Inquiry about Magda Arnold's "Free Fantasy" technique

[Elissa Rodkey]

Hello colleagues!

This is a request for information particularly for those of you up on Jung/fantasy therapy techniques.

I'm currently working through material on Magda Arnold's approach to psychotherapy, and looking at her projective and fantasy techniques. She uses something she calls a "free fantasy" which seems inspired by Jung's active imagination technique/perhaps a bit of Freudian free association. However there are a few distinctives--the fantasies all seem to start out in a cave or going down stairs and she also takes a story-based interpretation (similar to her approach to the TAT), rather than an archetypes interpretation. She sees this as a way for the therapist to gain insight into the main problem to be solved/the attitudes of the patient which also has the benefit helping the patient come to terms with the therapist's interpretation of their situation (i.e., the patient accepts it because the fantasy arises from themselves rather than being imposed upon them).

 

I've put two pages from two free fantasies from Arnold's papers on Google Drive if you want to get an idea what they look like (one is the start of a fantasy; one is the end of a different fantasy).

The main thing I'm trying to figure out is whether either the technique itself (starting in a cave or going down stairs) or the name ("free fantasy") comes from anyone besides Arnold or if she made it up herself/with her friend John Gasson, S.J. Please let me know if you know of anyone who does something similar in this time period or earlier (late 1940s-1950s). I'm not very familiar with this history, so maybe this is a super common technique? Going downstairs does seem to make logical sense as a way of accessing the subconscious...

So far I've taken a look at this book on Jung's Active Imagination but no mention of these things there (other than a single fantasy by Jung that takes place in a cave but he doesn't prescribe it as method) but maybe there are other Jung writings that do mention this?

https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691015767/jung-on-active-imagination

I also welcome any other suggestions of relevant sources on fantasy/active imagination/projective tests.

Thanks for your help!

Elissa

[Robert Kugelmann]

Elissa,

Look at Laner Cassar (2020). Jung's Technique of active imagination and Desoille's directed waking dream method. Routledge. It looks like Desoille was using the descent into the cave imagery in the 1930s. I don't see any reference to Desoille in The Human Person (1954), however, not even in the chapter by Arnold entitled "Free Association and Free Imagination" in which she mentions "free fantasy" (p. 420), and credits Jung.

Bob

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Robert Kugelmann

Co-Editor, Integratus

University of Dallas