Reflection

1. Etymology

Reflection (reflexio: bending back) names mental activity concentrating on a content of consciousness—an instinct encompassing religion and the search for meaning. Related: psychization; rational; instinct; culture.

2. Plain summary

Ordinarily we treat reflection as purely conscious. Jung’s twist: the reflex that would discharge into instinctive action is interrupted by psychization—stimulus becomes psychic content, images intervene, freedom appears where compulsion was. Reflection is “the cultural instinct par excellence”: culture’s power to maintain itself against untamed nature (CW 8 ¶243).

Samuels adds: deliberation before action; individualized, relativized responses; producing consciousness; balancing opposites; dream/symbol/fantasy as reflective media. Left near-instinctual, reflection stays automatic (association experiments); raised to awareness, it becomes purposive.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common reflection motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
bending back / reflexio; interrupt instinctive discharge; freedom vs compulsion; cultural instinct; richness of psyche via reflective instinct; produce consciousness; balance opposites; dream / symbol / fantasy; kinship with psychization; rational functions shaped by reflection; animus–reflection note in Samuels (engage carefully, not as gender caricature).

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology reflection is the instinctive–cultural capacity that makes psychic content available for choice—bridge between drive and culture. Lexica (Sharp; Samuels pp. 127–128) supply paraphrase Do not invent loci.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Reflection. Mental activity that concentrates on a particular content of consciousness, an instinct encompassing religion and the search for meaning. … Reflexio means “bending back”… the reflex which carries the stimulus over into its instinctive discharge is interfered with by psychization… Reflection is the cultural instinct par excellence…

(Sharp, 1991) — cites CW 8 ¶241, ¶243.

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — reflection pp. 127–128

reflection … a bending backwards or turning inward from consciousness… 'the cultural instinct par excellence'… When raised to conscious awareness… reflection transforms an otherwise compulsive act into one which is both purposive and individually oriented.

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986/2013, pp. 127–128)

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

There is another instinct, different from the drive to activity and so far as we know specifically human, which might be called the reflective instinct. … Reflexio means 'bending back' and, used psychologically, would denote the fact that the reflex which carries the stimulus over into its instinctive discharge is interfered with by psychization. … Reflexio is a turning inwards, with the result that, instead of an instinctive action, there ensues a succession of derivative contents or states which may be termed reflection or deliberation.
(Jung, 1936/1969, CW 8, pp. 160–161, ¶241) Dual psychization untouched.

Through the reflective instinct, the stimulus is more or less wholly transformed into a psychic content, that is, it becomes an experience… Reflection is the cultural instinct par excellence…
(Jung, 1936/1969, CW 8, p. 161, ¶243)

See also: psychization; instinct; rational; opposites; rebirth; reductive; consciousness.

References

Jung, C. G. (1969). Psychological factors determining human behaviour. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 8, pp. 160–161, ¶241, ¶243). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1936)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.