Archetypes

Archetypes are ancient or archaic images that derive from the collective uncon- scious. They are similar to complexes in that they are emotionally toned collections of associated images. But whereas complexes are individualized components of the personal unconscious, archetypes are generalized and derive from the contents of the collective unconscious.
Archetypes should also be distinguished from instincts.
Jung (1948/1960a) de- fined an instinct as an unconscious physical impulse toward action and saw the ar- chetype as the psychic counterpart to an instinct. In comparing archetypes to in- stincts, Jung (1975) wrote:
As animals of the same kind show the same instinctual phenomena all over the world, man also shows the same archetypal forms no matter where he lives. As animals have no need to be taught their instinctive activities, so man also possesses his primordial psychic patterns and repeats them spontaneously, independently of any kind of teaching. Inasmuch as man is conscious and capable of introspection, it is quite possible that he can perceive his instinctual patterns in the form of archetypal representations. (p. 152)
In summary, both archetypes and instincts are unconsciously determined, and both can help shape personality.
Archetypes have a biological basis but originate through the repeated experi- ences of humans’ early ancestors. The potential for countless numbers of archetypes exists within each person, and when a personal experience corresponds to the latent primordial image, the archetype becomes activated.
The archetype itself cannot be directly represented, but when activated, it ex- presses itself through several modes, primarily dreams, fantasies, and delusions.

During his midlife encounter with his unconscious, Jung had many archetypal dreams and fantasies. He frequently initiated fantasies by imagining that he was de- scending into a deep cosmic abyss. He could make little sense of his visions and dreams at that time, but later, when he began to understand that dream images and fantasy figures were actually archetypes, these experiences took on a completely new meaning (Jung, 1961).
Dreams are the main source of archetypal material, and certain dreams offer what Jung considered proof for the existence of the archetype.These dreams produce motifs that could not have been known to the dreamer through personal experience. The motifs often coincide with those known to ancient people or to natives of con- temporary aboriginal tribes.
Jung believed that hallucinations of psychotic patients also offered evidence for universal archetypes (Bair, 2003). While working as a psychiatric assistant at Burghöltzli, Jung observed a paranoid schizophrenic patient looking through a win- dow at the sun. The patient begged the young psychiatrist to also observe.
He said I must look at the sun with eyes half shut, and then I could see the sun’s phallus. If I moved my head from side to side the sun-phallus would move too, and that was the origin of the wind. (Jung, 1931/1960b, p. 150)
Four years later Jung came across a book by the German philologist Albrecht Di- eterich that had been published in 1903, several years after the patient was commit- ted. The book, written in Greek, dealt with a liturgy derived from the so-called Paris magic papyrus, which described an ancient rite of the worshippers of Mithras, the Persian god of light. In this liturgy, the initiate was asked to look at the sun until he could see a tube hanging from it. The tube, swinging toward the east and west, was the origin of the wind. Dieterich’s account of the sun-phallus of the Mithraic cult was nearly identical to the hallucination of the mental patient who, almost certainly, had no personal knowledge of the ancient initiation rite. Jung (1931/1960b) offered many similar examples as proof of the existence of archetypes and the collective uncon- scious. Freud also believed that people collectively inherit pre-
dispositions to action. His concept of phylogenetic endowment, however, differs somewhat from Jung’s formulation. One difference was that Freud looked first to the personal unconscious and resorted to the phylogenetic endowment only when indi- vidual explanations failed—as he sometimes did when explaining the Oedipus com- plex (Freud, 1933/1964). In contrast, Jung placed primary emphasis on the collective unconscious and used personal experiences to round out the total personality.
The major distinction between the two, however, was Jung’s differentiation of the collective unconscious into autonomous forces called archetypes, each with a life and a personality of its own. Although a great number of archetypes exist as vague images, only a few have evolved to the point where they can be conceptualized. The most notable of these include the persona, shadow, anima, animus, great mother, wise old man, hero, and self.

Persona
The side of personality that people show to the world is designated as the persona. The term is well chosen because it refers to the mask worn by actors in the early the- ater. Jung’s concept of the persona may have originated from experiences with his No. 1 personality, which had to make accommodations to the outside world. Each of us, Jung believed, should project a particular role, one that society dictates to each of us. A physician is expected to adopt a characteristic “bedside manner,” a politi- cian must show a face to society that can win the confidence and votes of the peo- ple; an actor exhibits the style of life demanded by the public (Jung, 1950/1959).
Although the persona is a necessary side of our personality, we should not con- fuse our public face with our complete self. If we identify too closely with our per- sona, we remain unconscious of our individuality and are blocked from attaining self-realization.True, we must acknowledge society, but if we over identify with our persona, we lose touch with our inner self and remain dependent on society’s expec- tations of us. To become psychologically healthy, Jung believed, we must strike a bal- ance between the demands of society and what we truly are. To be oblivious of one’s persona is to underestimate the importance of society, but to be unaware of one’s deep individuality is to become society’s puppet (Jung, 1950/1959).
During Jung’s near break with reality from 1913 to 1917, he struggled hard to remain in touch with his persona. He knew that he must maintain a normal life, and his work and family provided that contact. He was frequently forced to tell himself, “I have a medical diploma from a Swiss university, I must help my patients, I have a wife and five children, I live at 228 Seestrasse in Küsnacht” (Jung, 1961, p. 189). Such self-talk kept Jung’s feet rooted to the ground and reassured him that he really existed.

Shadow
The shadow, the archetype of darkness and repression, represents those qualities we do not wish to acknowledge but attempt to hide from ourselves and others. The shadow consists of morally objectionable tendencies as well as a number of con- structive and creative qualities that we, nevertheless, are reluctant to face (Jung, 1951/1959a).
Jung contended that, to be whole, we must continually strive to know our shadow and that this quest is our first test of courage. It is easier to project the dark side of our personality onto others, to see in them the ugliness and evil that we re- fuse to see in ourselves. To come to grips with the darkness within ourselves is to achieve the “realization of the shadow.” Unfortunately, most of us never realize our shadow but identify only with the bright side of our personality. People who never realize their shadow may, nevertheless, come under its power and lead tragic lives, constantly running into “bad luck” and reaping harvests of defeat and discourage- ment for themselves (Jung, 1954/1959a).
In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung (1961) reported a dream that took place at the time of his break from Freud. In this dream his shadow, a brown-skinned savage, killed the hero, a man named Siegfried, who represented the German people. Jung interpreted the dream to mean that he no longer needed Sig Freud (Siegfried); thus, his shadow performed the constructive task of eradicating his former hero.

Anima
Like Freud, Jung believed that all humans are psychologically bisexual and possess both a masculine and a feminine side. The feminine side of men originates in the collective unconscious as an archetype and remains extremely resistant to consciousness. Few men become well acquainted with their anima because this task requires great courage and is even more difficult than becoming acquainted with their shadow. To master the projections of the anima, men must overcome intellec- tual barriers, delve into the far recesses of their unconscious, and realize the femi- nine side of their personality.
As we reported in the opening vignette in this chapter, Jung first encountered his own anima during his journey through his unconscious psyche soon after his break with Freud. The process of gaining acquaintance with his anima was Jung’s second test of courage. Like all men, Jung could recognize his anima only after learning to feel comfortable with his shadow (Jung, 1954/1959a, 1954/1959b).
In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung vividly described this experience. In- trigued by this “woman from within,” Jung (1961) concluded that
she must be the “soul,” in the primitive sense, and I began to speculate on the reasons why the name “anima” was given to the soul. Why was it thought of as feminine? Later I came to see that this inner feminine figure plays a typical, or archetypal, role in the unconscious of a man, and I called her the “anima.” The corresponding figure in the unconscious of woman I called the “animus.” (p. 186)
Jung believed that the anima originated from early men’s experiences with women—mothers, sisters, and lovers—that combined to form a generalized picture of woman. In time, this global concept became embedded in the collective uncon- scious of all men as the anima archetype. Since prehistoric days,every man has come into the world with a predetermined concept of woman that shapes and molds all his relationships with individual women. A man is especially inclined to project his anima onto his wife or lover and to see her not as she really is but as his personal and collective unconscious have determined her. This anima can be the source of much misunderstanding in male-female relationships, but it may also be responsible for the alluring mystique woman has in the psyche of men (Hayman, 2001; Hillman, 1985).
A man may dream about a woman with no definite image and no particular identity. The woman represents no one from his personal experience, but enters his dream from the depths of his collective unconscious. The anima need not appear in dreams as a woman, but can be represented by a feeling or mood (Jung, 1945/1953). Thus, the anima influences the feeling side in man and is the explanation for certain irrational moods and feelings. During these moods a man almost never admits that his feminine side is casting her spell; instead, he either ignores the irrationality of the feelings or tries to explain them in a very rational masculine manner. In either event he denies that an autonomous archetype, the anima, is responsible for his mood.
The anima’s deceptive qualities were elucidated by Jung (1961) in his descrip- tion of the “woman from within” who spoke to him during his journey into the un- conscious and while he was contemplating whether his work was science.
What the anima said seemed to me full of a deep cunning. If I had taken these fantasies of the unconscious as art, they would have carried no more conviction than visual perceptions, as if I were watching a movie. I would have felt no moral obligation toward them. The anima might then have easily seduced me into believing that I was a misunderstood artist, and that my so-called artistic nature gave me the right to neglect reality. If I had followed her voice, she would in all probability have said to me one day, “Do you imagine the nonsense you’re engaged in is really art? Not a bit.” Thus the insinuations of the anima, the mouthpiece of the unconscious, can utterly destroy a man. (p. 187)

Animus
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Chapter 4 Jung: Analytical Psychology
The masculine archetype in women is called the animus. Whereas the anima repre- sents irrational moods and feelings, the animus is symbolic of thinking and reason- ing. It is capable of influencing the thinking of a woman, yet it does not actually be- long to her. It belongs to the collective unconscious and originates from the encounters of prehistoric women with men. In every female-male relationship, the woman runs a risk of projecting her distant ancestors’experiences with fathers, brothers, lovers, and sons onto the unsuspecting man. In addition, of course, her per- sonal experiences with men, buried in her personal unconscious, enter into her rela- tionships with men. Couple these experiences with projections from the man’s anima and with images from his personal unconscious, and you have the basic ingredients of any female-male relationship.
Jung believed that the animus is responsible for thinking and opinion in women just as the anima produces feelings and moods in men. The animus is also the explanation for the irrational thinking and illogical opinions often attributed to women. Many opinions held by women are objectively valid, but according to Jung, close analysis reveals that these opinions were not thought out, but existed ready- made. If a woman is dominated by her animus, no logical or emotional appeal can shake her from her prefabricated beliefs (Jung, 1951/1959a). Like the anima, the an- imus appears in dreams, visions, and fantasies in a personified form.

Great Mother
Two other archetypes, the great mother and the wise old man, are derivatives of the anima and animus. Everyone, man or woman, possesses a great mother archetype. This preexisting concept of mother is always associated with both positive and neg- ative feelings. Jung (1954/1959c), for example, spoke of the “loving and terrible mother” (p. 82). The great mother, therefore, represents two opposing forces—fer- tility and nourishment on the one hand and power and destruction on the other. She is capable of producing and sustaining life (fertility and nourishment), but she may also devour or neglect her offspring (destruction). Recall that Jung saw his own mother as having two personalities—one loving and nurturing; the other uncanny, ar- chaic, and ruthless.
Jung (1954/1959c) believed that our view of a personal loving and terrible mother is largely overrated. “All those influences which the literature describes as being exerted on the children do not come from the mother herself, but rather from the archetype projected upon her, which gives her a mythological background” (p.
83). In other words, the strong fascination that mother has for both men and women, often in the absence of a close personal relationship, was taken by Jung as evidence for the great mother archetype.
The fertility and nourishment dimension of the great mother archetype is sym- bolized by a tree, garden, plowed field, sea, heaven, home, country, church, and hol- low objects such as ovens and cooking utensils. Because the great mother also rep- resents power and destruction, she is sometimes symbolized as a godmother, the Mother of God, Mother Nature, Mother Earth, a stepmother, or a witch. One exam- ple of the opposing forces of fertility and destruction is the story of Cinderella, whose fairy godmother is able to create for her a world of horses, carriages, fancy balls, and a charming prince. However, the powerful godmother could also destroy that world at the strike of midnight. Legends, myths, religious beliefs, art, and liter- ary stories are filled with other symbols of the great mother, a person who is both nurturing and destructive.
Fertility and power combine to form the concept of rebirth, which may be a separate archetype, but its relation to the great mother is obvious. Rebirth is repre- sented by such processes as reincarnation, baptism, resurrection, and individuation or self-realization. People throughout the world are moved by a desire to be reborn: that is, to reach self-realization, nirvana, heaven, or perfection (Jung, 1952/1956, 1954/1959c).

Wise Old Man
The wise old man, archetype of wisdom and meaning, symbolizes humans’ preex- isting knowledge of the mysteries of life. This archetypal meaning, however, is un- conscious and cannot be directly experienced by a single individual. Politicians and others who speak authoritatively—but not authentically—often sound sensible and wise to others who are all too willing to be misled by their own wise old man ar- chetypes. Similarly, the wizard in L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz was an impressive and captivating speaker whose words, however, rang hollow. A man or woman dom- inated by the wise old man archetype may gather a large following of disciples by using verbiage that sounds profound but that really makes little sense because the collective unconscious cannot directly impart its wisdom to an individual. Political, religious, and social prophets who appeal to reason as well as emotion (archetypes are always emotionally tinged) are guided by this unconscious archetype. The dan- ger to society comes when people become swayed by the pseudoknowledge of a powerful prophet and mistake nonsense for real wisdom. Recall that Jung saw the preachings of his own father (a pastor) as hollow pontifications, not backed by any strong religious conviction.
The wise old man archetype is personified in dreams as father, grandfather, teacher, philosopher, guru, doctor, or priest. He appears in fairy tales as the king, the sage, or the magician who comes to the aid of the troubled protagonist and, through superior wisdom, he helps the protagonist escape from myriad misadventures. The wise old man is also symbolized by life itself. Literature is replete with stories of young people leaving home, venturing out into the world, experiencing the trials and sorrows of life, and in the end acquiring a measure of wisdom (Jung, 1954/1959a).

Hero
The hero archetype is represented in mythology and legends as a powerful person, sometimes part god, who fights against great odds to conquer or vanquish evil in the form of dragons, monsters, serpents, or demons. In the end, however, the hero often is undone by some seemingly insignificant person or event (Jung, 1951/1959b). For example, Achilles, the courageous hero of the Trojan War, was killed by an arrow in his only vulnerable spot—his heel. Similarly, Macbeth was a heroic figure with a sin- gle tragic flaw—ambition. This ambition was also the source of his greatness, but it contributed to his fate and his downfall. Heroic deeds can be performed only by someone who is vulnerable, such as Achilles or the comic book character Superman, whose only weakness was the chemical element kryptonite. An immortal person with no weakness cannot be a hero.
The image of the hero touches an archetype within us, as demonstrated by our fascination with the heroes of movies, novels, plays, and television programs. When the hero conquers the villain, he or she frees us from feelings of impotence and mis- ery; at the same time, serving as our model for the ideal personality (Jung, 1934/1954a).
The origin of the hero motif goes back to earliest human history—to the dawn of consciousness. In conquering the villain, the hero is symbolically overcoming the darkness of prehuman unconsciousness. The achievement of consciousness was one of our ancestors’greatest accomplishments, and the image of the archetypal con- quering hero represents victory over the forces of darkness (Jung, 1951/1959b).

Self
Jung believed that each person possesses an inherited tendency to move toward growth, perfection, and completion, and he called this innate disposition the self. The most comprehensive of all archetypes, the self is the archetype of archetypes because it pulls together the other archetypes and unites them in the process of self- realization. Like the other archetypes, it possesses conscious and personal uncon- scious components, but it is mostly formed by collective unconscious images.
As an archetype, the self is symbolized by a person’s ideas of perfection, com- pletion, and wholeness, but its ultimate symbol is the mandala, which is depicted as a circle within a square, a square within a circle, or any other concentric fig- ure. It represents the strivings of the collective unconscious for unity, balance, and wholeness.