Joan Chodorow, dance therapist, analyst and analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco combed through volumes of Jung’s writings and lectures to bring us this collection of Jung’s writings on Active Imagination. Fascinating for me was the insight into the many different names Jung used for this process – transcendent function, picture method, active fantasy, active phantasying, trancing, visioning, exercises, dialectical method, technique of differentiation, technique of introversion, introspection and technique of the descent – before settling on the term Active Imagination.

Active imagination is based on the natural healing function of the imagination and Jung’s discovery that the unconscious desires to be known – to be seen, heard and experienced and that by engaging actively with the unconscious he could marry his inner and outer worlds, thus leading to a feeling of calmness, insight, energy, passion and meaning.

This book is a treasure trove of Jung’s thoughts and ideas around Active Imagination and I found myself delighting in numerous new insights and discoveries. For example, I found the story of the patient who couldn’t grasp what active imagination was, until one day he found himself looking at a travel poster of a railway station and found himself fantasying about the poster, imagining walking into the poster and that he could walk up the hill and see what was on the other side, highly illuminating. (p.143 & 144)