ABSTRACT

Contemporary psychoanalysis needs less reality and more fantasy; what Michael Vannoy Adams calls the 'fantasy principle'. The Fantasy Principle radically affirms the centrality of imagination. It challenges us to exercise and explore the imagination, shows us how to value vitally important images that emerge from the unconscious, how to evoke such images, and how to engage them decisively. It shows us how to apply Jungian techniques to interpret images accurately and to experience images immediately and intimately through what Jung calls 'active imagination'.

The Fantasy Principle makes a strong case for a new school of psychoanalysis - the school of 'imaginal psychology' - which emphasizes the transformative impact of images. All those who desire to give individuals an opportunity to become more imaginative will find this book fascinating reading.

chapter 1|19 pages

The fantasy principle

Imaginal psychology and the dethroning of “Mr. Reality”

chapter 2|20 pages

Compensation in the service of individuation

Phenomenological essentialism and Jungian dream interpretation

chapter 3|17 pages

Jungian post-structural theory

Structures versus constructs, concepts versus images

chapter 4|19 pages

Mythological knowledge

Just how important is it in Jungian (and Freudian) analysis?

chapter 5|55 pages

The “womanning” of Schreber

Catastrophe, creation, and the mythopoeic forces of mankind

chapter 6|18 pages

Dreaming of the Ku Klux Klan

“Race,” culture, and history in psychoanalysis

chapter 7|20 pages

Jung, Africa, and the “geopathology” of Europe

Psychic place and displacement

chapter 8|16 pages

Refathering psychoanalysis, deliteralizing Hillman:

Imaginal therapy, individual and cultural

chapter 9|20 pages

A baby is being eaten

A case of cannibalistic malpractice and suicide

chapter 10|20 pages

The importance of being blasphemous

Profanation versus resacralization