The notion of the symbol is one of the most elusive concepts in Western thought, and yet its meaning and function has particular significance for analytical psychology and psychoanalysis. It plays a central role in therapeutic work, which seeks to engage with the symbolic process as a means for growth and renewal, but it is understood and formulated very differently by different analysts and writers. This talk will give a contextual introduction to the concept of the symbol within the field of psychotherapy and will revisit and reformulate the concept in light of Jung’s Red Book and Black Book material. It will explore its implications for clinical work, its relevance for the analytic attitude and its role in Jung’s idea of individuation.

Katerina Sarafidou is the Jungian Head of Research and former Jungian Director of the MSc Psychodynamics of Human Development run by Birkbeck College and the British Psychotherapy Foundation. She is an honorary member of the British Jungian Analytic Association and is carrying out academic research at the Warburg Institute. She runs a Jung Reading Group for the British Psychotherapy Foundation, and is one of the three founders of The Circle of Analytical Psychology, which offers a 2-year course of study on Jung’s Liber Novus.