Imagery as a Doorway to the Unconscious

It's common for people to struggle to “find” the right words. 

This happens in relationships, the workplace, and therapy. 

Instead of explaining their thoughts, someone may reply 

“I don’t know.”

Or, “It’s hard to explain.”

Or someone may start to share but stop, feeling words aren’t enough to capture the essence they want to describe.

In these moments, the mind can use imagery as an ally.

Symbolism has long helped people express themselves. Myths, dreams, cave paintings, ritual objects, and sacred art are all examples. They offer nonverbal ways to visually represent internal and external experiences.

The Image as a Bridge

Depth psychology recognizes that the mind communicates through symbols. Dreams are a beautiful example of symbolic imagery. Images and symbols that represent emotional content appear in our dreams as places, animals, people, and scenes, and communicate to us through these forms.

Marion Woodman said, “Images connect body and soul.” This connection is more than a metaphor; it is something we all experience.

An image passes beyond thought and impacts us through sensation. The body reacts before we even start to interpret or analyze it. For example, a client describing a dream of drowning might feel their chest tighten. A painting of a cracked vessel appearing in a dream can evoke grief without words. A recurring dream figure might encapsulate years of unspoken relationship experiences in a single image.

Images are shortcuts for the mind. They help us reach parts of ourselves hidden deep within. An image can evoke feelings in a way that many paragraphs would not, and even then, words might not express those emotions at all. 

Why Symbols Are Efficient

Language is linear and moves in a straight line, word after word. Language puts lived experiences into order. Symbols are multicactorial and simultaneous.

A single image can represent paradox, trauma, longing, contradiction, and possibility simultaneously.  A symbol doesn’t just sum things up; it holds them.

That’s why, in therapy, symbols can serve as a great ally. Dreams and metaphors can tap into unconscious material in ways that direct questions miss. The unconscious mind reveals itself through images, sensations, bits of memory, and feelings. Symbols are the natural language of the unconscious. The mind doesn’t organize itself like a slide deck. 

The Body Communicates Before the Mind Registers the Message

When Woodman described images as a bridge between body and soul, she was expressing that imagery is embodied. Images communicate with the core of our being. Symbols are visual, yet they evoke feelings. 

Symbols stir up sensations in the body. They might bring warmth, tension, a sense of opening or closing, or even tears. Before meaning is put into words, our bodies react. This is one reason creative approaches like art, movement, and active imagination help us reach deeper experiences. An image can represent and hold emotions that have not been translated into spoken language. 

When someone says, “I feel like I’m carrying a stone,” that metaphor does more than express feelings; it carries weight, history, heaviness, and exhaustion all at once. The mind uses images because they convey a lot of information without words.

Symbols as Integrative Forces

Symbols also serve a regulatory function, representing opposites. 

A Phoenix rising represents destruction and rebirth.

Water can signify danger or purification.

A labyrinth can represent confusion or a pilgrimage simultaneously.

Instead of viewing experiences as either good or bad, symbols represent both uncertainty and paradox. 

When a client connects with a powerful image, it can help them reshape their story without completely dismantling it. A symbol can feel cohesive, while explanations can make things feel more broken apart.

Images in Modern Practice

In modern therapy, the focus remains on language, instead of symbolic imagery.  Therapists often work to clarify problems and change thought patterns. These are helpful, but often don’t tap into the root cause of suffering. Bringing images into therapy, through dreams, art, tracking metaphors, or exploring symbols, can reach deeper layers of the person’s being.

Images can be both diagnostic and reparative.

When Language Doesn’t Capture Feelings

Some experiences transcend words, love, longing, early relationship wounds, grief, and shame. In some situations, pushing for words to explain can increase frustration.

But when we ask, “If this feeling were an image, what would it be?” we open up to symbolic imagery and things shift internally.

The psyche often responds immediately.

A bridge.

A locked door.

A storm.

A small scared animal.

In those moments, people are connecting! The image has started internal movement.

If images bridge body and soul, as Woodman suggested, then creative expression is not ornamental to psychological work; it is foundational.

Art, symbols, dreams, and metaphors are doorways into the deepest parts of our being. 

Transformation begins when we make space for contradictions, for depth, and for things that don’t yet have names.

by Dr. Amy Vail and Alli Fischenich