Finding the Poetic Voice in Analysis ¹

This article focuses on the essential nature of language use in analysis and psychotherapy. Jungian analysis focuses significant attention on the impact of image on the analytic process – especially the images contained in dreams and archetypal material used for amplification. There has been considerably less attention focused on the function of language in Jungian analysis. However, several Jungian authors have emphasized the importance of language in the analytic process, especially the creative, artistic, metaphoric use of language to facilitate affectively engaged, transformative experiences in the analysand (e.g., Kugler, 1982; Siegelman, 1990; Lockhart, 2012; Schenk, 2016; Winborn, 2019, 2020, 2022). In this article, I propose that many interventions and interpretations are offered to the analysand in ordinary prose or conceptual language which may not activate imaginal, affective, and somatic associations in the analysand’s psyche – associations which are necessary for transformation to occur. Suggestions are offered for reshaping analytic language into the transformative language of the poet.