Reflections on energy, information and fields from psychoanalytic and systems theoretical perspectives

The story of energy as a focus of psychoanalysis began with Freud and was conceptualized further by C. G. Jung. For him, energy enlivens the human psyche, drawing people towards ideas and activities, forming and re‐forming us through the ways it moves and the content it carries. This article examines how psychological energy forms the experience of individuals, informing us about conscious and subconscious states of the human psyche as it engages with its environment. We examine how psychological energy forms the experience of groups, creating qualitatively linked behaviours, constraints and potentials that Jung and others conceived of as psychological ‘fields’. The concept of energy as a property of psychological systems contributes to our understanding of the human experience. Though rarely conscious, it impacts the phenomenological experience of both individuals and groups, who cope with it in both generative and destructive ways.