The symbolic function occupies a central and contested position within the depth-psychology corpus, serving as the hinge between instinctual energies and the meaningful forms through which psyche communicates with consciousness. Jung’s foundational distinction—between sign and symbol, between semiotic reduction and genuine symbolic apprehension—establishes the gravitational field around which most subsequent discussion orbits. For Jung, a symbol is always the best possible formulation of a relatively unknown fact; it is never merely an abbreviation for what is already known. This ontological seriousness about the symbol’s generative capacity—its ability to canalize libido, transform instinct, and open toward the transcendent function—is elaborated by Edinger, von Franz, and the Jungian clinical tradition. Merleau-Ponty, writing from phenomenological philosophy, independently approaches the symbolic function as that which ‘breathes life’ into linguistic and perceptual contents—a formulation that resonates surprisingly with Jung’s own language. Hillman complicates the Jungian consensus by arguing that the symbolic function, in abstracting symbol from image, risks impoverishing the imagistic life it claims to honour. Lacan, approaching from structural linguistics, insists that it is the symbol that makes man human, situating the symbolic function within the order of language rather than the psyche’s individuation. The tension between these positions—symbol as transformer of psychic energy, symbol as linguistic structure, symbol as threat to imaginal particularity—gives the concordance entry its richness and its unresolved vitality.