The Embodied Image

Overview

Jungian art psychotherapist Joy Schaverien describes a vital distinction in creative practice: the difference between diagrammatic and embodied images. A diagrammatic image may be technically skilled or visually striking, but it lacks emotional depth. It is made from the outside in: planned, controlled, or disconnected from the maker’s inner world. An embodied image, by contrast, is formed through direct engagement with feeling, memory, and sensation. It carries psychological presence. This kind of image is not about perfection or performance, it is about truth. It emerges from the body and the unconscious, revealing something previously unspoken. In Jungian terms, the embodied image serves as a bridge between conscious and unconscious experience. It is not created to explain but created to be with what is real.

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