and the messages they receive from the images. The fire grows and both the inner life and the life around them collaborate in the enterprise of individuation. When students are given free rein to explore their own creative process with unbridled spontaneity and very few rules, they are motivated by something far greater than expectations, grades, and outside perceptions. Their motivated engagement is authentic because it comes from within. By taking their path of individuation “under their feet” and making their own “Red Book,” their souls are undoubtedly deeply moved. I am forever grateful to be an ally and witness to so many inner adventures, and to be touched by such enthusiasm and dedication to the gifts provided by the unconscious.

My Journey into Jungian Psychology

In one of my journals, I found a reference to a working title and the outline of chapters for this book. However, that was before I trained as a Jungian analyst, where I deepened my own interests in Jungian art therapy as well as my growing disappointment with how little Jungian psychology is included in the curriculum of a general psychology degree. It perplexed me. My early idea slipped into the background, or back into the unconscious, as Jung might have said, while other tasks took precedence. Yet, my passion for Jung’s ideas and Jungian art therapy remained close to my heart.

As the reader of this book, your story, similar to mine, likely contains the incredibly memorable stages of awakening that arises from suffering, deepening, and an emergence into a new state of consciousness, all of which is aided by images and symbols that continue to live and expand in meaning and reference for future directions you may travel. In coming to understand how individuation is innately expressed through our unique lives, it is only reasonable to share briefly a few of my own encounters with Jungian psychology and images that have quietly helped to form this book long before I knew of its existence.

My first encounter with Jung was when I was about 12 years old, flopped out on my mom’s side of the bed on a hot humid day in the Midwest. I was bored, in a state that, if pursued, often leads kids to curiosity and discovery. In this case, I sorted through her stack of books, looking for something of interest. One of them was by the Jungian analyst June Singer, Boundaries of the Soul. The title was intriguing as was the author’s name. The word “Singer” had music and rhythm. At that age, I knew what boundaries were, but I wasn’t sure what soul meant—I thought I might try to read the book to find out. I remember working at it. I’m not sure how far I got at that age, but I now like to think that some seed was planted for later life.

My next encounter was at age 20 when I rode a bus, known then as the Magic Bus, from Athens to London for four long days to reconnect with my now husband, the Jungian analyst Stephen Foster. The Magic Bus traveled north through the various winter climates of Europe. We experienced crisp mornings with dappled sunlight on the bus windows, fog, snow, thunderstorms, and then relentless, blinding rain. Each time we unloaded from the bus for a bathroom break and a bite to eat, there were new sounds, smells, and a different language being spoken. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was traveling through a liminal world, on an archetypal journey, that laid the path for my future. How we ever made it to our London destination, I’m not sure.

Partway through the trip a young woman with short black hair, who sat in the seat in front of me, turned to tell me about pearl diving in Greece and the overwhelming amount of shit in the streets of India that was continuing to haunt her dreams. At one point, she handed a book over the seat and said, “Have you ever read this? You’re welcome to it—I picked it up at the hostel in Athens.” The book was Memories, Dreams, Reflections (MDR) and reading Jung’s memoir set me on a trajectory.

All of us needed a distraction from the anxiety we shared as the bus lurched along small winding mountain roads in the former Yugoslavia and swerved through tumultuous weather on the highways of Germany and France. Our driver took breaks on the side of the road to drink and later needed help from one of the passengers in the front seat to navigate the blinding rain. Jung’s book led me inwards and quieted my mind; I soon was immersed in his life story and the role of psyche and the importance of dreams. Before I knew it, we were pulling into London’s Victoria Station. Of course, it was still raining and cold. I had become sick with a relentless chest cold and I had only a few English pounds in my pocket—the days before credit cards. Despite the conditions in the outer world, I had found confirmation from reading Jung’s reflections and memories that the unconscious was a reliable resource and that my early interest in art, dance, music, astrology, psychology, spirituality, and various occult topics was not so unusual. Moreover, it became clear that these interests were doors into the collective unconscious where I could find meaning and connection to the transpersonal world that had fascinated me for many years.

The black-haired woman who had been pearl diving in Greece was a kind of vision, a dream figure, who appeared in my life under the triangular glow of the bus’s reading light during the liminal bus ride between my past and my future. She was a shadow figure who connected me to what Jung referred to as the “higher intelligence” of the unconscious, and to the metaphorical and psychological process of diving for pearls. She handed me a task and I completed it. It was a symbolic and mysterious moment in my life, an image that has stayed with me and continues to carry me forward.

Shortly after this, as a young 20-year-old, I left England, and returned home. I registered for the first of several process painting classes at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with Professor Larry Junkins. On the first day, he introduced the class to the idea of painting not from the ego but from the unconscious. This was a new approach for me, but reading Jung’s work had prepared me. Previous teachers had focused on the formal qualities and techniques of painting and drawing. Because Jung’s work had influenced Junkins, he was passionate about teaching painting as a tool for accessing unconscious material. He’d often ask us to stop painting and step back and get quiet, to listen to what was before us. He’d tell us to “sit with the image.” Then he’d circumambulate the room and visit each student’s painting; in those moments with him, we would consider what had been delivered from psyche, what the soul was speaking to us, where it took us, or what repelled us. Did we find particular images interesting or distasteful? Did it arouse our passion for the process?

I found this time deeply contemplative and meaningful. My painting practice took on new purpose, and my interest in image making was enlivened by the mystery of the moment-by-moment process and the unknown that I might paint into visibility. As Jung named it, we were “making pregnant” (as cited in Chodorow, 1997) the images found on the canvas, fertilizing and nourishing the lines, shapes, and colors into an expressive and aesthetic cohesive image that represented something meaningful for us. This was Jung’s idea of libidinal energy—psychic energy that touches and revives what is purposeful, making it possible, resulting in constructive forces expressed through images of all sorts. At the time, I did not realize I was working with my personal complexes or archetypal patterns.

To have someone value the “accidents” in a painting class, the areas where color and line worked well or didn’t quite hold any possibility, was a fresh outlook on art and psychology. I could see my painting in a different light. I could also see myself. Not so interested in formal skill building, Junkins had us discover, uncover, and recover. He required us to experiment with canvas size and various materials, including kitchen tools, fruits and vegetables, odd brushes, sponges, and then to consider mixing media. He asked us to play and be curious. At the same time, he asked us to be discerning and to differentiate what worked and what didn’t work and to consider why.

These classes took me away from thinking about the formal aspects of painting to feeling into the process of painting. I felt a kind of weaving process occur, a formation of my identity, as I cultivated a visual voice and a connection to soul. This is what soul feels like, I thought as the connection was made between body, soul, and spirit. A kind of coming home to myself. I felt the boundaries as well as the stretching beyond them, and so I recovered a connection to that young child, flopped out on the bed, who had innately sensed these mysteries and was searching for answers in this song of life.

Art (art museums, art galleries, and art making) had always been a major part of my family life. I grew up in a household that was under construction and in constant process. Both my parents were artists; my mom had her block printing studio in the living room area and my dad would draw or paint with watercolors when he wasn’t completing his architectural projects or working on carpentry tasks within our unfinished houses. We moved often to follow the architectural jobs that mirrored the economy, so from an early age I lived as an outsider within the collective, which led to feelings of being isolated and disoriented or having feelings of missing out. These complexes gave me empathy for the marginalized kids because I often felt like one myself. The complexes related to loss were inevitable. Several times we sacrificed our familiar routines and friendships within our community for the adventure into the unknown.

When I’ve described this artistic, organic, gardening lifestyle to some, they’ve remarked on how it sounds unique, and maybe even idyllic. Although this l...