ABSTRACT
The image is a condensed expression of the psychic situation as a whole, and not merely, or even predominantly, of unconscious contents pure and simple. Although mainly expressing unconscious contents, the image is not solely so as it corresponds with the momentarily constellated conscious situation of the psyche. Jungian conceptualised the image as endowed with a generative power which was psychically compelling and whose function was to arouse. For him, "the image is always an expression of the totality perceived and perceivable, apprehended and apprehensible, by the individual". Being a collection of images and ideas clustered round a core derived from one or more archetypes, complexes are characterised by "a common emotional tone". A complex is not an archetypal image. It is "not just the clothing for one particular archetype but an agglomerate of the actions of several archetypal patterns, imbued with personal experience and affect".
