The dolphin occupies a distinctive and symbolically dense position within the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as a mythological avatar of Apollo, a psychopomp of the sea, and an embodiment of the Self’s proximity to the unconscious. Kerényi establishes the foundational mythological ground: the dolphin as Apollo Delphinios, guide and epiphanic form of the god who conducts his first priests to Krisa, and as the mediating creature who reveals Amphitrite’s hiding place to Poseidon, earning celestial apotheosis as reward. Burkert reads the dolphin structurally within sacrificial ritual, tracing the figure of the dolphin-riding New Year Child (Melikertes/Palaimon) as the mythic return that corresponds to an archaic unspeakable sacrifice at the Isthmus, linking dissolution and renewal. Kalsched, drawing on Kerényi and Pausanias, advances the most explicitly depth-psychological claim: the dolphin encodes the symbolic relationship between the intelligent center of the unconscious psyche — the Jungian Self — and the primal guardianship of the personal spirit. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (via Hesiod) supplies the raw mythologem: Apollo appearing as dolphin, immovable, shaking the ship of his chosen priests. Chodorow’s material adds a clinical dimension, where the dolphin appears in active imagination as a shape assumed by the divine youth in joyful union with the maternal element. The tortoise, fish, and ship function as cognate symbolic images across several texts.