Roberto Assagioli's theory of psychosynthesis was conceived a little bit after Freud, as the latter was a disciple of Freud and Jung at one time. Where he departs from both his contemporaries lies in the fact that Assagioli uses active visualization and other techniques to stimulate the integration of personalities in one framework, as well as to go beyond personality altogether through spiritual awakening. Assagioli has many helpful maps of what this connection between consciousness, the unconscious, the super-conscious and the ego look like when interacting together.
What I am learning from Jean Hardy's book Psychology with a Soul is how much Assagioli was fascinated by symbolic representations of the soul, such as through dream analysis and art, and yet how reluctant he was to promote a passive understanding of the unconscious. As Hardy remarks, "The point of therapy is not only that the person should be able to be more fully himself or herself, but that the energy released and the sense of purpose achieved should be grounded by action, positive action, in the world." (p.63) The point here is to say that the 'energy' released in therapy is not meant to be simply admired, the way one looks at a mirror and admires one's figure, smile, and so on. More so, the idea of working with symbols is to create more meaningful, authentic connections to the world and to even become more part of one's lived experience rather than detaching into an abstract notion of it.
I find this point to be rather significant when it comes to the practice of understanding symbolism in daily life. At one time, I used to believe that the world around me could be exclusively read through the framework of a set of symbolic meanings: for example, Jung's archetypes or Freud's drives. Recently, I have found this way of looking at things to be problematic, in part because it may potentially encourage a kind of passivity in the face of life situations which Assagioli cautions. The other reason is that it tends to turn things into rather generic stereotypes. Anyone observing the world closely will recognize that there is hardly any form which conforms precisely to the patterns we might symbolically read into it. Part of the issue is about the ceaseless change of things: since everything interconnects in some way, there is hardly a single element that behaves according to a predefined form. It would be like expecting a bar of soap to look and smell soapy even when it is thrown into muddy water.
The other aspect is that I can't help but wonder if perhaps I relate differently now to the term 'projection' than I did when I was in my teenage years. As a teenager of 17, I had devoured Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, even accepting as fact that dreams could be scientifically studied as manifestations of fixed or discreet symbolic elements and units of meaning. At that time, being able to understand my experiences in terms of my projections was a very fun exercise, though I wasn't so much aware of how isolating it was at the time. In fact, while it was fun to discern 'grand meanings' in the smallest details of frustration, depression, etc., this kind of symbolic exploration had the unexpected side effect of not allowing me to just inhabit the world without any symbolic understanding of it. It was only later when I started to meditate that I could see that I was capable of directly appreciating the world without so much symbolic meaning-making.
I think that nowadays, I don't see projection in the positive and fun way that I did in my teenage years. I tend nowadays to feel that projections need to be seen through rather than 'enjoyed' as a kind of fun game or way of looking at the world through special glasses. I also see the suffering that can arise when a person confused their symbolic workings of life with the lived experience itself, which is always unpredictable. While I think that the guided visualizations and meaning explorations developed by Assagioli would be interesting for teachers in their self-discovery and personal development, I also share Assagioli's concern not to turn it into an intellectual game. All the meaning making, at the end of the day, is to allow people to integrate more fully into the world of differences and others.
Hardy, Jean. (1987). Psychology with a Soul: Psychosynthesis in Evolutionary Context. London: Arkana.
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