Jungian Analytical Psychology Festival in Dialogue with Art

A festival where psychology plays with imagery

The Jungian Analytical Psychology Festival in Dialogue with Art is a free event open to everyone, held in Rome, in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, Lazio. Born from an initiative by A.I.P.A. (Italian Association of Analytical Psychology) in collaboration with the Roman Jungian community, the festival brings the theories of Carl Gustav Jung out of clinics and lecture halls, presenting them through a language everyone can speak: the language of images.

The underlying idea is as simple as it is radical: the need to create art is not a luxury, but an essential psychic function. For Jung, the image is the royal road to the unconscious, and the festival translates this intuition into a concrete experience where visitors do not just listen, but draw, play music, move, act, and play.

Experiential workshops led by analysts and artists

The heart of the program consists of experiential workshops co-led by a Jungian analyst and an art professional. The disciplines covered span a wide range:

• Comics and graphic novels — building a story through images and observing what emerges from one's own hand.
• Illustration and animation — giving visible form to inner figures through line, color, and movement.
• Music — active listening and improvisation as a gateway to the symbolic world.
• Dance and movement — the body as a space for expressing the unconscious.
• Theater — masks, roles, and the staging of archetypal figures.
• Gaming and video games — digital play interpreted as a contemporary narrative of myths and symbols.

The workshops are complemented by an open-access gaming area for free experimentation and a bookstore space dedicated to the works of Jungian authors and the themes explored in the activities, curated in collaboration with independent Roman bookstores.

Who is it for?

The festival is not just for professionals. Students from all faculties, psychology and art enthusiasts, families, and the simply curious are all welcome. You can actively participate in the activities or attend the workshops as a spectator, subject to availability. This dual approach is one of the initiative's greatest strengths: those who don't feel ready to jump in can simply observe, and often end up participating anyway.

The Roman context

Rome is home to some of Italy's most important analytical psychology institutions, from A.I.P.A. to C.I.P.A., and this festival has quickly become their most accessible event for the city. The first edition, in 2025, was held at the Città dell'altra Economia in the Testaccio district; the following edition moved to the larger spaces of the Fiera di Roma along the Via Portuense, a sign of growing participation.

Why it's worth attending

In a landscape of cultural festivals where there is much talk and little action, this Roman event flips the ratio: there is plenty of doing and minimal theorizing. The result is an event suitable even for those who have never read a line of Jung, while offering those who already know him a different, more physical, and less bookish perspective. All this is completely free, in a city where zero-cost cultural offerings are always welcome.