What Your Doodles Know That You Don't: The Art of Looking Without Killing
- Katie Helldoerfer
- 4 days ago
- 7 min read
How to Interpret Your Own Creative Work Without Destroying Its Magic
You've just finished painting, drawing, or doodling something that came from a deep place inside you. Maybe it emerged during a hard conversation, a therapy session, or a moment when your mind wandered. You step back, look at what you've created, and immediately the questions rush in: What does this mean? Am I okay? What was I trying to say?
And in that moment of anxious interpretation, something delicate dies.
I've been studying Theodor Abt's Introduction to Picture Interpretation According to C.G. Jung, and his most profound insight might be this: The way we look at art can either bring it to life or kill it dead.
This matters deeply in my work with Internal Family Systems therapy. When parts communicate through images, my job isn't to decode them like a puzzle. It's to help create space where the image can reveal itself, where parts can see themselves reflected and recognized.
The Problem with "What Does This Mean?"
We've been trained to analyze, to pin down, to know. We want our art to deliver a clear message, like opening a fortune cookie. But the unconscious doesn't work that way. It speaks in images precisely because some truths can't be reduced to words.
Abt warns against what he calls "establishing a fixed theory" - deciding too quickly what something means and closing the door on other possibilities. When we do this, we "kill the living spirit of the picture."
Think about it: Have you ever had someone interpret your dream or your art for you, and even though their interpretation was interesting, something about it felt wrong? Like they'd taken something alive and pinned it to a board like a dead butterfly?
That's because they—and we, when we interpret our own work - often commit what I call premature interpretation. We're so uncomfortable with not-knowing that we rush to meaning before the image has had a chance to fully speak.
The "Living Cell" Approach: Keeping Art Alive
Abt's method starts with a radical idea: In the beginning, the picture is wholeness, complete in itself.
Your art doesn't need you to fix it, decode it, or make it make sense. It's already whole. The question isn't "What's wrong with this?" or even "What does this mean?" The question is: "What is this image trying to show me if I give it space to breathe?"
Here's Abt's process, simplified:
Step 1: First Impression (Just Notice)
Look at what you've created. Before you think, before you judge, just notice:
What do you feel in your body when you look at it?
What's the first word or image that comes to mind?
Does your energy rise or fall?
Step 2: The Four Ways of Seeing - A Relational Dance
Abt teaches us to "circumambulate" the image - to walk around it - using four different lenses borrowed from Jung's theory of psychological functions. What I love about this is how it honors the wholeness of both the image and our capacity to perceive.
First, there's sensation - what's literally there. The actual colors you used, the materials (because choosing pencil versus paint versus marker matters), where things sit on the page, the physical reality of size and texture. This is grounding, but it's also relationship: you're meeting the image in its concrete existence before imposing interpretation.
Then feeling - what moves in you when you look at different areas. Which parts of the image pull your attention or create an emotional response. This isn't analysis; it's attunement. You're letting the image affect you.
Thinking notices patterns, relationships, what's present and what's absent. It creates structure and meaning, but only after sensation and feeling have had their say.
And intuition - what your gut knows even when logic can't explain it. What the image reminds you of, what it seems to want to communicate, what feels important for reasons you can't articulate.
Here's what Abt understood that I find essential in both art therapy and IFS work: how we approach something determines how it responds to us. If you meet your art with pure logic and analysis, demanding it explain itself, it tends to go silent or resist. It's like interrogating a part - you'll get defensiveness, not truth. If you approach with criticism, the image (like a part) recoils, becomes smaller, loses its vitality.
But when you approach with openness, with genuine curiosity, with all four functions available rather than just one? The image responds differently. It opens up. It reveals layers. In IFS we call this the infinity loop - you send out open-hearted, attuned energy and the system meets you where it needs to. The same is true for art. Your relationship with your creative work is alive, a two-way exchange. The image has its own agency, its own wholeness, and when you treat it that way, it dances with you rather than withdrawing.
Step 3: Hold the Opposites
Here's Abt's brilliant safety valve, and it's become essential in my practice: For every interpretation you consider, also consider its opposite.
Think your angry drawing means you're falling apart? Also consider: maybe it means you're finally strong enough to feel your rage.
Think your chaotic painting means you're losing control? Also consider: maybe it means you're brave enough to let go of rigid control.
This isn't about being wishy-washy. It's about respecting the fact that symbols - including your art - are "overdetermined" (Jung's term). They contain multiple truths simultaneously. The image isn't lying when it shows you both meanings. It's revealing complexity.
In IFS terms, this is how we avoid polarization in our interpretation. One part might see danger in the image; another part might see possibility. Both are true. The art holds space for both.
Why This Matters: A True Story
Abt shares a cautionary tale from his training. A student presented a beautiful painting to a supervision group. For an hour, they interpreted it as showing great potential for growth, inner resources, spiritual development. They fell in love with their hypothesis.
Then the student revealed: the artist had painted it in a psychiatric clinic with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Immediately, the group saw what they'd missed - the dangerous elements, the signs of distress, the ruptures in the work. But they'd been blind to these because they were so attached to their positive interpretation.
The lesson? We can fall in love with a meaning and miss half the picture.
That's why Abt insists we hold both the hypothesis and its opposite. Not because we're being noncommittal, but because we're being respectful of the image's full truth.
How to Practice This With Your Own Art
Next time you create something - whether it's a therapy assignment, a stress-relief doodle, or a serious painting - try approaching it as you would a living being that has something to say.
Immediately after creating, resist the urge to interpret. Just sit with it. Notice your body's response. Maybe write down your very first impression, then set it aside. Let the image settle.
A few hours or days later, come back with the four functions - sensation, feeling, thinking, intuition. Spend time with each way of seeing. Write down what you notice, not what it "means." You're building relationship, not conducting an autopsy.
When you're ready to consider meaning, state one possible interpretation, then immediately ask yourself: "What's the opposite of that?" Hold both. See which one gets more support from the actual details of the image. Be willing to modify your understanding as the image reveals more.
And most importantly, let the image stay mysterious. You don't have to figure it out. It can hold multiple meanings. It can mean something today and something different next month. That's not failure - that's how living symbols work. That's the image maintaining its wholeness and continuing to teach you.
The Goal: Bringing Light, Not Death
Abt writes: "With our respectful work, the life-giving lumen naturae [natural light] or the immanent meaning of the picture will become visible."
Notice: "life-giving." The interpretation should make the image more alive, not less. You should feel more energy, more curiosity, more connection to yourself - not more confused, shut down, or ashamed.
If your interpretation makes you feel smaller, more stuck, or more hopeless, it's probably not the right interpretation yet. Or rather, it's only half the story. Find the opposite. See what emerges.
This is what I'm learning to watch for in my work: Does the exploration of the image bring more life, more curiosity, more compassion for the parts that created it? Or does it shut things down? The image itself can guide us toward the interpretations that serve healing.
What Your Doodles Know
Your unconscious is wiser than your conscious mind. It knows things you don't know yet. It speaks in images because images can hold paradox, mystery, and multiple truths at once.
When you create art - even "just" doodles - you're giving your unconscious permission to speak. Don't silence it by rushing to translation. Don't kill it by demanding a single, fixed meaning.
Instead, learn to look with all four functions. Hold opposites. Let meanings emerge, shift, evolve. Treat your art the way you'd treat a dream: with curiosity, respect, and the understanding that some truths take time to reveal themselves.
Your doodles know what you don't know yet. Give them space to teach you.
References: Abt, Theodor. (2005). Introduction to Picture Interpretation According to C.G. Jung. Living Human Heritage Publications.
About the Author: Katie is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC-S) and board-certified art therapist (ATR-BC) based at Lacuna Counseling in Columbus, Ohio. She integrates Internal Family Systems therapy, art therapy, and somatic approaches, with a particular focus on neurodivergent-affirming care. Currently deepening her study of Jungian picture interpretation methods, she's exploring how these frameworks can support parts work and help clients develop more compassionate relationships with their unconscious.
