The �Great and Puzzling Problem� of Symbols
In this letter to Smith Ely Jelliffe (1866�1945), an American physician, teacher, medical editor, and pioneering psychotherapist, Jung discusses schizophrenic patients and includes examples of drawings they produced. The images contain what Jung termed �Bruchlinien,� breaking lines that split the pictures, apparently indicative of the patients� mental states. Jung here wonders whether �unconscious symbolization has a meaning or aim at all or whether it is merely reactivated stuff, i.e., relics of the past.� However, in the Red Book Jung wrote that �if one accepts a symbol, it is as if a door opens leading into a new room whose existence one did not previously know . . . .Salvation is a long road that leads through many gates. These gates are symbols.�
In this letter to Smith Ely Jelliffe (1866�1945), an American physician, teacher, medical editor, and pioneering psychotherapist, Jung discusses schizophrenic patients and includes examples of drawings they produced. The images contain what Jung termed �Bruchlinien,� breaking lines that split the pictures, apparently indicative of the patients� mental states. Jung here wonders whether �unconscious symbolization has a meaning or aim at all or whether it is merely reactivated stuff, i.e., relics of the past.� However, in the <em>Red Book</em> Jung wrote that �if one accepts a symbol, it is as if a door opens leading into a new room whose existence one did not previously know . . . .Salvation is a long road that leads through many gates. These gates are symbols.�