ABSTRACT
As a polyvalent and phenomenological psychology, archetypal psychotherapy is interested in both the multiple faces of an experience as well as the particularity of each face. The position taken gives way to a particular style of interpretation while simultaneously covering over alternate paths of investigation. When attention is afforded to imaginal and ego positions, the fixity of consciousness loosens, allowing more psychological fluidity. Like Cerberus guarding the gates of the underworld, the imaginal ego protects the image from the battalions of reduction led by the anxiety-fueled force of literalism. Despite the agreement upon the importance of symbolic capacity, the way in which these images or internal representations are understood varies widely among both Freudian and Jungian branches of psychoanalysis. Hillman has also noted the value of doing nothing to an image but simply allowing it to stay near. The idiosyncratic qualities within which an image appears, its context, mood, and scene, is what distinguishes an image from a symbol.
