Active imagination in Carl Jung's analytical method of psychotherapy involves opening oneself to the unconscious and giving free rein to fantasy, while at the same time maintaining an active, attentive, conscious point of view. The process leads to a synthesis that contains both perspectives, but in a new and surprising way.

"The Transcendent Function" (1916b [1958]) is Jung's first paper about the method he later came to call active imagination. It has two parts or stages: Letting the unconscious come up and Coming to terms with the unconscious. He describes its starting points (mainly moods, images, bodily sensations); and some of its many expressive forms (painting, sculpting, drawing, writing, dancing, weaving, dramatic enactment, inner visions, inner dialogues). In this early essay he links his method to work with dreams and the therapeutic relationship. The term "transcendent function" encompasses both the...