Death and Creativity: A Jungian Approach

One of the most outstanding features of Jung's work is the importance he has attributed to man's drive to create, and to the pervasiveness of man's concern with death. Indeed, one of the reasons which first attracted me to Jung's work was the seriousness with which he treated the need to make, that is to create, invent and transform; as early as 1929 Jung had classified creativity as one of the five main instincts characteristic of man. As regards death, he believed that there is a natural and innate disposition in man to concern himself with death, and to prepare himself for it as his life moves towards it.

While I responded quickly and easily to Jung's ideas about creativity, my grappling with his thoughts about death and man's concern with it arose from my own analytic experience. For I had discovered, almost to my surprise, that, whatever the age and whatever the symptom picture, sooner or later concern with death becomes a feature in nearly every analysis. Such concern may make its appearance either directly and overtly, or else in a more or less disguised and symbolic form.

It will be the thesis of this paper that there is much similarity between the psychological constellation that favours good and peaceful dying and that psychological constellation which favours creative work. In the first part of this lecture I will share with you my reflections about death as it is experienced in the human psyche. I will then move on to discuss some thoughts and speculations concerning the creative process. In the final part of the lecture I shall try and explore the possible parallels and similarities between these two vital human pre-occupations and activities.

In this first part, but before I begin to discuss my own thoughts regarding our concern with death, it might be useful and relevant to start by quoting some of the remarks that Jung himself has made about it, for it is these passages that helped me make sense of my own analytic work and experience.

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