Imago (psychology)

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Imago (lat. "Image") was already a special term in ancient Rome for the portrait-like wax mask with which the corpses were exhibited in the Roman Forum .

In psychological terms, Imago is primarily a term from analytical psychology and was first used by its founder, Carl Gustav Jung .

Imago denotes the inner, mostly unconscious image of a certain person, which lives on in the psyche even after the real encounter with this person . Thus the perception of later relationships is also decisively shaped. Imago is to be understood as a neuropsychological phenomenon that contains the psychological connections that are connected with the "image" of close caregivers.

Formation

The most important adults are the father, mother and sibling images. These unconscious memory images are usually formed in early childhood; they are usually kept relatively unchanged during later life. Parent-adults can also be seen as precursors for what Sigmund Freud called the “ super-ego ” (see also the structural model of the psyche ).

The formation of adults is a normal psychological process. In the case of negative or threatening memory images , however, it can also lead to psychological disorders and be involved in the formation of complexes .

Jung explains the term Imago himself z. B. in his nine lectures, which he gave in September 1912 at Fordham University in New York:

“Of these things that were of the greatest importance to the infantile period , parents play the most influential role. Even if the parents are long dead and could and should have lost all meaning, because the patient's situation may have changed completely since then, they are somehow still present and significant to the patient as if they were still alive. The love and admiration, the resistance, the aversion, the hatred and the rebellion of the sick still cling to images distorted by favor or disapproval, which often no longer have much resemblance to the former reality. This fact has urged me to no longer speak of father and mother directly, but instead to use the term 'imago' of father and mother, since in such cases it is no longer really about father and mother, but just theirs subjective and often completely distorted imagines who lead a shadowy but influential existence in the mind of the patient. "

Jung emphasizes the frequent occurrence of an image due to a “subjective functional complex” with which he assumes an independent mental function of the unconscious in the treatment of unconscious products, which is independent of individual external influences by concrete and very real external objects. By this he means that an interpretation on the subject level should be assumed.

Imago and psychoanalysis

The term imago fits into the central concept of transference neuroses in Freud's psychoanalysis , but it also marks the turning point in the personal relationships between Freud and Jung. Freud understood by imago the idealizing or de-idealizing misunderstanding of a present person, which can occur under the influence of the transference , cf. a. Family novel . What is projected onto the therapist in the therapy of transference neuroses is nothing other than the imago (e.g., the parent's imago). By this, however, Freud means an objectal interpretation . According to Jung, however, the content of the “object imago” is archaic because it represents the impersonal, collective part of the unconscious . They can also be subject to subjective interpretation . The term “object imago” must therefore not be confused with the so-called “object character” of the infantile libido, which is related to the mother .

In his annual report in 1911, as President of the International Psychoanalytic Association , Jung welcomed the announcement of the magazine Imago , which was first published in March 1912 and published by Otto Rank and Hanns Sachs .

Jolande Jacobi emphasizes the function of the imago in the framework of the individuation process ( developmental psychology ) and the resulting need to overcome and loosen up so-called pairs of opposites. Such pairs of opposites are also, according to psychoanalytic theory, e.g. B. the ›good and bad mother image‹, cf. Disorder of wellbeing . According to CG Jung there are a number of other such pairs of opposites that determine development. This also includes the pairs of opposites animus and anima and the contrast between ego and alter ego ( shadow ).

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wilhelm Karl Arnold et al. (Ed.): Lexicon of Psychology . Bechtermünz, Augsburg 1996, ISBN 3-86047-508-8 ; Sp. 963
  2. ↑ a b Uwe Henrik Peters : Lexicon of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Medical Psychology . Urban & Fischer, Munich 6 2007; ISBN 978-3-437-15061-6 , p. 272 (online)
  3. ^ Jean Laplanche / Jean-Bertrand Pontalis : Vokabular der Psychoanalyse (1973), Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1986, p. 229.
  4. ^ Carl Gustav Jung : Collected Works. Walter-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1995, Volume 4: Freud and psychoanalysis. Cape. IX: “Attempt to present psychoanalytic theory”, § 305, p. 159 f.
  5. ↑ Carl Gustav Jung: Psychological types . Collected Works. Walter-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1995, paperback, special edition, volume 6, ISBN 3-530-40081-5 ; P. 506, § 817 f.
  6. ^ Carl Gustav Jung: Collected Works. Walter-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1995, vol. 7, appendix chap. IV “The structure of the unconscious”, §§ 442-521; In this writing a distinction is made between the personal and the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is also referred to as the “object imago” (e.g. § 520, item 1), the personal unconscious is therefore part of the subjective part of the unconscious. Freud's position - writes Jung - focused on infantile neurosis, i. H. limited to the personal unconscious. The font is based on a lecture given by Jung in 1916.
  7. ^ Carl Gustav Jung: Collected Works. Walter-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1995, vol. 18 / I § 1031.
  8. ↑ Imago. Journal of the Application of Psychoanalysis to the Humanities.
  9. ↑ Jolande Jacobi : The psychology of CG Jung . An introduction to the complete works. With a foreword by CG Jung. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt March 1987, ISBN 3-596-26365-4 , pp. 70 f. (final consideration of the mother image in footnote 11), 118, 165