The Nina Effect

Jung really believed in the power of art. He said that dreams can be used to help his patients move forward if they are feeling stagnant in their lives. Man needs to have fantasies because it is the feminine creative potential of his masculine spirit. He believes in helping people explore their fantasies. “Many of my more advanced patients, then, begin to paint. I can well understand that everyone will consider this as an utterly futile sort of dilettantism. However, it must be remembered that we are speaking not of people who have still to prove their social usefulness, but of those who can no longer find significance in their value to society, and who have come upon the deeper and more dangerous question of the meaning of their indi­vidual lives. To be a particle in a mass has meaning and charm only for the man who has not yet advanced to that stage, but none for the man who has experienced it to satiety. The importance of individual life may always be denied by the “ educator ” whose pride it is to breed mass-men. But any other person will sooner or later be driven to find this meaning for himself. Although from time to time my patients produce ar­tistically beautiful creations which might very well be shown in modern “ art ” exhibitions, I nevertheless treat them as wholly worthless according to the tests of seri­ous art.”