Symbols of Transformation

Symbols of Transformation is Volume 5 in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, a series of books published by Princeton University Press in the U.S. and Routledge & Kegan Paul in the U.K. It is a complete revision of Psychology of the Unconscious (1911–12), Carl Jung's first important statement of his independent position in psychology.

Jung said in 1911 that the book "laid down a programme to be followed for the next few decades of my life." It covered many and varied fields of study, including among others: psychiatry, psychoanalysis, ethnology and comparative religion. It became a standard work and was translated into Spanish, French, Dutch and Italian as well as English. Its somewhat misleading title in English was The Psychology of the Unconscious. In the foreword to Symbols of Transformation, Jung wrote: "it was the explosion of all those psychic contents which could find no room, no breathing space, in the constricting atmosphere of Freudian psychology…. It was an attempt, only partially successful, to create a wider setting for medical psychology and to bring the whole of the psychic phenomena within its purview."

The book contains material on directed thinking vs. associative thinking (dreaming), the Hieros gamos, and extensive analysis of the fantasies of a Miss Frank Miller, including the symbols of the hero, mother, and sacrifice. Extensive detailed abstracts of each chapter are available online.

Bibliography

• Jung, C.G. (1967). Symbols of Transformation, Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 5, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-09775-6
• Jung, C.G. (1956). Symbols of Transformation, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-13637-2