Jung’s Practice of the Image: Images from the Zurich Picture Archive

During a crucial period of his life, Jung discovered the benefit of engagement with inner figures through dialogue and image-making. Based on his own experience, he developed the method of “active imagination,” and he encouraged his patients to create images of their active imaginations and dreams. In our workshop, you will have the opportunity to view images created by the patients of Jung and other early Zurich analysts. These images, preserved in the Picture Archive of the Zurich Jung Institute, range from works of art to crude drawings indicating sexual and personal torment.

The workshop will be a combination of lecture, discussion, and experiential modalities. You will have the opportunity to respond to series of images through drawing and journaling, as well as small group and group discussion. Clinicians may wish to apply these methods to deepen their understanding of reactions to patient material.

Limited to 20 participants. Art materials will be provided. You are welcome to bring your own dry or water-based materials.

Learning Objectives
After attending this seminar, you will be able to:

1. Demonstrate how Jung’s Practice of the Image can be applied to work with a dream image.
2. Explain why the experience of images is closer to body experience than are words.
3. Describe the way that images play a communicative role between analyst and patient.

Suggested Reading

• Ammann, R. et al. (2023) Treasures from the Archives, C.G. Jung Institute Zurich-Kusnacht: Images Created by Patients in Analysis 1917 – 1955. Oberlin, OH: Analytical Psychology Press.
  • Available for sale at the workshop
  • 10% of sales benefits the Institute

Instructor Bio

Dyane N. Sherwood, PhD, has a special interest in the access to the unconscious facilitated by non-verbal methods, such as image-making and sandplay. She co-authored with the late Joseph L. Henderson, MD, a book that showed the parallels between clinical material of patients in analysis and the images in a famous alchemical illuminated manuscript, Transformation of the Psyche: The Symbolic Alchemy of the Splendor Solis (Routledge, 2003). She is a Licensed Psychologist  (CA, IL, OH) and an IAAP-Certified in both Adult and Child Analysis, and she is a Teaching Member of the International Society for Sandplay Therapy. She is currently serving as President of the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and has an office in Evanston, IL, where she offers consultation, study groups, and workshops. She is the Editor and Publisher of Analytical Psychology Press, which published Treasures from the Archives.