Symbol and Sign

Symbol and sign designates the technical distinction Jung drew between two kinds of meaningful form that the careless usage of the word symbol habitually conflates. A sign stands for something already known — it is a conventional designator, translatable without remainder — while a symbol is the best possible expression of something that cannot be fully known, a form that carries more meaning than can be conceptually discharged.

The distinction matters clinically and philosophically. When the analyst reads a dream image as a sign for a biographical referent already known (the fire in the dream means the rage the patient has repressed), the image has been reduced and its force extinguished. When the analyst treats the image as a symbol — holding its meaning open, letting it amplify against mythological and alchemical parallels, staying with the energy it carries — the psyche is permitted to do its own work of integration through the symbol itself. The distinction governs Jung’s entire theory of dream-work, active imagination, and the therapeutic use of religious and mythological material. It is formalized in [[jung-psychological-types|Psychological Types]] and elaborated throughout the later work. See symbol and transcendent-function.

Relationships

• symbol
• transcendent-function
• jung-psychological-types