SYMBOLIC FUNCTION IN ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY

For analytic psychology, the symbolic function is a spontaneous function of the psyche and indicates a certain state of health of the psyche,
Between the two levels of our psychic life, the conscious and the unconscious, there is a continuous interaction which leads to the formation of different psychic phenomena such as symptoms, dreams, projections, somatiations, regressions, complex episodes, etc.
When there is a conflict, a discrepancy, a dissociation between the two levels, the unconscious influences consciousness in a disruptive way, discharging affects or in a parasitic way, emptying the consciousness and the ego of energy.
But when the consciousness and the unconscious turn toward each other, are in connection, symbols begin to form.
This process takes place in the following way: when an archetype is constellated, it is charged with energy, energy which exerts a force of attraction on consciousness. Consciousness initially perceives a state of disturbance, a tension which it cannot name, explain, an undefined emotional state from which images, characters, narrative threads seem to attach which eventually lead to an inner experience felt to be meaningful and impressive.
In the analytic process, the analyst is sensitive and attentive to these amorphous “babbling” of the unconscious which he takes from dream fragments, from unusual gestures or expressions of the patient, from his own experiences of countertransference, and together with the patient, they will explore, amplify, and probe with curiosity and trust that something new is about to emerge.
In practice, patients often come with various kinds of inner conflicts that block them because it is as if they have to choose between parts that they cannot put together and at the same time cannot let go of. Such a state of tension can lead to the emergence of a symbolic experience, creating what we call a “unifying opposites”. This unification also brings with it a state of reconciliation and a sense of support, of belonging. A new positioning in personal history and self-identity takes place. This is why symbolic experiences often have a spiritual, religious connotation.
A true symbolic experience addresses the entire psyche: consciousness perceives and can express something that it has not known up to that moment and at the same time is left with the impression that there is still much to be discovered and understood from that experience which continues to germinate.
“A symbol is alive only when for the observer it is the supreme expression of a fact that is both foreboded and unknown. Under these conditions … it has a vitalizing and stimulating effect.” (Jung, Complete Works 6, par. 811)
The symbol transforms psychic energy from an undifferentiated, instinctive, concrete form into a differentiated, cultural and spiritual form. Actually, we are talking about the fact that the symbol is the mediator of inner experience, of soul experience.
Facilitating and activating this function of the psyche is at the center of the analytic therapeutic process. Healing, in the Jungian perspective, is not just about the remission of symptoms, but about putting the suffering person back in touch with the generative and creative resources of his or her own psyche.
It is not by chance, therefore, that analytic therapeutic methods each have the potential to facilitate symbolic experiences. We are talking about the inexhaustible work with dreams, the technique of active imagination, the bringing into the therapeutic process of inner images through drawing, modeling, writing, movement, but also the symbolic value of various “happenings” and feelings, sensations experienced in transference and countertransference.
Basically, the major benefit of a symbolic experience is that it makes it possible for the person in question to contain their own psychic experience, to live it inside and at the same time to stay connected, to get out of the projection.
Or, as we know, through projections the psyche can become blind and destructive. Projections separate us into good and evil, victims and aggressors; the symbol always creates syntheses that allow the individual to experience and accept both perspectives without completely identifying with either or unilaterally putting them into action.
“The symbol is thus a kind of mediating instance between the incompatibility of the conscious and the unconscious, a true “mediator” between the hidden and the revealed. “It is neither abstract nor concrete, neither real nor unreal: it is always both. It belongs to that ‘in-between realm of subtle reality.'” (Jacobi, Complex, Archetype, Symbol, p.120)

Ioana Maria Olteanu
Jungian Analyst, Psychotherapist, Supervisor (SRAJ)