MONTHLY MEETING

Tuesday 4th November 2025 8.15pm, £15

THE SYMBOL AND THE SYMBOLIC PROCESS AFTER THE RED BOOK:

THE LIGHT THAT SHINES IN THE DARKNESS

with Katerina Sarafidou

The notion of the symbol is one of the most elusive concepts in Western thought, and yet its
meaning and function has particular significance for analytical psychology and
psychoanalysis. It plays a central role in therapeutic work, which seeks to engage with the
symbolic process as a means for growth and renewal, but it is understood and formulated
very differently by different analysts and writers. This talk will give a contextual introduction
to the concept of the symbol within the field of psychotherapy and will revisit and
reformulate the concept in light of Jung’s Red Book and Black Book material. It will explore
its implications for clinical work, its relevance for the analytic attitude and its role in Jung’s
idea of individuation.

Katerina Sarafidou is the Jungian Head of Research and former Jungian Director of the MSc
Psychodynamics of Human Development run by Birkbeck College and the British
Psychotherapy Foundation. She is an honorary member of the British Jungian Analytic
Association and is carrying out academic research at the Warburg Institute. She runs a Jung
Reading Group for the British Psychotherapy Foundation and is one of the three founders of
The Circle of Analytical Psychology, which offers a 2-year course of study on Jung’s Liber
Novus.