Edward Edinger treated life events as a dream, and tried to organize its symbols as if it were a dream.
When Toni Wolff greeted an analysand at her door, she might ask them harshly if they had "done anything about that dream" they'd discussed previously, as in drawing and coloring it. If they hadn't she had been known to slam the door in their face.
Jung says the colored image "concretizes" the image in reality forever, and creates "the third thing", the change in us from the image created. From now on the image will have a powerful numinous reaction within us when we see it. Jung said that both ourselves and the images coming from the unconscious are forever changed by this living experience, creating the image and coloring it. The images in dream will alter in future in a "call and response" type fashion. So it is leading somewhere.
The created third thing reminds me of the connection that Martin Buber talks about between the I and the Thou, that does not exist between the I and the It.
A friend is schizophrenic, and an art therapist is going to work with her. One of the important aspects of this work is to carefully put the drawings of the patient somewhere where she can see it put away and permanently, stored and honored. Since schizophrenics tend not to have a sense of "I-ness" this creates a portfolio of "I-ness" which helps to anchor them to reality, in sort of a reverse individuation. Her portfolio is proof to her that she really exists in the outer world. She sees it, she recognizes it, she remembers it.
Our portfolio proves to us the psyche exists as well, our dreams and visions are indeed real.
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