The symbol-forming function occupies a position of foundational importance in the depth-psychological corpus, designating the psyche's innate capacity to generate symbols that mediate between instinctual drives and conscious life. Jung's own formulations, elaborated across multiple works, establish the function as simultaneously biological and spiritual: it is the psyche's means of converting raw libido into culturally and psychologically serviceable forms, the mechanism by which opposites are held in productive tension rather than collapsing into one-sided identification. Von Franz extends and clarifies this, treating the symbol-forming function as the 'spiritus rector' of the unconscious—the coordinating principle that brings the parliament of instincts into unified, directed structure, and which she explicitly identifies with the transcendent function as the enabling condition for individuation. Kalsched approaches the concept from a trauma-theory perspective, demonstrating that the symbol-forming function requires adequate relational conditions to operate; when those conditions fail, affect cannot be metabolized into image, and the protective architecture of the self-care system activates in its place. Across these voices, a central tension persists: is the symbol-forming function a natural, quasi-biological endowment, or does it require cultural and relational scaffolding to become operative? The answer the corpus returns is both, making the concept a hinge between nature and culture, body and spirit, individual and collective.
In the library
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It is peculiar to the spirit, or to the symbol-forming function of the psyche, to bring the multiplicity of instinctual drives into a unified structure... in man the symbol-forming function of the unconscious would correspond to the president of such a parliament.
Von Franz defines the symbol-forming function as the psyche's sovereign organising principle, structurally analogous to a coordinating executive that unifies what would otherwise remain a cacophony of competing instinctual drives.
von Franz, Marie-Louise, C.G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time, 1975thesis
The psyche's natural symbol-forming function (if adequately constellated by 'good-enough' parental care) automatically personifies affects in the form of recognizable images.
Kalsched situates the symbol-forming function within a relational and developmental matrix, arguing that its operation is conditional on sufficient early care and that its product—the affect-image—is the foundational unit of psychic representation.
Kalsched, Donald, The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defences of the Personal Spirit, 1996thesis
It is the transcendent function—that is, the symbol-forming spirit—which makes organically possible the transition from a one-sided attitude to a new, more complete one.
Von Franz explicitly equates the symbol-forming function with the transcendent function, framing it as the organic mechanism enabling psychological growth and the overcoming of one-sidedness.
von Franz, Marie-Louise, C.G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time, 1975thesis
symbol-forming function of, 89, 96, 165; role of, in therapy, 54
The index entry in von Franz's study confirms the symbol-forming function as a recurring, thematically indexed concept tied explicitly to the unconscious and to therapeutic practice.
von Franz, Marie-Louise, C.G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time, 1975supporting
I have called a symbol that converts energy a 'libido analogue.' By this I mean an idea that can give equivalent expression to the libido and canalize it into a form different from the original one.
Jung's concept of the libido analogue provides the energic foundation for understanding how the symbol-forming function operates: it transforms and redirects psychic energy rather than merely representing it.
Jung, Carl Gustav, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960supporting
active imagination generally refers to the method alone... it is clear the term 'active imagination' is an analytical method based on the underlying image-producing function of the psyche.
Chodorow, via Papadopoulos, anchors active imagination in the image-producing function of the psyche, treating it as the methodological expression of what the symbol-forming function performs spontaneously.
Papadopoulos, Renos K., The Handbook of Jungian Psychology: Theory, Practice and Applications, 2006supporting
I watched the creation of myths going on, and got an insight into the structure of the unconscious, forming thus the concept...
Jung's retrospective account of observing mythic formation in his own unconscious material describes the symbol-forming function in direct phenomenological operation, providing its experiential warrant.
Jung, Carl Gustav, The Red Book: Liber Novus, 2009supporting
The energy created by the tension of opposites therefore flows into the mediatory product and protects it from the conflict which immediately breaks out again.
Jung's account of the mediatory product illustrates the symbol-forming function's role in capturing and holding the energy of opposing psychic forces, preventing their mutual dissolution.
Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychological Types, 1921supporting
the dream activity of the unconscious has an animating and creatively inspiring effect on consciousness
Von Franz describes dream activity as a manifestation of the symbol-forming function's work of reconnecting differentiated consciousness with its instinctual roots.
von Franz, Marie-Louise, C.G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time, 1975supporting
Jung's remark that 'symbols are shaped energies' holds the key to such an approach: when one looks beyond the outwardly projected God-image, the 'shape' slinks back into the unconscious.
Peterson's reading of Jung's aphorism 'symbols are shaped energies' offers a compressed reformulation of what the symbol-forming function produces: energy that has been given form.
Peterson, Cody, The Shadow of a Figure of Light, 2024aside
We have now reached the conception of a reciprocal action between the two instincts, of such a kind that the operation of the one at the same time establishes and restricts the operation of the other.
Schiller's dialectic of the two instincts, as interpreted by Jung in Psychological Types, provides the structural precondition for the symbol-forming function by establishing the productive tension of opposites.