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This workshop explores the nature and language of dreams and how to draw upon Jung’s method of active imagination and modalities of the expressive arts to “dream the dream onwards.” There is a focus on bringing dreams and imaginal material into clinical practice in an embodied way. Jung’s four-fold schema of dream interpretation from his dream seminars is utilized as a model to learn how to circumambulate around the dream’s various meanings to uncover their deeper significance. We explore ways in which dreams and the imagination can alert us about certain psychological dynamics, such as the transference and countertransference; and provide an integrative, compensatory, prospective, and synthetic function towards psychological growth. We keep in mind that by broadening our understandings and embodied experiences via entrance into the dreamworld it can help connect us with the personal, spiritual, archetypal and cultural dimensions of the psyche. The workshop includes case material and experiential components. Major writings from C. G. Jung’s Collected Works and other Jungian literature are discussed.

 Beginning in the year 1913, Jung embarked on a self-analytic experiment that led to his “Confrontation with the Unconscious,” and the process of composing his Red Book. He developed different methods which involved intentionally evoking fantasies while in a semi-conscious waking state, and then entering into it as if in a dramatic play. He learned through active visioning techniques the therapeutic value of finding those particular images that lie hidden in the emotions. In 1916, Jung wrote “The Transcendent Function,” a paper not released for publication until 1957. This paper formed the backdrop for Jung’s reflections on “active imagination,” his technique for interacting with the unconscious.

Active imagination is the process of allowing contents of the personal and collective unconscious to emerge freely while maintaining some working relationship to images, feelings, sensations and thoughts springing forth from the unconscious into consciousness. It is the process of turning attention within, toward one's inner world and then expressing it creatively, while maintaining a reflective and psychological point of view.  It involves bringing attention to the imaginal world without agenda or conscious goal, much like a child at play. In that sense the  method requires a return to a childlike attitude of wonder and curiosity. It can be challenging to allow a relaxed and open attitude toward the unconscious. Within the safe place, or Temenos, of the analytic relationship patients can develop a relationship with the unconscious through the method of active imagination.

About the use of this method Jung writes, "The essential thing is to differentiate oneself from these unconscious contents by personifying them, and at the same time to bring them into relationship with consciousness." (C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections, 1961, p. 187)  He about writes about engaging with dream images and associations using active imagination, "I therefore took up a dream-image or an association of the patient's and with this as a point of departure, set him the task of elaborating or developing his theme by giving free rein to his fantasy. This according to individual taste and talent, could be done in any number of ways, dramatic, dialectic, visual, acoustic, or in the form of dancing, painting, drawing, or modeling." (C. G. Jung, Collected Works, volume 8, para. 400) 

In this workshop, participants will take an in-depth look at Jung’s method of active imagination and learn ways to think about Jung’s creative method in relation to analytic and depth-psychotherapy practice. Participants will have an opportunity to explore the method of active imagination through lecture, discussion, clinical case material, and experiential exercises, including modalities such as movement, drawing, and writing—and then using dialogue to deepen understanding and synthesis. The experiential exercises will help further integrate material and provide an enriching experience of active imagination.

Authentic movement was developed in the 1960’s with the work of Mary Whitehouse. Whitehouse was a dance therapist who had experienced her own Jungian analysis as well as having studied at the Jung Institute in Zurich. She developed an approach to working with the unconscious which she called “movement-in-depth.”  There is an emphasis on learning to wait for the “inner impulse” to move, rather than directing or planning the movement. This movement is also called “authentic movement” to distinguish it from more ego-directed planned movement. 

 In this experiential workshop, we will explore the discipline of Authentic Movement. It is a practice in which attention is paid to the somatic unconscious, the unconscious as it is experienced and expressed on a bodily level. In this practice of authentic movement, the mover is guided to allow oneself to be directed from within and to give form, through movement, to the images, sensations, feelings which arise from attending to one’s somatic experience, as well as any somatic memory that may arise. This material can be explored as communication from the unconscious or a deeper aspect of the self. Often, other creative modalities are utilized such as writing, poetry, drawing to further express what's arising in this body-focused practice. 

The workshop is  especially fruitful in deepening our presence with ourselves, each other, and with our clients. Presence and availability are essential ingredients in analytic work with patients. Authentic movement is an excellent practice that can facilitate the expansion of our capacity as we engage with the other in such meaningful ways.

 “The shuttling to and fro of arguments and affects represents the transcendent function of opposites. The confrontation of the two positions generates a tension charged with energy and creates a living, third thing—not a logical stillbirth in accordance with the principle 'tertium non datur' but a movement out of the suspension between opposites, a living birth that leads to a new level of being, a new situation.” — Jung, C. G. (1916/1958), CW 8, ¶189) 

In this workshop, the practical application of the transcendent function and active imagination for the transformation of consciousness will be explored for purposes of personal, cultural and collective change. We will discuss the omnipresent, powerful and compensatory nature of the unconscious, the constructive or synthetic method, and the analytic role of mediating the transcendent function, and the method of active imagination . 

The transcendent function is a psychic agent that unites the opposites, or different attitudes in the psyche, and active imagination is a method or way to achieve this aim. When we speak of this psychic process, we often speak about the tension created between the opposite positions of conscious and unconscious contents and their resolution in a “third.” As we bring the two into relationship with each other, in direct confrontation, impregnating the psychic contents that arise in the dialectical process, a third position arises, a new birth emerges to conjoin them. These different positions that are united can be something other than opposites or polarities.

In addition to personal healing and change, divisive splits become activated in our cultural, societal, and political realms where there lives unacknowledged material that needs to be identified, discussed and brought into awareness in order to help alleviate the pain and suffering that these unconscious processes can create between self and other. As we work with the transcendent function and engage with opposites, opposing points of view, and the creation of a container, these opposites can be held, mediated upon by a transcendent force, and move towards the emergence of something new or transformative. To bring it into Life! 

Early in Jung’s career as a psychiatrist, he developed the theory of affect-toned complexes. In working with unconscious material, he later found that the emergence of complexes can both interfere with the process of psychic integration and are natural channels of the potential for transformation, in relationship to self/Self and others.

In this workshop, we begin our study of Jung’s Complex Theory with a presentation of the background to Jung’s development of the concept of complexes.  Jung writes on the complex, “It is the image of a certain psychic situation which is strongly accentuated emotionally and is, moreover, incompatible with the habitual attitude of consciousness. This image has a powerful inner coherence, it has its own wholeness and, in addition, a relatively high degree of autonomy, so that it is subject to the control of the conscious mind to only a limited extent, and therefore behaves like an animated foreign body in the sphere of consciousness. The complex can usually be suppressed with an effort of will, but not argued out of existence, and at the first suitable opportunity it reappears in all its original strength.” (CW 8, ¶ 201)

We will explore the nature and structure of complexes and acquire an increased capacity to work with complexes within the relational context of depth psychotherapy.. This will include topics such as: the autonomy and the dissociability of the complex; and the personal and archetypal core of the complex;

the bipolarity of the complex and how complexes can become activated within the transference dynamics in our clinical work.  And, we will keep in mind that complexes are potential channels for transformation and look closely at how complexes are expressed symbolically in dreams and imaginal material.  

This workshop is primarily for clinicians who want to deepen their clinical practice in depth Jungian psychotherapy. 

Goldrich, L. (2025). Calling to the Ocean, Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche

Vol 19: 2, pp. 222-224.. 

Abstract  of Essay:

This is a dream I wrote about in the Jung Journal which I dreamt in 2004. My dream and its symbolism are still very much alive and pregnant with meaning for me today. Over the years, the dream's meaning has unfolded and revealed itself to me as I have engaged with it, using the practice of active imagination, authentic movement, and other modalities of the expressive arts. I shared my dream and my experience

of "dreaming my dream onward." 

Goldrich, L. (2018) Psychic Pregnancy, Birth & Transformation, Journal of Sandplay

Therapy, Vol 27: 1, pp. 37-52. 

Summary of Paper:

Psychic pregnancy and birth often emerge in a sandplay and active imagination process in the context of analysis, analytic psychotherapy, or sandplay therapy. Such images can symbolize something pregnant and being born, or something being filed up with meaning, in relationship to a person's intrapsychic and interpersonal world. C.G. Jung writes about the symbol, "The symbol is alive only so long as it is pregnant with meaning" (1971, para.816)

In this paper, I discuss the process of active imagination and sandplay therapy in light of the writings of Elie Humbert (1988), a French analyst who trained with Jung. Humbert defines three German verbs (Betrachten, Geschehenlassen, Sichauseinandersetzen) that Jung used to describe conscious activity in confrontation with the unconscious, an essential component of active imagination and sandplay. One of these verbs, betrachten, means "to make pregnant" (Jung, 1976, p.260) and connotes contemplation on an image until it becomes pregnant or enlivened with meaning. These word images, such as betrachten, also mirror the process of transformation in which images of psychic pregnancy and birth often appear, especially when sandplay, dreams, and other imaginal practices are employed. Knowing these verbs can offer insights for us into the subtleties of the process, in Jung's native language.

Picture: Photograph at Green Gulch Zen Center

Photographer: Kathee Miller, MFT