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Junguiana

versión On-line ISSN 2595-1297

Junguiana vol.39 no.1 São Paulo ene./jun. 2021

 

Theatrical process - A journey of the psyche

 

 

Patrícia Teixeira

Psychologist. Master in Clinical Psychology at the Center for Jungian Studies (Núcleo de Estudos Junguianos) at the Catholic Pontifical University of São Paulo (Pontífícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo - PUC/SP). Specialist in Analytical Psychology at PUC/SP. Teacher and theater director at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro - UNIRIO). Method Specialist Stanislavski at the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts (GITS/Moscow). Specialist in Theater Direction at the Célia Helena Center for Arts and Education (Célia Helena Centro de Artes e Educação) of São Paulo. Director of Coexistir de Teatro which proposes the staging of archetypal journeys through myth. Coordinator of the central theme of Training, techniques and practice of the theatrical artist and the Dilogos com a Psicologia Analítica collection, both from Paco Editorial. Professor at the Catholic Pontifical University of Rio de Janeiro (Pontífícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro - PUC/RJ), Casa das Artes de Laranjeiras no Rio de Janeiro (CAL/RJ) and Universidade Paulista (UNIP/SP). Author of expressive techniques: Psycho-historical narratives and Myth Performance with the purpose of symbolic enlargement of contents of the psyche. E-mail: psicofabulas@hotmail.com

 

 


ABSTRACT

This article seeks to expand the theatrical phenomenon, in which, through the reading of analytical psychology, it seeks to investigate the psychic understanding in the elaboration of the subjectivity developed by the theatrical process beyond the mise-en-scène. Thus, it understands the theatrical space as a space for the coexistence of the individual with unknown parts of his personal history in consonance with a larger view of the history of his time. Among so many perspectives between theater and psyche discussed by other scholars in the past, an analytical psychology look is directed towards theatrical work, which, apart from its aches, prosceniums or any delimitations, can offer to the individual the creative contact with a new way of feeling active and belonging to his its space in society and in the world, appropriating of its own history in a symbolic retelling through the personas he wears in the continuous line of dramaturges that cross the past, the present and move towards the future in a spiral of itself.

Keywords: Theater, Creative Process, Subjectivity, Analytical Psychology, Individuation.


 

 

1. Introduction

O poeta é um fingidor

Finge tão completamente

Que chega a fingir que é dor

A dor que deveras sente

(PESSOA, 1972, p. 164)1.

The poem of Fernando Pessoa illustrates the relations between art and life, or theater and men; countless studies and articles look into the relation between Theater and other academic areas, such as Politics, Education, Sociology, Anthropology, Philosophy, Religion and Psychology, more specifically the Psychodrama2. Even if different in their objectives and methods, they have as protagonist the men in action; an action pervaded by an esthetical sense of oneself and the surroundings and, like this, one can discover oneself and create and recreate reasons to be and to act.

Considering the relation between Theater and Psychology, metaphorically, we could relate the verb "to act" to two different meanings: the theatrical and the psychological. In the Theater, to act means to be in action; whereas in Psychoanalysis, this verb is used when a patient frequently reacts in a defensive manner to a situation one finds difficult to be exposed to. The theatrical experience may reflect a process in which acting on the stage could integrate unknown parts of the subject, favoring a more creative way of acting3 in life. Theater can be understood as a rehearsed to the rerun of the psyche in one's life through a process of theatrical acting of the other, which can reveal the psyche itself.

The word "theater" comes from the Greek word "theastai", which means "a place from which you can see", "viewpoint". At first, the word "theater" was used to designate the place where the theatrical performances took place and, after, it was used to name one of the languages of Art: theater per se, in other words, a specific form of art which is conveyed to the public by the actors. "Teatro é por essência presença e potência de visão - espetáculo - e enquanto público, somos antes de tudo espectadores, e a palavra grega, teatro, não significa senão isso: miradouro, mirador"4 (ORTEGA Y GASSET, 1991, p. 32).

In ancient times, the place where the representation took place was called "odeion", auditorium. According to Magaldi (2002), in the terminology of the scenic places in Ancient Greece, "teatron" corresponded to the audience, which was counterpoised to a kind of orchestra and encompassed it as the three sides of a trapezium or a semicircle, offering a privileged esthetical dimension for contemplation and critical perception.

When addressing, metaphorically, this ancient meaning of the word "theater" - viewpoint - it is possible to establish identifying connections to the Jungian view of the same subject to catch a glimpse of the same proposal, even if with other objectives: the psychoanalytical view could offer to the individual under analysis a new place from which one could see, a new esthetic of life out of a critical confrontation of the ego. Even though the ego, many times, believes itself as knowing and conscious of oneself, in the therapeutic process, it is confronted by the unknown panoramic spectacle of one's life and becomes conscious of its unknown parts.

As from my experience as a teacher and as a theater director, my look as psychologist has tried to understand more deeply, under the perspective of Analytical Psychology, the possibilities of creativity in the making of theater. It is important to address my work as director of Coexistir Theater Company, in which I develop part of a creative process that is progressively constructed through the actualization of the symbolic language of mythology in the creation of the dramatic arts, which stands out by experiencing the myths in the stage, in which these same myths, the Company and the public, establish a dialogue with existential and social themes.

The objective of this article is to present the theatrical phenomenon, its history and the interpretation of theater itself as a way of amplifying psychic contents of those implicated in the artistic process and, also, its reception by the public, which becomes co-author of the play. The theatrical process, as from the psychoanalytical perspective, might enable the conscious contact with as archetypical experience, which makes easier both the integration of unknown aspects of the self and the individuation process. In the sections below, some relations of theater as mythical, political and social phenomenon will be presented, as well as the Carl Gustav Jung's view of the creative process and the considerations over the process of theatrical group from a psychoanalytical point of view.

 

2. Theater - a mythical, political and social phenomenon

To understand the scenic experience of theater in life, we come across with the truthfulness of the theatrical act in context of religious ceremonies, first, in the ancient oriental civilizations. In India, since 16th century BC, the paternity of the liturgical theater was attributed to the god Brahma. In Ancient China, Buddhism was used to present itself through a religious theater. In Ancient Egypt, the most important ritualized themes concerned the resurrection of Osiris and the death of Horus (MICHELET, 2018).

Later, in Ancient Greece, the cradle of occidental civilization (5th century BC), the connection between theater and religion was also present in the celebrations of Dionysus, when the myth was updated through the rite, what later originated the birth of tragedy in the Greek theater. Tragedy, the first dramatic genre, has its origins in rites dedicated to Dyonisus in which the people would get drunk in an unholy and relaxed way to reach out to the god that was being celebrated.

According to Pavis (2007):

Em O Nascimento da Tragédia (1872), Nietzsche [...] visa destacar as forças impulsivas e moldantes da criação artística segundo as quais toda arte evolui. [...] O dionisíaco não é a anarquia das festas e orgias pagãs; ele é consagrado à embriaguez, às forças incontroladas do homem que renascem quando da primavera, à natureza e ao indivíduo reconciliados5 (p. 22).

On their way, men come across God and his representation and, through the rite, update the force within them. When incarnating Dionysus, men would find the revelation of their own creative source. According to Hillman (1997), Dionysus is the archetypical image of life, which is always being renewed. This life is renewed every moment the actor/actress shares his/her creative process with the public. The fact that men incarnate men represents a basic data of anthropology, another area connected to the theater and that tries to understand the social cast in which men are inserted.

We could point out two areas that made use of theater to reach their purposes in Ancient Greece: politics and education. Theater was born in the Greek vineyards within a ritualistic context and was then used by the Greek polis in a spectacular way. Hence, the denomination "spectacle", whose objective was to educate the Greek people (GAZOLLA, 2003).

Concerning Philosophy, theater was analyzed by two of the most important Greek thinkers whose work arrived to our hands: Plato (428/ BC - 347 BC) e Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC). Plato, disciple of Socrates, the founder of the Academia, wrote about themes such as ethics, politics, metaphysics, and the theory of knowledge. According to Bolognesi (1999), Plato criticized the art of representation:

No segundo livro da República, Platão conclui que as narrativas épicas não são boas (não devem ser) para a educação das crianças. Há, pode-se dizer uma "razão de Estado" em Platão. [...] A verdade, a moral e o útil devem imperar sobre a narrativa épica. Não há, em Platão, espaço para o prazer artístico. [...] Para Platão, poesia e retórica se equivalem. Ambas operam com falsos valores. Elas dominam a técnica particular e não o saber universal. Ao contrário do conhecimento autêntico, elas não geram ações. Nisso consiste, precisamente, a "razão de Estado" que fundamenta a reprovação da poesia. Os poetas não estão preocupados com o pensamento. Neles imperam as paixões. A ação trágica deve provir de um valor ético superior, assim como a ação dos homens provém das formas imutáveis, pela razão que a traduz, que a interpreta. Nesse itinerário, os homens e suas almas são apenas intermediários. Mas, antes de tudo, a tragédia é hostilizada porque ela está no terreno oposto ao da verdade6 (p. 1).

Pavis (2007, p. 404), in his interpretation of Aristotle, says that the artist provokes the spectator "[...] a piedade e o terror que a tragédia cumpre a purgação (catarse) das paixões. Há compaixão e, portanto, identificação quando presumimos que também poderíamos ser vítimas dela, ou alguém dos nossos, e que o perigo parece próximo"7.

It is important to think that theater was born in the moment the Greek government created its laws, and, it became the arena of the discussions about the building of the Greek citizen, being used by the governors as a tool to manipulate the people that, confined to an arena, as spectator, or in the stage as actor, could not break the measures proposed by the gods and the governors.

In colonial Brazil, the Theater of José de Anchieta proposed a form of political and religious education through the process of acculturation of the indigenous people, in other words, a way of domesticating them according to the precepts of the Portuguese Crown and the Catholic Church (VASCONCELLOS, 2009).

 

 

According to Rosenfeld (1976, p. 31), "o ator apenas executa de forma exemplar e radical o que é característica fundamental do homem: desempenhar papéis no palco do mundo, na vida social. [...] O homem - disse [George] Mead - tem de sair de si para chegar a si mesmo, para adquirir um Eu próprio"8. In search of performing personas in order to find one's essence, the actor would play the primordial function of men. The word "persona" refers to the masks the Greek used in the Greek Theater. Through them, the actor became the spokesperson of the collective psyche. Jung (1875-1961) used the concept "persona"9 in Analytical Psychology as a commitment between men and the society they belong to.

In Greece, more specifically in the city of Epidaurus, where we find the greatest center of pursuit of healing, which aimed the totality of the human, there was a small theater, the Odeon; a stadium for sports competitions, a gymnasium for physical exercises, a library, a sleeping room, and another to listen to music and poems. The conglomerate had for objective spiritual elevation and the improvement of those that were in the pursuit of healing (VERNANT; VIDAL-NAQUET, 2005).

According to Solié (1985) the path to cure could be reached through self-knowledge, by reaching the conscience of oneself, the starting point for the transformation of feelings and reactive actions into healthy attitudes. People were searching for a profound tune, not only the individual with himself, but also with a divine calling - a divine that is also human, with which one should reconnect through thoughts, feelings, and healthy and constructive actions, pure and original.

Therefore, we can infer that the word "theater" is surrounded by countless paths, as great or equal to its possibilities, in whose epicenter the image of Dionysus, the mask-god dances the impermanence of life itself in the ephemeral scene of the theater and that teaches us how fleeting we are. A viewpoint located in another healing center, a place fertile with connections of the individual with its own archetypical potency. Similarly, both in Psychology, with Moreno's psychodramatic approach, and theater with Augusto Boal's10 Theater of the Oppressed, we propose the Centre at Epidaurus to rediscover, using theatrical language as both experiential and reflexive possibilities. In the city of Epidaurus, we can find the possibility of a 'place where men can reconsider themselves' where the greatest concern would be the integration of the physical, spiritual and psychological aspects of men. We can glimpse at the theatrical process as a path in which subjectivity can be understood. The individual, as narrator and character of countless archetypical dramaturges, retells oneself, therefore dramatizing one's healing process, in addition to canalizing all the creative material of the unconscious. The theatrical space can be seen as one of the great intercessors of both the conscious and the unconscious, as of the meeting between actors and public, who, in a timeless way, recognize themselves as owners of the same divine and human essences. Dionysus is present as, with him "os artistas são as antenas da raça"11 (POUND, 1990, p. 77), those that perform the interaction among our tuneless aspects through their artistic process.

O teatro possibilita à nossa psique saber o fim das histórias. Sendo espelho de nosso psiquismo interno, o teatro sintetiza a vida em miniatura. A psique dá ao teatro a matéria e o teatro devolve à psique a forma para vida. É como se nas histórias representadas pudéssemos ser avisados pelo teatro: "Acordem para aquilo que estão fazendo, isso vai dar em sangue, em guerra, em morte, em perda, em separação12 (GAMBINI; STIRNIMAN, 2005, p. 3).

This is the reason why the actor, who is considered the unveiled of hidden truths, is under the inspiration of Dionysus. Thus, taken from their own lives and reinserted in other realities, with their feet on the border between that which is conventional, normal and madness, the actor is the one that touches the sensible spots of men.

 

3. Jung, the creative process and the theater

The creative process presumes the contact with symbols, which, according to express a psychic integrity that is, at the same time, personal, cultural and archetypical. The symbols are represented by images and experiences that comprehend conscious and unconscious aspects, being the best possible expression of something relatively unknown. They are part of our existence and present themselves under an experiential form, what makes it impossible to exhaust their meaning allowing multiple relations and analogies (JUNG, 1991).

Theater, as an intercessor between men and their life processes, necessarily works with the psyche and the body through symbols. Analytical Psychology transcends this dichotomy between psyche and body that erupts in urgency of something unconscious that has not been fully integrated. According to this perspective, the symbol is not reduced to the vision of the reductionist model that comprehends a casual issue; on the contrary, it reflects a set of relations between the conscious and the unconscious that form the integrity of the individual.

According to Jung, the vital activities of the human being are expressed psychically through images, being the psyche itself formed by a set of images that constitute a structure rich in meanings (JUNG, 1986).

We can think the theatrical process as a space where symbols are incited around an archetypical theme to be developed - the theme of the spectacle. The archetypical experience of the theatrical process may make an unprecedented path for the construction of the spectacle possible, a "creative becoming" in which the director offers space so the actors can express their fantasies, images and desires. This way, the symbolic language pervades the creative process and practice in which the actor creates the mediation of oppositions and materializes the relation between conscious and unconscious.

The symbol in the essence of the creative process that crosses the actor, being able to put together one's unknown parts, to empower one's acting and to liberate oneself of one's own paradigms in life, reflected synchronically on the scene. However, for the intercession of the symbol between conscious and unconscious to take place, it is necessary a participative and receptive attitude on the behalf of the actor, which, like this, allows the operation of "transcendent function"13 of the symbol, in other words, its apprehension.

The archetypes may represent the integrity of the matrix of all characters and open the actor's multiple psychic and corporeal universes, offering new possibilities of body expression, contributing; therefore, to the dynamization of the potency that crosses it.

Theater enables the dialogue with the unconscious and, synchronically, one may access the contact with the actor's images, fantasies and symbols connected to the theme of the spectacle, collaborating to the elaboration of one's internal processes and, thus, amplifying the way one acts on the construction of the scenic work. As from this perspective, practically, the director may propose that the actor bring images about the sensations caused by the theme of the spectacle, in search of exploring the phantasies as a symbolic device that acts between the theatrical material and the unconscious.

The theatrical staging is structured from a creative and intuitive chaos that configures itself each every experimentation that the unconscious of the group of actors constellates. However, the transparency of the process also carries its obscurity: that which is rejected by the group for being unknown, fearful or unacceptable. Favoring the integration of these shadow aspects, allowing a less rigid experience with the persona, is to be able to elaborate more creative ways both for the individual and the collective. The more the staging invests on the establishment of a relation of alterity with the group, the smaller is the risk of rejection. Listening is essential so the symbols, images and experience of each actor that are connected to the theme can find space to constellate, because, only like this, they can be given back to the actors through their own personas - embedded with their respective shadows -, which they will build in the theatrical process. The theatrical process may favor the integration of different aspects of the shadow in the development of the individuation process.

The concepts that refer to the psycho creative processes were named in a conference in 1922 and were later clarified in another conference in 1930, in which Jung presented the concepts of psychological creation and visionary creation as two ways of creating that determine the production of a creative work. As for the psychological creation for Jung (2009a, par. 139), the individual é identical to the creative process and perceives oneself as true author of that which one creates because one feeds on personal experiences, on that which can be found within the borders of what is apprehensive and assimilate, making the creation conditioned to its own time. Creativity is a matter subordinated to the will of its creator, a product of one's determination.

On the other hand, as for the visionary creation, Jung (2009b, par. 141) points out that the creative work imposes itself bringing its own form and content. Is it, the subject does not identify with the creative attitude and is conscious that one is subdued to a creative impulse that is foreign, to a will that is not one's own. Thus, the creative impulse is comprehended by Jung as a living essence that is present in the soul of men.

Ele atua como um complexo autônomo, ou seja, ele brota do inconsciente de maneira involuntária, pois leva uma vida psíquica independente do controle arbitrário da consciência e aparece de acordo com seu valor energético e sua força. Portanto, o poeta que se identifica com o processo criativo é aquele que diz sim, logo que ameaçado por um 'imperativo' inconsciente14 (JUNG, 1971, p. 64).

According to Whitmont (2000), the complex presents itself as an autonomous pattern of behavior and emotion. It is an energetic center filled with personal issues that make it sometimes unpleasant and disturbing, but it is not necessarily negative, because this depends on the ego's capacity of assimilation. The complex has an archetypical core from which derives its energy and that, while personal and collective image, presents benevolent and renewing characteristics.

In this sense, creativity, understood as an autonomous complex, refers to the individual's strong and authentic psychic energy, which has the power to bring into conscience aspects of the shadow, whether they are its difficulties or non-recognized potencies.

According to Jung (1971), an autonomous complex is that which encompasses, first, the psychic contents that are developed unconsciously and that erupt into conscience when their strength reaches a limit. This means that these contents are not under the control of conscience, neither for inhibition nor arbitrary reproduction. The autonomous complex appears and disappears according to an inherent tendency that is independent of conscience.

The creative process while autonomous process presents this characteristic of being something that cannot be fully controlled by conscience:

Este é o segredo da ação da arte. O processo criativo consiste (até onde nos é dado segui-lo) numa ativação inconsciente do arquétipo e numa elaboração e formalização na obra acabada. De certo modo a formação da imagem primordial é uma transcrição para a linguagem do presente pelo artista, dando novamente a cada um a possibilidade de encontrar o acesso às fontes mais profundas da vida que, de outro modo, lhe seria negado15 (JUNG, 1971, p. 71).

In the creative process of the actors at Coexistir Theater Company, one tries to enter the Chaos, simply letting oneself feed of the unconscious images and translate them into a language universally recognized, without reducing it to one's personal reality and singular form of comprehension. Even though the creative impulse is an autonomous complex, it is considered that, in a way, it can also be unleashed through bodily work. Accessing the creative potential of the unconscious, it is possible that the staging might also be able to experiment a work that does not only have an esthetic appreciation, but that also provokes the spectator in its own process of self-knowledge. The actor, in its turn, may also transform the primordial images of one's creative impulse within theatrical language to touch the spectator's deepest areas. According to Jung (2009a) the artist as creator has access to something beyond one's personal life, an impersonal reality, archetypical.

Todo homem criador sabe que o elemento involuntário é a qualidade essencial do pensamento criador. E porque o inconsciente não é apenas um espelhar reativo, mas atividade produtiva e autônoma, seu campo de experiência constitui uma realidade, um mundo próprio16 (JUNG, 2015, p. 75).

Considering that the creative thought emerges autonomously, coming from a great unconscious matrix that contains all the potency of who we are, it is important that the theatrical process find triggers that can activate the process of each artist, nourishing one's creativity and providing the continence, so inspiration can amplify the contents of the psyche, feeding the demands of the soul in search for the experience of integrity.

 

4. Conclusion

Even though a reflection on the theatrical process was presented here, it is a fact that the exploration and investigation of a universe such mysterious as this of the creative process is endless.

The representation of signs and symbols through art, since the beginning of time, translates men themselves in the insatiable search of speaking about oneself to the world and, then retelling it to oneself. Concerning the relation of telling something to the other that is observing, the theatrical phenomenon is instituted. Therefore, theater emerges in the encounter between the one who performs and the one who watches. The theatrical act, equally, configures encounters in other areas in which men are protagonists of the human spectacle of the actor-creator, in which the organic sources of one's existence are explore, thus, recreating other stages for the making of theater. It is in the making of theater that we become the creators of new possibilities of experiencing the encounter provided by the theater, when men revisit their lives through countless known and recognized characters.

Theater is a resource that allows the amplification of the look over the individual and the comprehension of one's subjectivity, allowing the revelation of intimate issues and the amplification of the conscience, based on a Psychoanalytical an interpretation. In this sense, this article introduces the idea of experimental theater not only for actors and directors interested in deepening their artistic practice, but also for psychologists that wish to learn and work with theatrical techniques within a Jungian perspective.

Theater is an experience that can instigate men and, many times, to incite the encounter with unprecedented thoughts and emotions in what concerns conscience. The mise-en-scène of theatrical process might, also, become a way to ease the individuation process, which brings men into contact with so many "other selves" on stage, making a more creative performance in life possible. It seems to us that beyond the aisles, backstage, stage and audience, the making of theater puts men agreeing with their Self17, with the experience that moves their lives as latent potency.

 

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Received on: 04/01/2021
Revised on: 06/25/2021

 

 

1 "The poet is a pretender/ He pretends so thoroughly/ That he even pretends to be pain/The pain that he actually feels" (Our translation).
2 Theory and psychological technique developed by (1889-1974) that uses theater to elaborate the individual's psychic issues.
3 According to Freud (1856-1939), acting would be the act through which the subject, under the dominium of one's unconscious desires and phantasies, lives these same desires and phantasies in present time with a feeling of presence that is very much alive insofar as one does not know its origin and repetitive character (LAPLANCHE; PONTALIS, 1991).
4 "Theater is, in its essence, presence and potency of vision - spetache - and, as public, we are beforehand spectators, and the Greek word, theater, means nothing but this: viewpoint" (Our translation).
5 "In The Birth of Tragedy, (1872), Nietzsche [...] intends to highlight the impulsive and molding forces of artistic creation according to which every form of art evolves. [...] The Dyonisian is not the anarchy of pagan parties and orgies; it is consecrated to drunkenness, to the uncontrolled forces of men which are reborn in spring, to nature and the individual reconciled" (Our translation).
6 "In the second book of the Republic, Plato reckons that the epic narratives are not good (or shouldn't be) for the education of children. There is, one might say, a "raison d'État" in Plato. [...] what is truth, moral and useful should reign over the epic narrative. In Plato, there is no space for artistic pleasure. [...] For Plato, poetics and rhetoric are equal. Both operate with fake values. They master a particular technique instead of universal knowledge. Unlike authentic knowledge, they do not generate actions. Precisely in these consists the "raison d'État" that is the foundation of the reproof of poetry. Poets are not worried about thinking. In them, passion reign. The tragic action must come from a superior ethical value, as the actions of men come from immutable forms, by the reason that translates and interprets it. However, beforehand, tragedy is harassed because it lies in the opposing ground of truth" (Our translation).
7 "[...] the piety and terror that tragedy fulfills the purge (catarse) of passions. There is compassion and, therefore, identification when we presume that we, or one of ours, could be its victims and that danger seems close by" (Our translation).
8 "the actor just executes in an exemplar and a radical way that which is a fundamental characteristic of man: performing roles on the stage of the world, in social life [...] One - said [George] Mead - must get out of oneself to reach oneself, to acquire one's own Self" (Our translation).
9 According to Jung (2008, p.143), the persona is nothing but a mask of the collective psyche, a mask that comes off as an individuality, trying to convince the others and oneself that it is individual, when, in reality, it is nothing but a role or a performance through which the collective psyche [...] It is a commitment between the individual and the society about that that someone "seems to be": name, title, function and this or that.
10 Augusto Boal (1931-2009): theater practitioner, drama theorist and political activist. Founder of the Theater of the Oppressed, a theatrical approach used in radical movements and popular left-wing education. City councilman at Rio de Janeiro from 1993 to 1997, where he developed the legislative theater.
11 "the artists are the antenna of the race" (Our translation).
12 "Theater allows our psyche to know the end of stories. Being a mirror of the internal psychism, theater synthesizes life in miniature. The psyche gives the theater the matter and the theater gives back to the psyche the molds for life itself. It is as if in the stories performed we could be warned by the theater: "Wake up to what you are doing, this is going to end up in blood, in war, in death, in loss, in separation" (Our translation).
13 Jung (2013), in Nature of the Psyche, defines the transcendent function as the "union between conscious and unconscious contents" (Our translation).
14 "It acts as an autonomous complex, in other words, it sprouts from the unconscious involuntarily because it leads a psychic life that is independent of the arbitrary control of conscience and that seems to be agreeing its energetic value and strength. Thus, the poet who identifies with the creative poet is that which says yes as soon as he is threatened by an unconscious imperative" (Our translation).
15 "This is the secret about the action of art. The creative process consists (until where it is possible to follow it) in an unconscious activation of the archetype and in an elaboration and formalization of the finished work. Somehow, the configuration of the primordial image is a transcription into the artist's present language, giving, once again, each the possibility to find the access to the most profound sources of life, which, in another way, would be denied" (Our translation).
16 "Every creative man knows that the involuntary element is the essential quality of creative thought. And, because the unconscious is not only a reactive mirroring, but a productive and autonomous activity, its field of experience constitutes a reality of its own, its own world" (Our translation).
17 Self refers to the center, to the source, of all archetypal images and of all innate psychic tendencies for the acquisition of structure, order and integration (STEIN, 2000, p. 206).

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