SYMBOLS OF ACTIVE IMAGINATION HANS DIECKMANN. Berlin INTRODUCTION IN HIS FIRST PAPER on active imagination C. G. jung descril principles which inform this process: the principle of creative formulation and the principle of understanding. He writes: The two ways do not divide e aesthetic pro oblem becomes decisive for the one type of person and the intellectual-moral problem for the other. The ideal case would be if these two aspects could exist side by side or rhythmically succeed each other lerstanding. It hardly seems possible for the one to exist without the other, though it sometimes does happen in practice: the creative urge seizes possession of the object at the cost of its meaning, or the urge to understand overrides the necessity of giving it form]ung, 19I6, P. 86) Later in the Mysterium coniunctionis Jung writes of expressing an opinion standing work. a decision of that sort is the opposite of the aesthetic standard, and it underlines the accent of psychic engagement ung, I9ss) It is only relatively seldom in clinical practice that we come across the perfect combination, the symmetrical coexistence of skilful artistic work and Intensive struggle for meaning, in contents which a patient has created unconsciously. Most patients will take pencil, paint-brush or clay merely in a passing way during analytical treatment. Also on our side as analysts we attach more importance to the principle of understanding than to the beaut of the form. It is just for this reason which the two principles come into harmony during analysis as a result of ixation in symptoms, but can also in many cases endow the patient with a meaningful activity which will enrich his life long after the end of treatment. So far as I know, no description exists in analytical literature which shows the working of this process over the whole period of an analysis, if we exclude those descriptions of professional artists like Neumann's book on
128 h. Die eckmann Henry Moore(1959). The reason may be that most patients paint or draw only during a certain period in their analysis. Moreover, it is often difficult to publish pictures, and also many patients will not give their permission I am most grateful to this patient, whose pictures and figures app ear here for giving me this permission, although she did not find it easy to do so. I to point out that my patient had modelled before the analytical treatment startd hever painted, drawn or BACKGROUND I will begin with some remarks about my patient's symptoms and her life She suffered from a severe schizoid-depressive neurosis. For hours and some times days on end she had serious reactive depressions, accompanied by great inner torment and suicidal tendencies. In fact she had attempted to commit suicide several times. Apart from this, she had a paranoid jealousy of her husband and a tendency to run away from home. In stressful situations she left the house and ran around in a forest nearby and her relatives had to search for hours before they were able to find her. She also suffered from psychosomatic illnesses in the gastro-intestinal area, gastritis, gall bladder spasm and diarrhoea. Altogether it was one of those borderline cases between neurosis and psychosis and the origin of the symptoms went back to early seen from the family history, that the patient had a psychosis. My patient was Dutch, born in Indonesia, where her parents worked as missionaries of a very strict religious sect. The father was German.He married the mother overseas, in a second marriage seven years after his first wife died. There were two daughters by the first marriage. The father had given them to foster-mothers in Europe shortly after their birth. In hi opinion,this was necessary because the children disturbed his work as a missionary The younger one is still living, but she is severely mentally retarded. The er onc became afflicted with schizophrenia, when my patient was fifteen years old, and had to be hospitalized for the rest of her life. As it became difficult for financial reasons to let her stay in a Dutch hospital, the father had sent her to Germany during the Nazi period. News soon came that she had died. The father was really a very religious man, but a murderous father because he must have known what was happening in German mental hospitals at that time During the second marriage, to the mother of my patient, five children were born. My patient was the second one Of those five children three died during childhood: only my patient and a brother seven years younger are now living For the first six or seven years of her life my patient livedin Indonesia with
Symbols of active imagination I29 her sister who was two years older. Because the mother as well as the father was very active in missionary work, the children grew up under Chinese servants. After seven years the family had a long holiday in Euro during which time a brother was born)and they lived with relatives for eighteen months. My patient remembers that there were many quarrels and beatings. Her parents'and also her relatives'main motive was to break down the children's will. They had to obey. At the end of this period the father decided once again that his two elder girls should remain in Europe, while he, his wife and the son should go back to Indonesia. As both parents often said, the service of God was more important to them than the two little girls. At first nobody wanted to take them in as'holy orphans'and it was a very difficult situation. But at last, so the family-myth goes, the Lord had mercy on them. Shortly before the oy were due to leave the made the acquaintance of the castellan. He was a fellow-member of their sect and had formerly worked in a remand home for delinquent boys. They had coffee and cake together and this old man was glad to take over the two girls for a very small sum. Neither God nor the two parents seemed to be disturbed by the fact that this man was a complete stranger. The elder sister of my patient was unable to accept this situation. She became ill and died of pneumonia a few days before the departure of the paren This elder sister was the good one, the beloved one, and she had always obstinate, defiant, but lively and spirited child. Now she was told:Your sister has been allowed to go to God in heaven so soon because she was such a good girl. My eight-year-old patient swore a graveside oath that from now on she would always be well-behaved, adaptive and good, and never again obstinate and lively. Thus she punished herself for her death wishes against che rival her parents had idealized, and also she identified with her, and hoped tale, The star d way from an unbearable life. At this time Grimms fairy to escape in this ollars, became her favourite story. The foster parents with whom my patient now lived were, by her g and cruel beatings for every peccadillo and the foster mother, who was only a little better, used to say: You do not belong to us. You only stay here till your parents come back. So I am not allowed to love you and you are not allowed to love me In this family there was another foster child, a stupid boy. She was never allowed to be better than this boy, to play or learn anything other than he did, because this would be unchristian arrogance. If she was playing horses with him and had her own idea as to where they should go, she was ordered to stop because it was trying to dominate him in an unchristian way The foster mother was depressed herself and always said that modesty was the greatest virtue on earth
H. Dieckmann When my patient was fourteen years ere canc the dreaded day of her parents'return. Again she had to suffer a separation, this time from her foster mother, whom she now loved, in spite of everything, more than her own strange mother from Indonesia. The family lived at first in the same village. But she was not allowed to see or speak to her foster mother because she was not her child. Her own mother travelled around making speeches about Indonesia, and she stayed at home alone with her father. This may be the reason why she joined the sect at this time. She was converted, baptized and became a member of the sect, taking on the strict rules and prohibitions of this community. She told me that she was happy at last because she believed, and she found peace by deeply suppressing all her wishes. Besides this,she noticed how happy her father was about her conversion When she left school she went at first as a servant to religious friends in another town, where she earned about I6 DM($4)a month. She wished to become a gardener, but a secretary was needed in the office in her father's illage,and she had to obey her father and go to work there. She hated this work like the plague, but the parents'wish was the will of God, and only her subsequent marriage liberated her from this drudgery. It was when she was fifteen that she met her future husband, who was so young our two lovers had to wait. They were forbidden by her preli& y eighteen at the time. Naturally he also was a member of the sect. It was deep, stormy rely true I was that they should prove their love Just when this time ended, and the two met each other again with un- father's death-bed not to marry her boy friend but to stay at home with her and to help her bring up the little brother, who was by now twelve years old. There was a bitter, but of course suppressed, conflict of brother- sister rivalry between these two, as the brother was the crown prince of the family, the beloved and long-expected son and heir. He was always given preference over her, it was he who had been allowed to stay with the mother given to her mother in this highly charged situation, and she was married t the end of 1938 The early years of he iage were over-shadowed by war and her husband's military scrvice. He had become a teacher before the war began, but it was a profession he did not like very much. During the war the first three of their children were born, a son and two daughters. In those years her husband was unfaithful to her once, which gave her deep feelings of insecurity. She developed a pathological jealousy of all women who can contact with him. He was a little bit of the homme a femmes type and always had a lot of women around him. In one way he was a nice helples boy, who awoke motherly instincts in women, and on the other hand he
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