Symbolic Thinking

Symbolic work is the driving force behind Vandendorpe’s researches. Her approach to symbolic thinking began at the University of Ottawa, where she alternated practical research on images and theoretical work on subliminal communication, ethology, anthropology, mythology, etc. Since 2000, she has systematically compiled her dreams, which are the basis of much of her creative work. In 2021, she specialized in Jungian Theory, and since March 2023, she is part of a working group led by professor Dr. Theo Abt on the interpretation of images from the perspective of depth psychology. She has recently started her training at The Research and Training Center in Depth Psychology (Zurich), where she had previously presented her research on creativity and the unconscious (2022).

The symbolic attitude as proposed by C.G. Jung, is a way of observing images (in the broad sense of the word) from a non-logical perspective, where its meaning is not imposed by the univocal certainty of consciousness. On the contrary, its archetypal inner core is slowly unveiled through a work of amplification; that is, through connecting this image to others with which it shares a resonance or a symbolic root. For these images that fascinates us are constantly returning to us —in myths, tales, dreams, artistic productions— to remind us of what we have not yet integrated, either as an individual or as a society.