jungian's Podcast

JUNG PODCAST #14 - FAIRY TALES 1This episode deals with a new and critical issue in our study of Analytical Psychology, that of the interpretation of Fairy Tales. You may ask why we should address this issue? Well, in interpreting the Fairy Tale, we get to examine an example of what von Frantz says is ‘the purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes.’ As a dream is a pure example of symbolic material, but more often about the contents of the personal unconscious, the Fairy Tale represents the contents of the collective unconscious, the archetypes. The other critical issue in the interpretation of Fairy Tales is that we see in the tale an example of an individuation process. Working with Fairy Tales takes our knowledge of the psychodynamics and structures of the psyche to a deeper level and, together with the interpretation of dreams and art, enables us to interpret a wide variety of symbolic material such as movies, literature and expressive art.