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Some unexpected implications and meanings of parental material and imagery are advanced. It is suggested that, broadly speaking, the parents function as messengers. Three hypotheses are offered: (1) what is described to the therapist as a negative parental attribute can also be understood as representing something positive that the individual needs to develop in him or herself, or as a kind of unconscious agenda suggesting emotional difficulties that need to be worked on in therapy; (2) parental imagery tells the therapist something about the patient's level of political development, expressed in the form of their parenting capacity. This capacity is conceived as the individual's whole attitude to other people, and to the external world in general - his or her position on political and cultural issues included; (3) primal scene imagery functions as a kind of psychic fingerprint or trademark, indicating the state of play or overall situation in the patient's psyche. The primal scene, like other forms of parental imagery, is a self-generated diagnostic, holistic monitoring of the patient's psychological state. Once again, parental imagery such as that of the primal scene indicates the patient's capacity to tolerate political conflict in the external social situation as well as conflict in the inner world. Illustrations of these hypotheses are given. The paper goes on to discuss: (1) how literal statements concerning the parents can bear metaphorical meanings at the same time; (2) why the parents in particular do the job of messenger; (3) the impact of these ideas on interpretation, leading to remarks about plural interpretation; (4) Jung's concept of the objective psyche; (5) the metaphor of messenger. Finally, some parellels between analytical psychology and psychoanalysis are drawn.