The Other made visible: creative methods, inner figures and agents of change when working through early childhood...

Jung used creative methods such as picture-making and active imagination to work with complexes and in particular trauma and dissociation. A clinical example of a 60-year-old woman demonstrates the benefits of using creative methods to work with issues linked to early life, such as somatic intrusions of early childhood trauma. Significant inner figures were delineated, including the original figure associated with the infantile dissociative split. The figures illustrated Jung's complex theory by making visible the nonverbal inner states that were initially feared and experienced as Other. Within an analytic relationship that included a working through, an innate creative process unfolded that permitted inner figures to become agents of change within her psyche. This paper highlights the value of Jung's complex theory and the use of creative methods when working with dissociation, regression and unformulated infantile states, even when the analysand is in the later stages of adulthood.