The saving factor is the symbol
Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types
The more the libido is invested —or, to be more accurate, invests itself—in the unconscious, the greater becomes its influence or potency: all the rejected, disused, outlived functional possibilities that have been lost for generations come to life again and begin to exert an ever increasing influence on the conscious mind, despite its desperate struggles to gain insight into what is happening.
The saving factor is the symbol, which embraces both conscious and unconscious and unites them.
For while the consciously disposable libido gets gradually used in the differentiated function and is replenished more and more slowly and with increasing difficulty, the symptoms of inner disunity multiply and there is a growing danger of inundation and destruction by the unconscious contents, but all the time the symbol is developing that is destined to resolve the conflict.
The symbol, however, is so intimately bound up with the dangerous and menacing aspect of the unconscious that it is easily
mistaken for it, or its appearance may actually call forth evil and destructive tendencies.
At all events the appearance of the redeeming symbol is closely connected with destruction and devastation.
If the old were not ripe for death, nothing new would appear; and if the old were not injuriously blocking the way for the new; it could not and need not be rooted out. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 446.
