How to Uncover the Depth of Your Psyche through Jungian Art Therapy: A 5 Step Process

In this post, I’m going to take you through a five-step Jungian art therapy process. This process will guide you on how to use art as a way to connect with the deeper, more soulful undercurrents of your psyche and how to learn and become familiar with the poetic language of your unconscious—a language that is unique to you.

This process doesn't have to do with art techniques and doesn't require any previous experience in art. Instead, we’ll go more in-depth into how you can use art as a process for uncovering something within yourself and coming to understand yourself in a more meaningful way.

American psychologist James Hillman has said that "the language of psychology is imagistic—it's poetic, pre-dialectic, pre-logical." Carl Jung says similarly in Psychological Types, where he wrote: "The image is not a psychic reflection of an external object but a concept derived from poetic usage and poetic usage is the beginning of the right language for psychology."

Jung himself worked intimately with images. You can see this in his Red Book, which is a deeply personal record of his inner imagery, dreams, and fantasies. He worked on this book during a particularly difficult time in his life—from around 1913 to 1918—after breaking ties with Freud. It was a time of inner upheaval, often referred to as his "dark night of the soul."

Despite the intensity of this period, Jung later said: "The years when I pursued the inner images were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this." One of the reasons he began making images was that he felt he had lost his soul—and he was seeking a way to find it again.

In this way, images can hold a soulful aspect of ourselves. Art can bring us into contact with a numinous core—something deeply sacred within—that is otherwise unreachable by rational means.

Step 1: Building Safety Toward the Creative Process

The first step is to look at your mindset toward art-making. The issue is usually not about whether you can be creative, draw, or paint—because all of us can do this to some extent. The final result may not always look "aesthetic," but that doesn’t matter. This is a private practice we do for ourselves.

So ask yourself: Does it need to be aesthetic? What kind of standards am I holding myself to? When the goal of art-making shifts from making something that looks good to deepening your connection with yourself, the aesthetic outcome becomes far less important.

This mindset gives you permission to create with more ease, confidence, and curiosity. But to do this, we need to feel a certain level of internal safety. The truth is, when we engage in any creative process, we’re also entering the realm of the unconscious—a place where we don’t know what will emerge. That can be scary and requires both courage and a willingness to release control.

To feel safe in this process, it helps to go through it several times—to know that you can enter it and come back. It's also helpful to remember that frustration is a natural part of creativity. Creativity is like breathing: sometimes we feel inspired and almost inflated with creative thoughts and inspirations and other times we feel empty or stuck.

You can think of inspiration as coming from somewhere above, from a divine realm that whispers to us. That inspiration can feel amazing And when we try to bring that inspiration to life through our hands, it will never quite match the original feeling. There will always be a kind of deflation after the initial inflation.

Knowing this helps you sit with frustration instead of fighting it. Creativity comes in cycles—of inflation and deflation, of ease and struggle. Recognizing these cycles builds safety and understanding around your creative process.

Another key to a healthy mindset is curiosity. Everything that comes through your hands onto the paper has a reason for appearing. If you look at what you’ve created with openness, you can ask:

• Why did this image appear today?

• What might it be saying?

• What does it reflect about me?

Even if the image comes with frustration or self-judgment, you can learn from that. The image may then be a valuable reflection of those judgements, frustrations and fears.

So use curiosity to look at your own judgments, fears, and resistances. Curiosity is allowing whatever is to be and looking at it as an observer, 

Step 2: Art as Record-Keeping of the Psyche’s Undercurrents

The second step is the actual making of images. Think of this as keeping a visual diary—a way of recording the deeper, unconscious layers of your psyche.

I’ll share a few ways you can begin, though the goal is to let the process become spontaneous over time. The most important part is to trust the process. Make a mark on the page and let the image surprise you rather than the other way around where you plan and know ahead what you'll do.

Even if you have no experience with art, trust that there is wisdom in you that will guide the process forward.

Here are a few practical tips:

• Start with what you have: paper, pencils, crayons, or even your kids’ art supplies.

• To break the blank page: put on music for five minutes, close your eyes, and move your hands with crayons or pencils. You’ll end up with random marks—but now the page is no longer empty, and it feels easier to continue.

• Work over those squiggles: add layers, use crayons or paints, and let the image evolve.

• Try collage: if drawing feels intimidating, collage can be a gentle way to start. Cut out words or images from old magazines or newspapers that resonate with you. Let the images guide you without planning.

No one can tell you exactly how to do this. It’s something you must experience and develop for yourself. Each step leads to the next. That’s what spontaneous image-making is all about.

Step 3: Reflecting on Where the Psyche’s Energy Is

After you’ve made some images, return to them and observe. What patterns or symbols keep appearing? Are there certain colors, forms, or elements that repeat? Are any images similar to something from your dreams? Take note of both what is there and what is missing. Maybe you never use the color blue—why might that be? 

Also, ask yourself: Which images impact me the most? Which ones bring up the strongest feelings? These are important to pay attention to. Make a note about what you notice. As you do this it's good to notice general patterns rather than details. Focus on where the psyche's energy is. 

Step 4: Amplifying with Personal and Collective Associations

In this step, explore the meanings behind what you’ve found. Let’s say a particular image stood out in step three—spend time writing about it. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just write a few spontaneous words that come to your mind about. For example, if there was a symbol—like a cat—write about what cats mean to you. What do you associate with them?

You can also look at the symbol from a collective viewpoint: What do cats represent in mythology? What roles have they played in different cultures or histories? This is what Jung called amplificaiton, and it enriches your understanding of the symbol and deepens your personal connection to it.

Step 5: Building Bridges and Integrating

The final step is to build a bridge between this  process and your life. What insights from the images, reflections, or symbols relate to your real-world experiences?bYou might have already started making connections during the earlier steps. In this step, reflect and summarize how this process speaks to your life.

But it's good to remember we’re never going to fully understand our images and that’s not the goal. Poet Wyston Auden wrote: "We are lived by powers we pretend to understand." I find this speaks beautifully to the creative process. There is something that lives through us—something we can only partially comprehend but which we will never fully grasp. That mystery is what makes art so powerful.

 If You'd Like to Go Deeper...

If you're interested in this kind of work you're welcome to apply to my online program Unveiling the Unconscious where we immerse in this process with the help of long-term personal mentorship and communal support.