ABSTRACT
Using the metaphor of a rocket shot into space, the author makes a distinction between two phases in psychological work which correspond to the phases defined by Jung himself as “analytical” and “synthetic”. Each of these phases is described in reference to changing styles of the setting, the first corresponding to a sort of “analytical setting” in the traditional sense, while the second to an “imaginal setting”. Active Imagination, with all the ethical implications proposed by Jung and von Franz, is an integral part of this second phase in which the encounter and dialogue with the inferior function of the personality is central in our search for wholeness and meaning, and during which consciousness itself takes on an ever-greater symbolic orientation.
