Energy Flow

Energy flow occupies a contested but generative position across the depth-psychology corpus, bridging thermodynamic metaphor, neurobiological fact, and symbolic elaboration. Jung’s foundational essay ‘On Psychic Energy’ established the governing framework: libido as directionalized psychic energy following gradients of potential, subject to the physical laws of entropy, conservation, and transformation. For Jung and his interpreters, including Stein and von Franz, the flow of energy is not merely metaphor but a structural claim about the psyche’s economy—progression and regression mark its directional movement, and the symbol functions as the primary mechanism of energic transformation. Daniel Siegel’s interpersonal neurobiology reformulates this inheritance in rigorously empirical terms: the mind is defined as an embodied and relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information, wherein such flow constitutes the very substrate of mental life. McNiff extends the concept into creative and somatic registers, where blocked or liberated energy flow determines healing or pathology. Simondon’s philosophy of individuation provides a parallel ontological account in which potential and kinetic energy differentials drive the emergence of form itself. The tensions within the corpus are significant: between psychic energy as metaphor and as measurable substrate; between flow as intrapsychic and as interpersonal or even cosmological; and between flow as spontaneous process and as something requiring intentional regulation.

In the library 26 passages

the various aspects of energy flow can be examined as a possible ‘substrate’ of mind. Energy flow, be it that of the electrochemical flow in our head’s brain or the photons of light reflected from this book to your eyes, has certain properties we’ve seen that can be the stuff of mind.

Siegel argues that energy flow, in all its physical manifestations, constitutes the foundational substrate from which mind, consciousness, and information processing are constructed.

Siegel, Daniel J., The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2020thesis

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The flow of energy has a definite direction (goal) in that it follows the gradient of potential in a way that cannot be reversed. The idea of energy is not that of a substance moved in space; it is a concept abstracted from relations of movement.

Jung establishes the energic standpoint as teleological rather than mechanistic, defining energy flow by directional gradient and relational abstraction rather than by any material substance.

Jung, C. G. and Pauli, Wolfgang, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, 1955thesis

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The flow of energy has a definite direction (goal) in that it follows the gradient of potential in a way that cannot be reversed. The idea of energy is not that of a substance moved in space; it is a concept abstracted from relations of movement.

Jung formally defines energy flow as a goal-oriented, irreversible process grounded in relational potential rather than in material substance, establishing the conceptual basis for psychic energetics.

Jung, Carl Gustav, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960thesis

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This energy flow is not ‘metaphysical’ in the sense of being beyond (meta) the physical world; energy is a fundamental aspect of our common reality—and energy flow is simply not limited to an inner bodily location.

Siegel insists that energy flow is a physical, not merely metaphysical, phenomenon that extends beyond individual bodies to encompass interpersonal and environmental exchange.

Siegel, Daniel J., The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2020thesis

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In progression, libido is utilized for adaptation to life and the world. The person uses it for functioning in the world and can spend it freely on chosen activities. This person is experiencing a positive flow of psychic energy.

Stein explicates Jung’s theory of libidinal progression and regression as the two cardinal directions of psychic energy flow, linking their movement to adaptation, inner conflict, and psychological paralysis.

Stein, Murray, Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introduction, 1998thesis

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The mechanism that transforms energy is the symbol. I mean by this a real symbol and not a sign.

Jung identifies the living symbol as the operative mechanism through which psychic energy is transformed, distinguishing it rigorously from the mere sign which cannot perform this energic function.

Jung, C. G. and Pauli, Wolfgang, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, 1955thesis

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Jung therefore regarded psychic life, exactly as Freud did, as an energic process. In contrast to Freud, however, he did not regard this energy as psychosexual libido but rather as being in itself entirely indefinite as to content.

Von Franz clarifies that Jung’s departure from Freud lies not in rejecting the energic model but in decoupling psychic energy from exclusively sexual content, rendering libido a neutral, formally undefined dynamic force.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, C.G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time, 1975supporting

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Physics had constructed an elaborate theory of energy, with laws of causality, entropy, conservation of energy, transformation, and so on. Looking to these laws of physics and leaving out the mathematical formulas and equations, Jung set out to conceptualize the psyche in a manner that reminds one somewhat of his earlier work in experimental psychology.

Stein situates Jung’s psychic energy theory within its intellectual debt to physics, showing how Jung borrowed the structural laws of thermodynamics as analogical scaffolding for understanding the psyche.

Stein, Murray, Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introduction, 1998supporting

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if we look at them energically, we must think of them only as a means, as transitional stages in the flow of energy. Looked at from this angle, progression and the adaptation resulting therefrom are a means to regression, to a manifestation of the inner world in the outer.

Jung reframes psychological progression and regression not as ends in themselves but as transitional stages within the larger economy of energy flow, each serving the other’s ultimate purpose.

Jung, Carl Gustav, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960supporting

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if we look at them energically, we must think of them only as a means, as transitional stages in the flow of energy.

Jung’s ‘On Psychic Energy’ presents the same energic reframing of progression and regression, underscoring that both psychological movements are subordinate functions within the total flow of energy.

Jung, C. G. and Pauli, Wolfgang, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, 1955supporting

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embracing mental, embodied, and relational processes as involving energy and information flow patterns is a powerful way to blend science with the subjective nature of our human lives.

Siegel advocates for energy and information flow patterns as the integrative lens capable of reconciling scientific rigor with the irreducible subjectivity of human mental experience.

Siegel, Daniel J., The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2020supporting

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to enter that more harmonious FACES flow we discussed in the Introduction of being flexible, adaptive, coherent (resilient over time), energized, and stable—we need to differentiate and link the present moment’s flow of energy.

Siegel connects optimal psychological health to the integrative management of energy flow, arguing that differentiation and linkage of present-moment energy streams are the functional prerequisites of mental harmony.

Siegel, Daniel J., The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2020supporting

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Creativity is an energy that emanates from relationships. As in physics, some materials are better conductors than others, and there are also forces that resist and neutralize the flow of energy.

McNiff maps creative energy onto physical models of conductance and resistance, arguing that relational and environmental conditions either facilitate or obstruct the flow of creative energy.

McNiff, Shaun, Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul, 2004supporting

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Eastern cultures past and present have viewed health as a rhythmic movement of energy through the body. Illness, as discussed in chapter 22, is attributed to blocked energy, and the healing process focuses on restoring its free circulation.

McNiff situates the cross-cultural therapeutic consensus that illness results from obstructed energy flow and healing from its restoration within a broad historical and ethnographic frame.

McNiff, Shaun, Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul, 2004supporting

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Even though we have not yet succeeded in proving that the processes of psychic energy are included in the physical process, the opponents of such a possibility have been equally unsuccessful in separating the psychic from the physical with any certainty.

Jung maintains an agnostic but empirically open position on the relationship between psychic energy flow and physical process, refusing both reductive materialism and a clean psychophysical dualism.

Jung, Carl Gustav, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960supporting

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human culture, as a natural product of differentiation, is a machine; first of all a technical one that utilizes natural conditions for the transformation of physical and chemical energy, but also a psychic machine that utilizes psychic conditions for the transformation of libido.

Jung extends the energic model to culture itself, framing civilization as a transformational apparatus that channels both physical energy and psychic libido through differentiated structures.

Jung, Carl Gustav, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960supporting

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the control device, a mechanism that regulates the flow of energy to the effector. If the level of the effect is too low, the control supplies more energy to the effector, and if the level is too high, the control decreases the supply of energy.

James’s cybernetic description of negative feedback as a regulatory mechanism for energy flow to effectors provides an early systems-theory account of energy regulation relevant to psychological self-organization.

James, William, The Principles of Psychology, 1890supporting

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there can be no controlled and rhythmical release of energy unless there is some sort of ‘engine’ through which this release is effected. All engines are ‘forms-of-power;’ that is, forms which control the generation, concentration and distribution of power.

Rudhyar elaborates an archetypal engineering model of energy flow in which organic and psychic life requires structured ‘forms-of-power’ to generate, concentrate, and distribute energy rhythmically.

Dane Rudhyar, The Astrology of Personality: A Re-formulation of Astrological Concepts and Ideals in Terms of Contemporary Psychology and Philosophy, 1936supporting

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Entry into the dragon is the regressive direction, and the journey to the East (the ‘night sea journey’) with its attendant events symbolizes the effort to adapt to the conditions of the inner world.

Jung reads mythological hero narratives as symbolic representations of libidinal energy flow in its regressive direction, wherein withdrawal from the outer world enables eventual psychic renewal and renewed progression.

Jung, C. G. and Pauli, Wolfgang, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, 1955supporting

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the social, interpersonal nature of the ‘embodied and relational process’ from which the mind emerges, one that also regulates the flow of energy and information.

Siegel grounds energy flow regulation within the interpersonal field, arguing that the social relational matrix is the primary context within which energy and information flow is shaped and governed.

Siegel, Daniel J., The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2020supporting

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energy balance is typically sustained over time suggests that the brain is sensitive to the overall flow of energy, and modifying factors on

Panksepp provides affective neuroscience support for the claim that the brain actively monitors and responds to systemic energy flow as part of its metabolic regulatory function.

Panksepp, Jaak, Affective Neuroscience The Foundations of Human and Animal, 1998supporting

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from an IPNB perspective, can be seen to have flows of energy within us. ‘Enacted’ means that we carry out actions that contain information and influence it

Siegel situates internal energy flows within a broader embodied-enactive-extended framework, showing how the body’s energic processes are inseparable from the mind’s informational and world-directed activities.

Siegel, Daniel J., The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2020supporting

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Since, for our concretistic thinking, the applied concept of dynamics … energy immediately hypostatizes itself as the psychic forces (drives, affects, and other dynamic processes), its concrete character is in my view aptly expressed by the term ‘libido.’

Jung argues that the abstraction of psychic energy flow necessarily concretizes itself in experience as libido—the term that best captures the dynamic, directional character of psychic forces.

Jung, Carl Gustav, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960supporting

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Sexual union ideally was an even exchange of energies, but it soon becomes apparent that its religious practice deviated into a sort of sexual vampirism, in which one partner tried to obtain energies at the cost of the other.

The Daoist handbook documents ritual sexual practices predicated on the directed flow and exchange of vital energies between partners, illustrating a non-Western somatic model of energy flow and its potential pathological distortions.

Kohn, Livia, Daoism Handbook, 2000aside

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Our research in Psychiatry would benefit greatly if we could reduce this jumble of man’s mental-emotional impulses to an exact science of mental-emotional anatomy, coordinated with the physical one. Then a sound Psycho-physiology and even a Pathology of these finer energy fields could be established.

Stone’s Polarity Therapy, cited by Arroyo, proposes that subtle energy fields permeating the body constitute a psychophysiological system whose mapping would ground a rigorous clinical science of mental-emotional energy flow.

Stephen Arroyo, Astrology, Psychology, and the Four Elements: An Energy Approach to Astrology and Its Use in the Counseling Arts, 1975aside

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