C. G. Jung and Tina Keller: A study of active imagination

This dissertation in the history of psychology investigates C. G. Jung's psychotherapeutic technique of active imagination, an altered state of consciousness in which images from the unconscious are brought to the surface and expressed artistically as a way to work through and give form to psychic energy released during the process of individuation. As a case study, the research highlights the life work of Tina Keller, a physician who was intimately involved with the technique while in analysis with Jung and his primary associate, Toni Wolff, from 1915--1928. Active imagination is investigated through an examination of primary documents, both published and unpublished, in English and German.; Chapter 1 argues that the proposed dissertation research constitutes an original and valuable contribution to the literature on the history of psychology because it summarizes Jung's own writings on the subject and provides heretofore unpublished data on Tina Keller's experiences of analysis with Jung and Wolff during the formative years of analytical psychology; Chapter 2 discusses historical and archival research methods based solely on the evidence derived from primary source materials, and determines in what way these methods are best suited to this dissertation's inquiry; Chapter 3 reviews the primary literature consisting of Jung's and Keller's writings on the topic of active imagination as well as reviewing the secondary literature on active imagination written primarily by Jung's followers; Chapter 4 outlines the state of psychotherapeutics at the turn of the twentieth century to situate Jung's and Wolff's practices of active imagination in other researches concurrently undertaken in France, England, Switzerland, Germany, and the United States; and Chapter 5 presents biographical information on Keller's life and details of her analyses with Jung and Wolff, emphasizing the influence of the technique of active imagination on the development of her personality and her work toward psychological individuation. This dissertation concludes that the practice of active imagination was a vital tool of self-development employed by Tina Keller during her analyses with Jung and Wolff and throughout the course of her long life.