ABSTRACT
Jung presupposes the presence in the patient of a relatively strong ego and that where this prerequisite is not found he says that the practice of active imagination is not to be recommended. There are other reasons, too, why active imagination in the context in which Jung defined it is rarely practised among latter-day analytical psychologists. The reasons are largely a matter of history. The author want to amplify and explain why he think there is a parallel between Jung's idea of active imagination and an essential feature of analysis itself. In his view it is the analyst, in the first instance, and not the patient who needs to have the attitude favourable to active imagination. The difference in author's experience as an analyst in taking part in a kind of active imagination is that he has been more aware than the patient of the four-fold action going on in the transference/counter-transference relationship.
