Hello Everyone, its alright that you think me a thing as that has always been what most have called me and most refer to me as an it, people have done that ever since I was small. I had hoped that you would have given my situation a bit of a chance and helped me to find a man and since life is so challenging I thought it wise to date a cop and with a bit of luck find a permanent friend. Now about my teeth.
I understand why no man retired or not would be interested in me as I just looked at myself in the mirror. My teeth show the wear of all those back drugs from my surgery in '04 and '99, wow what an ugly person I must look like to all of you however I am walking!! Thanks to incredible doctors I stand upright and I am smiling today as I am not required to look in the mirror. The doctors got my back fixed from that horrible accident at PetSmart and, I may not have the security and benefits from being a Store Director with PetSmart anymore, and I may be on permanent Social Security, and I may look horrible at first and last glance as my teeth are indeed showing that terrible effect of prescription drug use, I in-turn can walk to my hearts content, and I can ride horses again as I proved that to myself several years ago.
Through time and with a bit of luck I will someday be riding my own horse again, and then the persons that see me so closely now will not have to grimace when I smile as I will be to far away to notice. How lovely that day will be. A warning for those that have had Worker's Compensation injuries, have them include dental care for the rest of your life as my teeth have taken the brunt of my injury. And, as Worker's Compensation doesn't compensate and an up to date format has not been organized, meaning the California State Workers Compensation Board has very old standards for the loss of a limb, and I am still awaiting the payout from the 1999 injury although the standard for payout is not expected to be contributory to my dental care, due to the incredible loss of employment at PetSmart (I did fight for my job as Store Director/Store Manager when I was released from Worker's Compensation however the doctor's released me back to work for only 27 hours of availability per week and even though I was a salaried associate PetSmart opted out and let me go sadly. I ended-up loosing my 4 bedroom, 2 bath home which had a Swimming pool and Jacuzzi up there in Sacramento as a result of PetSmarts decision. So needless to say the years have taken more than there toll, the years caused horror to any future I had as I am only 53 years-old now and I hadn't even reached 40 before this catastrophic injury (my back collapsed) took my life. Just a note, I had nearly broke the $78,000.00 a year salary cap (self-set) and was looking forward to moving up the ranks to reach my goal for the following year of earning $100,000.00 (personal goal)). I do look forward to having my teeth repaired and I look forward to the option of those dental implants in the future, I understand Clear Choice is the best place!! How exciting as I have noticed many people getting their teeth replaced and I often wonder what terrible injury did they have that forced them into such further surgery. My first injury was a ruptured disc and then in 2004 the injury was a collapsed L4 - L5 disc and required 360 degree lumbar fusion and is also known as an Anterior/Posterior Lumbar fusion, really painful as I still recall that terrible feeling of the vertebrae rubbing on one another and how it went from side to side grinding as I walked. Due to the incredible effort and with not much hope that it would be successful the doctors held their prowess and did the best joy, I can walk and move about in such a nature that most do not even know that I am that badly hurt, yea!! Here is a picture in-order for the full visual to impact your intellect as it is intensive:
I am looking forward to dazzling myself though with those pearly whites and looking forward to seeing my smile as it once made my pictures worth the comments of others, or at least people would say you have a beautiful smile and you should smile more. As life dealt it I did not have a lot to smile over yet I always appreciated so much the people that would take the time to say something kind. Kindness is not heard much around anymore as even just randomly in passing all I hear is horror, people just run people down including me if I happen to be in their path.
Fat!! Oh how fat I am, it used to be the thing that was said to me all the time. While I was in Marin the fact that I was to fat often held me back from dating but I had teeth, lol, how silly this all is now that I put some effort into a write to say that life is but a strange account of subjects. In fact a Tiburon dentist refused to work on my teeth early on leaving the shock you see now much more live than it would have been as most fix a bit at a time. That dentist said it isn't worth his time and excused me from his office, what a segway. Back to being fat, my older sister railroaded me most of my adult life about being fat, in fact she said I was so fat that I could claim it on my taxes. My mother was present for that insult and as I stood in shiver my older sister just flipped her hair about and laughed. Sometimes I believed that no matter what I did my body would be the joke of all to insult at their whim.
Today is October 28, 2018, I am a born prodigy genius savant that has been horribly abused. Today I am practicing saying that as Kilgore and Vuksinick said to practice saying it again and again saying that accepting myself and what has happened is the very first step to heal. Vuksinick said that my mother had written the script of my life on the day that those two incredible psychiatrists said that to me, and to the average-reader that has piped in for a read I have known Vuksinick since I was small as he was on the Student League Board of Directors with my mother, oh for the times. Thank goodness for the training and affection as I prepare to continue my onward forward today, Vuksinick and his compassion, Kilgore and his love of character and for my mother whom gave me the capability to smile after so much had happened. Missing them terribly I say to those that scowl when they see me, or to the average-reader, life is as the . . . .
B William Kilgore Inc: Vuksinick Louis M MD
3020 Fillmore St, San Francisco, CA 94123
Louis M. Vuksinick
A gifted and beloved psychiatrist and Jungian analyst, Louis Martin Vuksinick, M.D. (Lou) died nobly as he had lived, on Wednesday, October 17, 2012 at home after challenging leukemia and neck cancer for four years. During this time he continued to practice in San Francisco and in Palo Alto where he lived. He is survived by his wife of 30 years, Janet Robinson, the love of his life; four stepchildren; Gregory, Timothy, Anne and Jeffrey Petersen and their partners and seven grandsons; and his sister Maxine Russell of Salt lake City. Born in Spring Glen, Utah, February 27,1934 to Louis L. Vuksinick and Zelpha Skriner, he attended medical school at the University of Utah. Coming to San Francisco in 1959 for his internship at St. Mary's Hospital, he went on to complete his psychiatric residency at Stanford University Medical School 1960-63 and Analytic Training at the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco 1974-88. He held leadership and teaching roles in the Department of Psychiatry, McAuley Neurospsychiatric Institute, St. Mary's Hospital 1969-1980. He is noted for his work about the body-psyche connection, and his love of music, especially opera. He will be greatly missed. A Memorial Mass will be held in San Francisco at St. Ignatius Church, 650 Parker Av, Saturday, Nov. 3 at 10 AM. Memorial contributions may be made to the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco in his honor.
The overarching goal of Jungian psychology is the attainment of self through individuation. Jung defines "self" as the "archetype of wholeness and the regulating center of the psyche". Central to this process is the individual's encounter with his/her psyche and the bringing of its elements into consciousness.
In Jungian
psychology, archetypes are highly developed elements of the collective
unconscious. The existence of archetypes can only be deduced indirectly
by ...
Analytical psychology (sometimes analytic psychology), also called Jungian psychology, is a school of psychotherapy which originated in the ideas of Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist. It emphasizes the importance of the individual psyche and the personal quest for wholeness.[1]
Important concepts in Jung's system are individuation, symbols, the personal unconscious, the collective unconscious, archetypes, complexes, the persona, the shadow, the anima and animus, and the self.
Jung's theories have been investigated and elaborated by Toni Wolff, Marie-Louise von Franz, Jolande Jacobi, Aniela Jaffé, Erich Neumann, James Hillman, Jordan Peterson, and Anthony Stevens.
Analytical psychology is distinct from psychoanalysis, which is a psychotherapeutic system created by Sigmund Freud.
In 1907, Jung met Sigmund Freud in Vienna, Austria. For six years, the two scholars worked together, and in 1911, they founded the International Psychoanalytical Association, of which Jung was the first president. However, early in the collaboration, Jung observed that Freud would not tolerate ideas that were different from his own. In 1912, Jung's Psychology of the Unconscious (Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido) was published (re-published as Symbols of Transformation in 1952) (C.W. Vol. 5). The work's innovative ideas contributed to a new foundation in psychology as well as the end of the Jung-Freud friendship in 1913. The two scholars continued their work on personality development independently: Jung's approach is called Analytical Psychology (German: analytische Psychologie), and Freud's approach is referred to as the Psychoanalytic School (psychoanalytische Schule), which he founded.
Unlike most modern psychologists, Jung did not believe that experiments using natural science were the only means to gain an understanding of the human psyche. He saw as empirical evidence the world of dream, myth, and folklore as the promising road to deeper understanding and meaning. That method's choice is related with his choice of the object of his science. As Jung said, "The beauty about the unconscious is that it is really unconscious."[2] Hence, the unconscious is 'untouchable' by experimental researches, or indeed any possible kind of scientific or philosophical reach, precisely because it is unconscious.[citation needed]
Although the unconscious cannot be studied by using direct approaches, it is, according to Jung at least, a useful hypothesis. His postulated unconscious was quite different from the model that was proposed by Freud, despite the great influence that the founder of psychoanalysis had on Jung. The most well-known difference is the assumption of the collective unconscious (see also Jungian archetypes), although Jung's proposal of collective unconscious and archetypes was based on the assumption of the existence of psychic (mental) patterns. These patterns include conscious contents—thoughts, memories, etc.—from life experience. They are common for all human beings. His proof of the vast collective unconscious was his concept of synchronicity, that inexplicable, uncanny connectedness that we all share.
The overarching goal of Jungian psychology is the attainment of self through individuation. Jung defines "self" as the "archetype of wholeness and the regulating center of the psyche". Central to this process is the individual's encounter with his/her psyche and the bringing of its elements into consciousness. Humans experience the unconscious through symbols encountered in all aspects of life: in dreams, art, religion, and the symbolic dramas we enact in our relationships and life pursuits. Essential to this numinous encounter is the merging of the individual's consciousness with the collective consciousness through this symbolic language. By bringing conscious awareness to what is not conscious, unconscious elements can be integrated with consciousness when they "surface".
"Neurosis" results from a disharmony between the individual's (un)consciousness and his higher Self. The psyche is a self-regulating adaptive system. Humans are energetic systems, and if the energy gets blocked, the psyche gets stuck, or sick. If adaptation is thwarted, the psychic energy stops flowing, and regresses. This process manifests in neurosis and psychosis. Human psychic contents are complex, and deep. They can schism, and split, and form complexes that take over one's personality. Jung proposed that this occurs through maladaptation to one's external or internal realities. The principles of adaptation, projection, and compensation are central processes in Jung's view of psyche's ability to adapt.
The aim of psychotherapy is to assist the individual in reestablishing a healthy relationship to the unconscious: neither flooded by it (characteristic of psychosis, such as schizophrenia) or out of balance in relationship to it (as with neurosis, a state that results in depression, anxiety, and personality disorders).
To undergo the individuation process, individuals must be open to the parts of themselves beyond their own ego. The modern individual grows continually in psychic awareness through attention to dreams, the exploration of religion and spirituality, and by questioning the assumptions of the operant societal worldview, rather than just blindly living life in accordance with dominant norms and assumptions.
Also crucial is the belief that dreams show ideas, beliefs, and feelings that individuals are not readily aware of but need to be, and that such material is expressed in a personalized vocabulary of visual metaphors. Things 'known but unknown' are contained in the unconscious, and dreams are one of the main vehicles for the unconscious to express them.
Analytical psychology distinguishes between a personal unconscious and a collective unconscious. The collective unconscious contains archetypes common to all human beings. That is, individuation may bring to surface symbols that do not relate to the life experiences of a single person. This content is more easily viewed as answers to the more fundamental questions of humanity: life, death, meaning, happiness, fear. Among these more spiritual concepts may arise and be integrated into the personality.
Archetypes are collective as well as individual, and can grow on their own and present themselves in a variety of creative ways. Jung, in his book Memories, Dreams, Reflections, states that he began to see and talk to a manifestation of anima and that she taught him how to interpret dreams. As soon as he could interpret on his own, Jung said that she ceased talking to him because she was no longer needed.
According to Jung, self-realization is attained through individuation. His is an adult psychology, divided into two distinct tiers. In the first half of our lives, we separate from humanity. We attempt to create our own identities (“I”, “myself”). This is why there is such a need for young men to be destructive, and can be expressed as animosity from teens directed at their parents. Jung also said we have a sort of "second puberty" that occurs between ages 35 and 40: outlook shifts from emphasis on materialism, sexuality, and having children to concerns about community and spirituality.
In the second half of our lives, humans reunite with the human race. They become part of the collective once again. This is when adults start to contribute to humanity (volunteer time, build, garden, create art, etc.) rather than destroy. They are also more likely to pay attention to their unconscious and conscious feelings. Young men rarely say "I feel angry" or "I feel sad." This is because they have not yet rejoined the human collective experience, commonly reestablished in their older, wiser years, according to Jung. A common theme is for young rebels to "search" for their true selves and realize that a contribution to humanity is essentially a necessity for a whole self.
Jung proposes that the ultimate goal of the collective unconscious and self-realization is to pull us to the highest experience. This, of course, is spiritual.
If a person does not proceed toward self-knowledge, neurotic symptoms may arise. Symptoms are widely defined, including, for instance, phobias, psychosis, and depression.
The shadow in dreams is often represented by dark figures of the same gender as the dreamer.[3]
The shadow may also concern great figures in the history of human thought or even spiritual masters, who became great because of their shadows or because of their ability to live their shadows (namely, their unconscious faults) in full without repressing them.[4]
Often, when people ignore the anima or animus complexes, the anima or animus vies for attention by projecting itself on others. This explains, according to Jung, why we are sometimes immediately attracted to certain strangers: we see our anima or animus in them. Love at first sight is an example of anima and animus projection. Moreover, people who strongly identify with their gender role (e.g. a man who acts aggressively and never cries) have not actively recognized or engaged their anima or animus.
Jung attributes human rational thought to be the male nature, while the irrational aspect is considered to be natural female (rational being defined as involving judgment, irrational being defined as involving perceptions). Consequently, irrational moods are the progenies of the male anima shadow and irrational opinions of the female animus shadow.
Giving a complete description of the process of dream interpretation and individuation is complex. The nature of the complexity lies in the fact that the process is highly specific to the person who does it.
While Freudian psychoanalysis assumes that the repressed material hidden in the unconscious is given by repressed sexual instincts, analytical psychology has a more general approach. There is no preconceived assumption about the unconscious material. The unconscious, for Jungian analysts, may contain repressed sexual drives, but also aspirations, fears, etc.
According to Jung, the psyche is an apparatus for adaptation and orientation, and consists of a number of different psychic functions. Among these he distinguishes four basic functions:[7]
Note: There is ambiguity in the term 'rational' that Carl Jung ascribed to the thinking/feeling functions. Both thinking and feeling irrespective of orientation (i.e., introverted/extroverted) employ/utilize/are directed by in loose terminology an underlying 'logical' IF-THEN construct/process (as in IF X THEN Y) in order to form judgments. This underlying construct/process is not directly observable in normal states of consciousness especially when engaged in thoughts/feelings. It can be cognized merely as a concept/abstraction during thoughtful reflection. Sensation and intuition are 'irrational' functions simply because they do not employ the above-mentioned underlying logical construct/process.
Jung saw an archetype as always being the central organizing structure of a complex. For instance, in a "negative mother complex," the archetype of the "negative mother" would be seen to be central to the identity of that complex. This is to say, our psychological lives are patterned on common human experiences. Jung saw the Ego (which Freud wrote about in German literally as the "I", one's conscious experience of oneself) as a complex. If the "I" is a complex, what might be the archetype that structures it? Jung, and many Jungians, might say "the hero," one who separates from the community to ultimately carry the community further.
Jung started his career working with hospitalized patients with major mental illnesses, most notably schizophrenia. He was interested in the possibilities of an unknown "brain toxin" that could be the cause of schizophrenia. But the majority and the heart of Jung's clinical career was taken up with what we might call today individual psychodynamic psychotherapy, in gross structure very much in the strain of psychoanalytic practice first formed by Freud.
It is important to state that Jung seemed to often see his work as not a complete psychology in itself but as his unique contribution to the field of psychology. Jung claimed late in his career that only for about a third of his patients did he use "Jungian analysis". For another third, Freudian psychology seemed to best suit the patient's needs, and for the final third Adlerian analysis was most appropriate. In fact, it seems that most contemporary Jungian clinicians merge a developmentally grounded theory, such as Self psychology or Donald Winnicott's work, with the Jungian theories in order to have a "whole" theoretical repertoire for actual clinical work.
The "I" or Ego is tremendously important to Jung's clinical work. Jung's theory of etiology of psychopathology could almost be simplified to be stated as a too rigid conscious attitude towards the whole of the psyche. That is, a psychotic episode can be seen from a Jungian perspective as the "rest" of the psyche overwhelming the conscious psyche because the conscious psyche effectively was locking out and repressing the psyche as a whole.
Robert L. Moore has explored the archetypal level of the human psyche in a series of five books co-authored with Douglas Gillette, which have played an important role in the men's movement in the United States. Moore studies computerese so he uses a computer's hard wiring (its fixed physical components) as a metaphor for the archetypal level of the human psyche. Personal experiences influence the access to the archetypal level of the human psyche, but personalized ego consciousness can be likened to computer software.[citation needed]
Jung rejected the tabula rasa
theory of human psychological development, believing instead that
evolutionary pressures have individual predestinations manifested in
archetypes. Jung first used the term primordial images to refer to what he would later term "archetypes". Jung's idea of archetypes was based on Immanuel Kant's categories, Plato's Ideas, and Arthur Schopenhauer's prototypes.[3] For Jung, "the archetype is the introspectively recognizable form of a priori psychic orderedness".[4]
"These images must be thought of as lacking in solid content, hence as
unconscious. They only acquire solidity, influence, and eventual
consciousness in the encounter with empirical facts."[5]
The archetypes form a dynamic substratum common to all humanity, upon the foundation of which each individual builds his own experience of life, colouring them with his unique culture, personality and life events. Thus, while archetypes themselves may be conceived as a relative few innate nebulous forms, from these may arise innumerable images, symbols and patterns of behavior. While the emerging images and forms are apprehended consciously, the archetypes which inform them are elementary structures which are unconscious and impossible to apprehend.
Jung was fond of comparing the form of the archetype to the axial system of a crystal, which preforms the crystalline structure of the mother liquid, although it has no material existence of its own. This first appears according to the specific way in which the ions and molecules aggregate. The archetype in itself is empty and purely formal: a possibility of representation which is given a priori. The representations themselves are not inherited, only the forms, and in that respect they correspond to the instincts. The existence of the instincts can no more be proved than the existence of the archetypes, so long as they do not manifest themselves concretely.[6]
The intuition that there was more to the psyche than individual
experience possibly began in Jung's childhood. The very first dream he
could remember was that of an underground phallic god. Later in life his research on psychotic
patients in Burgholzli Hospital and his own self-analysis later
supported his early intuition about the existence of universal psychic
structures that underlie all human experience and behavior. Jung first
referred to these as "primordial images" – a term he borrowed from Jacob Burckhardt. Later in 1917 Jung called them "dominants of the collective unconscious."
It was not until 1919 that he first used the term "archetypes" in an essay titled "Instinct and the Unconscious". The first element in Greek `arche' signifies 'beginning, origin, cause, primal source principle', but it also signifies 'position of a leader, supreme rule and government' (in other words a kind of 'dominant'): the second element 'type' means 'blow and what is produced by a blow, the imprint of a coin ...form, image, prototype, model, order, and norm', ...in the figurative, modern sense, 'pattern underlying form, primordial form'.[7]
In later years Jung revised and broadened the concept of archetypes
even further, conceiving of them as psycho-physical patterns existing in
the universe, given specific expression by human consciousness and
culture. Jung proposed that the archetype had a dual nature: it exists
both in the psyche and in the world at large. He called this non-psychic
aspect of the archetype the "psychoid" archetype.
Jung drew an analogy between the psyche and light on the electromagnetic spectrum. The center of the visible light spectrum (i.e., yellow) corresponds to consciousness, which grades into unconsciousnessness at the red and blue ends. Red corresponds to basic unconscious urges, and the invisible infra-red end of the spectrum corresponds to the influence of biological instinct, which merges with its chemical and physical conditions. The blue end of the spectrum represents spiritual ideas; and the archetypes, exerting their influence from beyond the visible, correspond to the invisible realm of ultra-violet.[8] Jung suggested that not only do the archetypal structures govern the behavior of all living organisms, but that they were contiguous with structures controlling the behavior of inorganic matter as well.
The archetype was not merely a psychic entity, but more fundamentally, a bridge to matter in general.[8] Jung used the term unus mundus to describe the unitary reality which he believed underlay all manifest phenomena. He conceived archetypes to be the mediators of the unus mundus, organizing not only ideas in the psyche, but also the fundamental principles of matter and energy in the physical world.
It was this psychoid aspect of the archetype that so impressed Nobel laureate physicist Wolfgang Pauli. Embracing Jung's concept, Pauli believed that the archetype provided a link between physical events and the mind of the scientist who studied them. In doing so he echoed the position adopted by German astronomer Johannes Kepler. Thus the archetypes that ordered our perceptions and ideas are themselves the product of an objective order that transcends both the human mind and the external world.[2]
Jung described archetypal events: birth, death, separation from parents, initiation, marriage, the union of opposites; archetypal figures: great mother, father, child, devil, god, wise old man, wise old woman, the trickster, the hero; and archetypal motifs:
the apocalypse, the deluge, the creation. Although the number of
archetypes is limitless, there are a few particularly notable, recurring
archetypal images, "the chief among them being" (according to Jung)
"the shadow, the wise old man, the child, the mother ... and her counterpart, the maiden, and lastly the anima in man and the animus in woman".[9]
Alternatively he would speak of "the emergence of certain definite
archetypes ... the shadow, the animal, the wise old man, the anima, the
animus, the mother, the child".[10]
The Self designates the whole range of psychic phenomena in man. It expresses the unity of the personality as a whole.
The shadow is a representation of the personal unconscious as a whole and usually embodies the compensating values to those held by the conscious personality. Thus, the shadow often represents one's dark side, those aspects of oneself that exist, but which one does not acknowledge or with which one does not identify.[11]
The anima archetype appears in men and is his primordial image of woman. It represents the man's sexual expectation of women, but also is a symbol of a man's possibilities, his contrasexual tendencies. The animus archetype is the analogous image of the masculine that occurs in women.
Any attempt to give an exhaustive list of the archetypes, however, would be a largely futile exercise since the archetypes tend to combine with each other and interchange qualities making it difficult to decide where one archetype stops and another begins. For example, qualities of the shadow archetype may be prominent in an archetypal image of the anima or animus. One archetype may also appear in various distinct forms, thus raising the question whether four or five distinct archetypes should be said to be present or merely four or five forms of a single archetype.[11]
Popular and new-age uses have often condensed the concept of
archetypes into an enumeration of archetypal figures such as the hero,
the goddess, the wise man and so on. Such enumeration falls short of
apprehending the fluid core concept. Strictly speaking, archetypal
figures such as the hero, the goddess and the wise man are not
archetypes, but archetypal images which have crystallized out of the archetypes-as-such:
as Jung put it, "definite mythological images of motifs ... are nothing
more than conscious representations; it would be absurd to assume that
such variable representations could be inherited", as opposed to their
deeper, instinctual sources – "the 'archaic remnants', which I call
'archetypes' or 'primordial images'".[12]
However, the precise relationships between images such as, for example, "the fish" and its archetype were not adequately explained by Jung. Here the image of the fish is not strictly speaking an archetype. The "archetype of the fish" points to the ubiquitous existence of an innate "fish archetype" which gives rise to the fish image. In clarifying the contentious statement that fish archetypes are universal, Anthony Stevens explains that the archetype-as-such is at once an innate predisposition to form such an image and a preparation to encounter and respond appropriately to the creature per se. This would explain the existence of snake and spider phobias, for example, in people living in urban environments where they have never encountered either creature.[2]
The confusion about the essential quality of archetypes can partly be attributed to Jung's own evolving ideas about them in his writings and his interchangeable use of the term "archetype" and "primordial image". Jung was also intent on retaining the raw and vital quality of archetypes as spontaneous outpourings of the unconscious and not to give their specific individual and cultural expressions a dry, rigorous, intellectually formulated meaning.[13]
Archetypes are innate universal pre-conscious psychic dispositions
that form the substrate from which the basic themes of human life
emerge. The archetypes are components of the collective unconscious and serve to organize, direct and inform human thought and behaviour. Archetypes hold control of the human life cycle.
As we mature the archetypal plan unfolds through a programmed sequence which Jung called the stages of life. Each stage of life is mediated through a new set of archetypal imperatives which seek fulfillment in action. These may include being parented, initiation, courtship, marriage and preparation for death.[14]
"The archetype is a tendency to form such representations of a motif – representations that can vary a great deal in detail without losing their basic pattern ... They are indeed an instinctive trend".[15] Thus, "the archetype of initiation is strongly activated to provide a meaningful transition ... with a 'rite of passage' from one stage of life to the next":[16][17] such stages may include being parented, initiation, courtship, marriage and preparation for death.[18]
The concept of "social instincts" proposed by Charles Darwin, the "faculties" of Henri Bergson and the isomorphs of gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Kohler are also arguably related to archetypes.
In his work in psycholinguistics, Noam Chomsky describes an unvarying pattern of language acquisition in children and termed it the language acquisition device. He refers to 'universals' and a distinction is drawn between 'formal' and 'substantive' universals similar to that between archetype as such (structure) and archetypal image.
Jean Piaget writes of 'schemata' which are innate and underpin perceptuo-motor activity and the acquisition of knowledge, and are able to draw the perceived environment into their orbit. They resemble archetypes by virtue of their innateness, their activity and their need for environmental correspondence.
Stevens (1982) suggests that ethology and analytical psychology are both disciplines trying to comprehend universal phenomena. Ethology shows us that each species is equipped with unique behavioural capacities that are adapted to its environment and 'even allowing for our greater adaptive flexibility, we are no exception. Archetypes are the neuropsychic centres responsible for co-ordinating the behavioural and psychic repertoire of our species'. Following Bowlby, Stevens points out that genetically programmed behaviour is taking place in the psychological relationship between mother and newborn. The baby's helplessness, its immense repertoire of sign stimuli and approach behaviour, triggers a maternal response. And the smell, sound and shape of mother triggers, for instance, a feeding response.[19]
Stein points out that all the various terms used to delineate the messengers – 'templates, genes, enzymes, hormones, catalysts, pheromones, social hormones' – are concepts similar to archetypes. He mentions archetypal figures which represent messengers such as Hermes, Prometheus or Christ. Continuing to base his arguments on a consideration of biological defence systems he says that it must operate in a whole range of specific circumstances, its agents must be able to go everywhere, the distribution of the agents must not upset the somatic status quo, and, in predisposed persons, the agents will attack the self.[19]
Melanie Klein: Melanie Klein's idea of unconscious phantasy is closely related to Jung's archetype, as both are composed of image and affect and are a priori patternings of psyche whose contents are built from experience.[19]
Jacques Lacan: Lacan went beyond the proposition that the unconscious is a structure that lies beneath the conscious world; the unconscious itself is structured, like a language. This would suggest parallels with Jung. Further Lacan's Symbolic and Imaginary orders may be aligned with Jung's archetypal theory and personal unconscious respectively. The Symbolic order patterns the contents of the Imaginary in the same way that archetypal structures predispose humans towards certain sorts of experience. If we take the example of parents, archetypal structures and the Symbolic order predispose our recognition of, and relation to them.[19] Lacan's concept of the Real approaches Jung's elaboration of the psychoid unconscious, which may be seen as true but cannot be directly known. Lacan posited that the unconscious is organised in an intricate network governed by association, above all 'metaphoric associations'. The existence of the network is shown by analysis of the unconscious products: dreams, symptoms, and so on.[19]
Wilfred Bion:
According to Bion, thoughts precede a thinking capacity. Thoughts in a
small infant are indistinguishable from sensory data or unorganised
emotion. Bion uses the term proto-thoughts for these early phenomena.
Because of their connection to sensory data, proto-thoughts are concrete
and self-contained (thoughts-in-themselves), not yet capable of
symbolic representations or object relations. The thoughts then function
as preconceptions – predisposing psychosomatic entities similar to
archetypes. Support for this connection comes from the Kleinian analyst
Money-Kyrle's observation that Bion's notion of preconceptions is the
direct descendant of Plato's Ideas.[19]
Sigmund Freud: In the Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
(1916-1917) Freud wrote: "There can be no doubt that the source [of the
fantasies] lie in the instincts; but it still has to be explained why
the same fantasies with the same content are created on every occasion. I
am prepared with an answer that I know will seem daring to you. I
believe that...primal fantasies, and no doubt a few others as well, are a
phylogenetic
endowment". His suggestion that primal fantasies are a residue of
specific memories of prehistoric experiences have been construed as
being aligned with the idea of archetypes. Laplanehe and Pontalis point
out that all the so-called primal fantasies relate to the origins and
that "like collective myths they claim to provide a representation of
and a 'solution' to whatever constitutes an enigma for the child".[19]
Robert Langs: More recently, adaptive psychotherapist and psychoanalyst Robert Langs has used archetypal theory as a way of understanding the functioning of what he calls the "deep unconscious system".[20] Langs' use of archetypes particularly pertains to issues associated with death anxiety, which Langs takes to be the root of psychic conflict. Like Jung, Langs thinks of archetypes as species-wide, deep unconscious factors.[21]
Henry (1977) alluded to Maclean's model of the tripartite brain suggesting that the reptilian brain is an older part of the brain and may contain not only drives but archetypal structures as well. The suggestion is that there was a time when emotional behaviour and cognition were less developed and the older brain predominated. There is an obvious parallel with Jung's idea of the archetypes 'crystallising out' over time.[19]
The main influence on the development of archetypal psychology is Jung's analytical psychology. It is strongly influenced by Classical Greek, Renaissance, and Romantic ideas and thought. Influential artists, poets, philosophers, alchemists, and psychologists include: Nietzsche, Henry Corbin, Keats, Shelley, Petrarch, and Paracelsus. Though all different in their theories and psychologies, they appear to be unified by their common concern for the psyche – the soul. Many archetypes have been used in treatment of psychological illnesses. Jung's first research was done with schizophrenics. A current example is teaching young men or boys archetypes through using picture books to help with the development.[23] In addition nurses treat patients through the use of archetypes.[16] Archetype therapy offers a wide range of uses if applied correctly, and it is still being expanded in Jungian schools today. With the list of archetypes being endless the healing possibilities are vast.
Contemporary cinema is a rich source of archetypal images, most
commonly evidenced for instance in the hero archetype: the one who saves
the day and is young and naive, like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, or older and cynical, like Rick Blaine in Casablanca.
The mentor archetype is a common character in all types of films. They
can appear and disappear as needed, usually helping the hero in the
beginning, and then letting them do the hard part on their own. The
mentor helps train, prepare, encourage and guide the hero. They are
obvious in some films: Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid, Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio, Obi-Wan, and later Yoda in the original Star Wars trilogy.[citation needed]
The Shadow, one's darker side, often associated with the villain of numerous films and books, but can be internal as in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The shapeshifter is the person who misleads the hero or who changes frequently and can be depicted quite literally e.g. The T-1000 robot in Terminator II. The Trickster creates disruptions of the status quo, maybe childlike and help us see the absurdity in situations, provide comic relief; e.g. Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, Bugs Bunny and Brer Rabbit. The Child often innocent; could be someone childlike who needs protecting but may be imbued with special powers (e.g. E.T.). The Bad Father – often seen as a dictator type, or evil and cruel (e.g. Darth Vader in Star Wars). The Bad Mother (e.g. Mommie Dearest), along with evil stepmothers and wicked witches. The Bad Child; e.g., The Bad Seed, The Omen.
Jungian archetypes are heavily integrated into the personalities of the characters in the Persona series of games. In Persona 3 and Persona 4, the characters with whom you form relationships, (in the game called "Social Links") which are each based on a particular archetype. They are formally differentiated by different tarot arcana, however the primary basis of the game's characterization originates from archetypes.
In marketing, an archetype is a genre to a brand, based upon symbolism. The idea behind using brand archetypes in marketing is to anchor the brand against an icon already embedded within the conscience and subconscious of humanity. In the minds of both the brand owner and the public, aligning with a brand archetype makes the brand easier to identify. Twelve archetypes have been proposed for use with branding: Sage, Innocent, Explorer, Ruler, Creator, Caregiver, Magician, Hero, Outlaw, Lover, Jester, and Regular Guy/Girl.[26]
Feminist critiques have focused on aspects of archetypal theory that are seen as being reductionistic and providing a stereotyped view of femininity and masculinity.[27]
Another criticism of archetypes is that seeing myths as universals tends to abstract them from the history of their actual creation, and their cultural context.[28] Some modern critics state that archetypes reduce cultural expressions to generic decontextualized concepts, stripped bare of their unique cultural context, reducing a complex reality into something "simple and easy to grasp".[28] Other critics respond that archetypes do nothing more than to solidify the cultural prejudices of the myths interpreter – namely modern Westerners. Modern scholarship with its emphasis on power and politics have seen archetypes as a colonial device to level the specifics of individual cultures and their stories in the service of grand abstraction.[29]
Others have accused him of a romanticised and prejudicial promotion of 'primitivism' through the medium of archetypal theory. Archetypal theory has been posited as being scientifically unfalsifiable and even questioned as to being a suitable domain of psychological and scientific enquiry. Jung mentions the demarcation between experimental and descriptive psychological study, seeing archetypal psychology as rooted by necessity in the latter camp, grounded as it was (to a degree) in clinical case-work.[30]
Because Jung's viewpoint was essentially subjectivist, he displayed a somewhat Neo-Kantian perspective of a skepticism for knowing things in themselves and a preference of inner experience over empirical data. This skepticism opened Jung up to the charge of countering materialism with another kind of reductionism, one that reduces everything to subjective psychological explanation and wooly quasi-mystical assertions.[31]
Post-Jungian criticism seeks to contextualise, expand and modify Jung's original discourse on archetypes. Michael Fordham is critical of tendencies to relate imagery produced by patients to historical parallels only, e.g. from alchemy, mythology or folklore. A patient who produces archetypal material with striking alchemical parallels runs the risk of becoming more divorced than before from his setting in contemporary life.[19]
Analytical psychology
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Important concepts in Jung's system are individuation, symbols, the personal unconscious, the collective unconscious, archetypes, complexes, the persona, the shadow, the anima and animus, and the self.
Jung's theories have been investigated and elaborated by Toni Wolff, Marie-Louise von Franz, Jolande Jacobi, Aniela Jaffé, Erich Neumann, James Hillman, Jordan Peterson, and Anthony Stevens.
Analytical psychology is distinct from psychoanalysis, which is a psychotherapeutic system created by Sigmund Freud.
Contents
Overview
Jung began his career as a psychiatrist in Zürich, Switzerland. There, he conducted research for the Word Association Experiment at the Burghölzli Clinic. Jung's research earned him a worldwide reputation and numerous honours, including an honorary degree from Clark University, Massachusetts, in 1904; another honorary degree from Harvard University in 1936; recognition from the University of Oxford and the University of Calcutta; and appointment as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, England.In 1907, Jung met Sigmund Freud in Vienna, Austria. For six years, the two scholars worked together, and in 1911, they founded the International Psychoanalytical Association, of which Jung was the first president. However, early in the collaboration, Jung observed that Freud would not tolerate ideas that were different from his own. In 1912, Jung's Psychology of the Unconscious (Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido) was published (re-published as Symbols of Transformation in 1952) (C.W. Vol. 5). The work's innovative ideas contributed to a new foundation in psychology as well as the end of the Jung-Freud friendship in 1913. The two scholars continued their work on personality development independently: Jung's approach is called Analytical Psychology (German: analytische Psychologie), and Freud's approach is referred to as the Psychoanalytic School (psychoanalytische Schule), which he founded.
Unlike most modern psychologists, Jung did not believe that experiments using natural science were the only means to gain an understanding of the human psyche. He saw as empirical evidence the world of dream, myth, and folklore as the promising road to deeper understanding and meaning. That method's choice is related with his choice of the object of his science. As Jung said, "The beauty about the unconscious is that it is really unconscious."[2] Hence, the unconscious is 'untouchable' by experimental researches, or indeed any possible kind of scientific or philosophical reach, precisely because it is unconscious.[citation needed]
Although the unconscious cannot be studied by using direct approaches, it is, according to Jung at least, a useful hypothesis. His postulated unconscious was quite different from the model that was proposed by Freud, despite the great influence that the founder of psychoanalysis had on Jung. The most well-known difference is the assumption of the collective unconscious (see also Jungian archetypes), although Jung's proposal of collective unconscious and archetypes was based on the assumption of the existence of psychic (mental) patterns. These patterns include conscious contents—thoughts, memories, etc.—from life experience. They are common for all human beings. His proof of the vast collective unconscious was his concept of synchronicity, that inexplicable, uncanny connectedness that we all share.
The overarching goal of Jungian psychology is the attainment of self through individuation. Jung defines "self" as the "archetype of wholeness and the regulating center of the psyche". Central to this process is the individual's encounter with his/her psyche and the bringing of its elements into consciousness. Humans experience the unconscious through symbols encountered in all aspects of life: in dreams, art, religion, and the symbolic dramas we enact in our relationships and life pursuits. Essential to this numinous encounter is the merging of the individual's consciousness with the collective consciousness through this symbolic language. By bringing conscious awareness to what is not conscious, unconscious elements can be integrated with consciousness when they "surface".
"Neurosis" results from a disharmony between the individual's (un)consciousness and his higher Self. The psyche is a self-regulating adaptive system. Humans are energetic systems, and if the energy gets blocked, the psyche gets stuck, or sick. If adaptation is thwarted, the psychic energy stops flowing, and regresses. This process manifests in neurosis and psychosis. Human psychic contents are complex, and deep. They can schism, and split, and form complexes that take over one's personality. Jung proposed that this occurs through maladaptation to one's external or internal realities. The principles of adaptation, projection, and compensation are central processes in Jung's view of psyche's ability to adapt.
The aim of psychotherapy is to assist the individual in reestablishing a healthy relationship to the unconscious: neither flooded by it (characteristic of psychosis, such as schizophrenia) or out of balance in relationship to it (as with neurosis, a state that results in depression, anxiety, and personality disorders).
To undergo the individuation process, individuals must be open to the parts of themselves beyond their own ego. The modern individual grows continually in psychic awareness through attention to dreams, the exploration of religion and spirituality, and by questioning the assumptions of the operant societal worldview, rather than just blindly living life in accordance with dominant norms and assumptions.
Fundamentals
Unconscious
The basic assumption is that the personal unconscious is a potent part — probably the more active part — of the normal human psyche. Reliable communication between the conscious and unconscious parts of the psyche is necessary for wholeness.Also crucial is the belief that dreams show ideas, beliefs, and feelings that individuals are not readily aware of but need to be, and that such material is expressed in a personalized vocabulary of visual metaphors. Things 'known but unknown' are contained in the unconscious, and dreams are one of the main vehicles for the unconscious to express them.
Analytical psychology distinguishes between a personal unconscious and a collective unconscious. The collective unconscious contains archetypes common to all human beings. That is, individuation may bring to surface symbols that do not relate to the life experiences of a single person. This content is more easily viewed as answers to the more fundamental questions of humanity: life, death, meaning, happiness, fear. Among these more spiritual concepts may arise and be integrated into the personality.
Collective unconscious
Jung's concept of the collective unconscious has often been misunderstood. To understand this concept, it is essential to understand Jungian archetypes.[citation needed]Archetypes
The use of psychological archetypes was advanced by Jung in 1919. In Jung's psychological framework, archetypes are innate, universal prototypes for ideas and may be used to interpret observations. A group of memories and interpretations associated with an archetype is a complex, e.g. a mother complex associated with the mother archetype. Jung treated the archetypes as psychological organs, analogous to physical ones in that both are morphological givens that arose through evolution.Archetypes are collective as well as individual, and can grow on their own and present themselves in a variety of creative ways. Jung, in his book Memories, Dreams, Reflections, states that he began to see and talk to a manifestation of anima and that she taught him how to interpret dreams. As soon as he could interpret on his own, Jung said that she ceased talking to him because she was no longer needed.
Self-realization and neuroticism
An innate need for self-realization leads people to explore and integrate these disowned parts of themselves. This natural process is called individuation, or the process of becoming an individual.According to Jung, self-realization is attained through individuation. His is an adult psychology, divided into two distinct tiers. In the first half of our lives, we separate from humanity. We attempt to create our own identities (“I”, “myself”). This is why there is such a need for young men to be destructive, and can be expressed as animosity from teens directed at their parents. Jung also said we have a sort of "second puberty" that occurs between ages 35 and 40: outlook shifts from emphasis on materialism, sexuality, and having children to concerns about community and spirituality.
In the second half of our lives, humans reunite with the human race. They become part of the collective once again. This is when adults start to contribute to humanity (volunteer time, build, garden, create art, etc.) rather than destroy. They are also more likely to pay attention to their unconscious and conscious feelings. Young men rarely say "I feel angry" or "I feel sad." This is because they have not yet rejoined the human collective experience, commonly reestablished in their older, wiser years, according to Jung. A common theme is for young rebels to "search" for their true selves and realize that a contribution to humanity is essentially a necessity for a whole self.
Jung proposes that the ultimate goal of the collective unconscious and self-realization is to pull us to the highest experience. This, of course, is spiritual.
If a person does not proceed toward self-knowledge, neurotic symptoms may arise. Symptoms are widely defined, including, for instance, phobias, psychosis, and depression.
Shadow
The shadow is an unconscious complex defined as the repressed, suppressed or disowned qualities of the conscious self. According to Jung, the human being deals with the reality of the shadow in four ways: denial, projection, integration and/or transmutation.[citation needed] According to analytical psychology, a person's shadow may have both constructive and destructive aspects. In its more destructive aspects, the shadow can represent those things people do not accept about themselves. For instance, the shadow of someone who identifies as being kind may be harsh or unkind. Conversely, the shadow of a person who perceives himself to be brutal may be gentle. In its more constructive aspects, a person's shadow may represent hidden positive qualities. This has been referred to as the "gold in the shadow". Jung emphasized the importance of being aware of shadow material and incorporating it into conscious awareness in order to avoid projecting shadow qualities on others.The shadow in dreams is often represented by dark figures of the same gender as the dreamer.[3]
The shadow may also concern great figures in the history of human thought or even spiritual masters, who became great because of their shadows or because of their ability to live their shadows (namely, their unconscious faults) in full without repressing them.[4]
Anima and animus
Jung identified the anima as being the unconscious feminine component of men and the animus as the unconscious masculine component in women. However, this is rarely taken as a literal definition: many modern-day Jungian practitioners believe that every person has both an anima and an animus. Jung stated that the anima and animus act as guides to the unconscious unified Self, and that forming an awareness and a connection with the anima or animus is one of the most difficult and rewarding steps in psychological growth. Jung reported that he identified his anima as she spoke to him, as an inner voice, unexpectedly one day.Often, when people ignore the anima or animus complexes, the anima or animus vies for attention by projecting itself on others. This explains, according to Jung, why we are sometimes immediately attracted to certain strangers: we see our anima or animus in them. Love at first sight is an example of anima and animus projection. Moreover, people who strongly identify with their gender role (e.g. a man who acts aggressively and never cries) have not actively recognized or engaged their anima or animus.
Jung attributes human rational thought to be the male nature, while the irrational aspect is considered to be natural female (rational being defined as involving judgment, irrational being defined as involving perceptions). Consequently, irrational moods are the progenies of the male anima shadow and irrational opinions of the female animus shadow.
Wise old man / woman
"After the confrontation with the soul-image the appearance of the old wise man, the personification of the spiritual principle, can be distinguished as the next milestone of inner development."[5] As archetypes of the collective unconscious, such figures can be seen as, "in psychological terms, a symbolic personification of the Self."[6]Psychoanalysis
Analysis is a way to experience and integrate the unknown material. It is a search for the meaning of behaviours, symptoms and events. Many are the channels to reach this greater self-knowledge. The analysis of dreams is the most common. Others may include expressing feelings in art pieces, poetry or other expressions of creativity.Giving a complete description of the process of dream interpretation and individuation is complex. The nature of the complexity lies in the fact that the process is highly specific to the person who does it.
While Freudian psychoanalysis assumes that the repressed material hidden in the unconscious is given by repressed sexual instincts, analytical psychology has a more general approach. There is no preconceived assumption about the unconscious material. The unconscious, for Jungian analysts, may contain repressed sexual drives, but also aspirations, fears, etc.
Psychological types
Analytical psychology distinguishes several psychological types or temperaments.According to Jung, the psyche is an apparatus for adaptation and orientation, and consists of a number of different psychic functions. Among these he distinguishes four basic functions:[7]
- Sensation – Perception by means of the sense organs
- Intuition – Perceiving in unconscious way or perception of unconscious contents
- Thinking – Function of intellectual cognition; the forming of logical conclusions
- Feeling – Function of subjective estimation
Note: There is ambiguity in the term 'rational' that Carl Jung ascribed to the thinking/feeling functions. Both thinking and feeling irrespective of orientation (i.e., introverted/extroverted) employ/utilize/are directed by in loose terminology an underlying 'logical' IF-THEN construct/process (as in IF X THEN Y) in order to form judgments. This underlying construct/process is not directly observable in normal states of consciousness especially when engaged in thoughts/feelings. It can be cognized merely as a concept/abstraction during thoughtful reflection. Sensation and intuition are 'irrational' functions simply because they do not employ the above-mentioned underlying logical construct/process.
Complexes
Early in Jung's career he coined the term and described the concept of the "complex". Jung claims to have discovered the concept during his free association and galvanic skin response experiments. Freud obviously took up this concept in his Oedipus complex amongst others. Jung seemed to see complexes as quite autonomous parts of psychological life. It is almost as if Jung were describing separate personalities within what is considered a single individual, but to equate Jung's use of complexes with something along the lines of multiple personality disorder would be a step out of bounds.Jung saw an archetype as always being the central organizing structure of a complex. For instance, in a "negative mother complex," the archetype of the "negative mother" would be seen to be central to the identity of that complex. This is to say, our psychological lives are patterned on common human experiences. Jung saw the Ego (which Freud wrote about in German literally as the "I", one's conscious experience of oneself) as a complex. If the "I" is a complex, what might be the archetype that structures it? Jung, and many Jungians, might say "the hero," one who separates from the community to ultimately carry the community further.
Clinical theories
Jung's writings have been studied by people of many backgrounds and interests, including theologians, people from the humanities, and mythologists. Jung often seemed to seek to make contributions to various fields, but he was mostly a practicing psychiatrist, involved during his whole career in treating patients. A description of Jung's clinical relevance is to address the core of his work.Jung started his career working with hospitalized patients with major mental illnesses, most notably schizophrenia. He was interested in the possibilities of an unknown "brain toxin" that could be the cause of schizophrenia. But the majority and the heart of Jung's clinical career was taken up with what we might call today individual psychodynamic psychotherapy, in gross structure very much in the strain of psychoanalytic practice first formed by Freud.
It is important to state that Jung seemed to often see his work as not a complete psychology in itself but as his unique contribution to the field of psychology. Jung claimed late in his career that only for about a third of his patients did he use "Jungian analysis". For another third, Freudian psychology seemed to best suit the patient's needs, and for the final third Adlerian analysis was most appropriate. In fact, it seems that most contemporary Jungian clinicians merge a developmentally grounded theory, such as Self psychology or Donald Winnicott's work, with the Jungian theories in order to have a "whole" theoretical repertoire for actual clinical work.
The "I" or Ego is tremendously important to Jung's clinical work. Jung's theory of etiology of psychopathology could almost be simplified to be stated as a too rigid conscious attitude towards the whole of the psyche. That is, a psychotic episode can be seen from a Jungian perspective as the "rest" of the psyche overwhelming the conscious psyche because the conscious psyche effectively was locking out and repressing the psyche as a whole.
Post-Jungian approaches
Andrew Samuels (1985) has distinguished three distinct traditions or approaches of "post-Jungian" psychology – classical, developmental and archetypal. Today there are more developments.Classical
The classical approach tries to remain faithful to what Jung proposed and taught in person, and in his 20-plus volumes of work. Prominent advocates of this approach, according to Samuels (1985), include Emma Jung (C.G. Jung's wife, who was an analyst in her own right), Marie-Louise von Franz, Joseph L. Henderson, Aniela Jaffé, Erich Neumann, Gerhard Adler and Jolande Jacobi.Developmental
The developmental approach is primarily associated with Erich Neumann ("Origins of Conscious" and "Origins of the Child".) Jung credited Neumann as the student for advancing his (Jung's) theory into a developmental model based on a mythological approach. He described three broad myths:Creation, the Hero, and Transcendence. Expansion of Jungian theory is also credited to Michael Fordham and his wife, Frieda Fordham. It can be considered a bridge between traditional Jungian analysis and Melanie Klein's object relations theory. Laings and Goodheart are also often mentioned. Samuels (1985) considers J. Redfearn, Richard Carvalho and himself (Andrew Samuels) as representatives of the developmental approach. Samuels notes how this approach differs from the classical by giving less emphasis to the Self and more emphasis to the development of personality; he also notes how, in terms of practice in therapy, it gives more attention to transference and counter-transference than either the classical or the archetypal approaches.Archetypal
One archetypal approach, sometimes called "the imaginal school" by James Hillman, was written about by him in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Its adherents, according to Samuels (1985), include Murray Stein, Rafael Lopez-Pedraza and Wolfgang Giegerich. Thomas Moore also was influenced by some of Hillman's work. Developed independently, other psychoanalysts have created strong approaches to archetypal psychology. Mythopoeticists and psychoanalysts such as Clarissa Pinkola Estés who believes that ethnic and aboriginal people are the originators of archetypal psychology and have long carried the maps for the journey of the soul in their songs, tales, dream-telling, art and rituals; Marion Woodman who proposes a feminist viewpoint regarding archetypal psychology. Some of the mythopoetic/archetypal psychology creators either imagine the Self not to be the main archetype of the collective unconscious as Jung thought, but rather assign each archetype equal value.[citation needed] Others, who are modern progenitors of archetypal psychology (such as Estés), think of the Self as the thing that contains and yet is suffused by all other archetypes, each giving life to the other.Robert L. Moore has explored the archetypal level of the human psyche in a series of five books co-authored with Douglas Gillette, which have played an important role in the men's movement in the United States. Moore studies computerese so he uses a computer's hard wiring (its fixed physical components) as a metaphor for the archetypal level of the human psyche. Personal experiences influence the access to the archetypal level of the human psyche, but personalized ego consciousness can be likened to computer software.[citation needed]
Process-oriented psychology
Process-oriented psychology (also called Process work) is associated with the Zurich-trained Jungian analyst Arnold Mindell. Process work developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s and was originally identified as a "daughter of Jungian psychology".[citation needed] Process work stresses awareness of the "unconscious" as an ongoing flow of experience. This approach expands Jung's work beyond verbal individual therapy to include body experience, altered and comatose states as well as multicultural group work.Jungian archetypes
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In Jungian psychology, archetypes are highly developed elements of the collective unconscious. The existence of archetypes can only be deduced indirectly by using story, art, myths, religions, or dreams. Carl Jung
understood archetypes as universal, archaic patterns and images that
derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart
of instinct.[1]
They are inherited potentials which are actualized when they enter
consciousness as images or manifest in behavior on interaction with the
outside world.[2]
They are autonomous and hidden forms which are transformed once they
enter consciousness and are given particular expression by individuals
and their cultures.
In theory, Jungian archetypes refer to unclear underlying forms or the archetypes-as-such from which emerge images and motifs such as the mother, the child, the trickster, and the flood among others. History, culture and personal context shape these manifest representations thereby giving them their specific content. These images and motifs are more precisely called archetypal images. However it is common for the term archetype to be used interchangeably to refer to both archetypes-as-such and archetypal images.[2]
In theory, Jungian archetypes refer to unclear underlying forms or the archetypes-as-such from which emerge images and motifs such as the mother, the child, the trickster, and the flood among others. History, culture and personal context shape these manifest representations thereby giving them their specific content. These images and motifs are more precisely called archetypal images. However it is common for the term archetype to be used interchangeably to refer to both archetypes-as-such and archetypal images.[2]
Contents
Introduction
Jung's ideas on archetypes were based in part on Plato's Forms
The archetypes form a dynamic substratum common to all humanity, upon the foundation of which each individual builds his own experience of life, colouring them with his unique culture, personality and life events. Thus, while archetypes themselves may be conceived as a relative few innate nebulous forms, from these may arise innumerable images, symbols and patterns of behavior. While the emerging images and forms are apprehended consciously, the archetypes which inform them are elementary structures which are unconscious and impossible to apprehend.
Jung was fond of comparing the form of the archetype to the axial system of a crystal, which preforms the crystalline structure of the mother liquid, although it has no material existence of its own. This first appears according to the specific way in which the ions and molecules aggregate. The archetype in itself is empty and purely formal: a possibility of representation which is given a priori. The representations themselves are not inherited, only the forms, and in that respect they correspond to the instincts. The existence of the instincts can no more be proved than the existence of the archetypes, so long as they do not manifest themselves concretely.[6]
Early development
Carl Jung standing in front of Burghölzli clinic, Zurich 1909
It was not until 1919 that he first used the term "archetypes" in an essay titled "Instinct and the Unconscious". The first element in Greek `arche' signifies 'beginning, origin, cause, primal source principle', but it also signifies 'position of a leader, supreme rule and government' (in other words a kind of 'dominant'): the second element 'type' means 'blow and what is produced by a blow, the imprint of a coin ...form, image, prototype, model, order, and norm', ...in the figurative, modern sense, 'pattern underlying form, primordial form'.[7]
Later development
Jung drew an analogy between the psyche and light on the electromagnetic spectrum. The center of the visible light spectrum (i.e., yellow) corresponds to consciousness, which grades into unconsciousnessness at the red and blue ends. Red corresponds to basic unconscious urges, and the invisible infra-red end of the spectrum corresponds to the influence of biological instinct, which merges with its chemical and physical conditions. The blue end of the spectrum represents spiritual ideas; and the archetypes, exerting their influence from beyond the visible, correspond to the invisible realm of ultra-violet.[8] Jung suggested that not only do the archetypal structures govern the behavior of all living organisms, but that they were contiguous with structures controlling the behavior of inorganic matter as well.
The archetype was not merely a psychic entity, but more fundamentally, a bridge to matter in general.[8] Jung used the term unus mundus to describe the unitary reality which he believed underlay all manifest phenomena. He conceived archetypes to be the mediators of the unus mundus, organizing not only ideas in the psyche, but also the fundamental principles of matter and energy in the physical world.
It was this psychoid aspect of the archetype that so impressed Nobel laureate physicist Wolfgang Pauli. Embracing Jung's concept, Pauli believed that the archetype provided a link between physical events and the mind of the scientist who studied them. In doing so he echoed the position adopted by German astronomer Johannes Kepler. Thus the archetypes that ordered our perceptions and ideas are themselves the product of an objective order that transcends both the human mind and the external world.[2]
Examples
The Norse trickster god Loki as depicted on an 18th-century Icelandic manuscript
The Self designates the whole range of psychic phenomena in man. It expresses the unity of the personality as a whole.
The shadow is a representation of the personal unconscious as a whole and usually embodies the compensating values to those held by the conscious personality. Thus, the shadow often represents one's dark side, those aspects of oneself that exist, but which one does not acknowledge or with which one does not identify.[11]
The anima archetype appears in men and is his primordial image of woman. It represents the man's sexual expectation of women, but also is a symbol of a man's possibilities, his contrasexual tendencies. The animus archetype is the analogous image of the masculine that occurs in women.
Any attempt to give an exhaustive list of the archetypes, however, would be a largely futile exercise since the archetypes tend to combine with each other and interchange qualities making it difficult to decide where one archetype stops and another begins. For example, qualities of the shadow archetype may be prominent in an archetypal image of the anima or animus. One archetype may also appear in various distinct forms, thus raising the question whether four or five distinct archetypes should be said to be present or merely four or five forms of a single archetype.[11]
Conceptual difficulties
Strictly speaking the goddess archetype is more properly called an archetypal image
However, the precise relationships between images such as, for example, "the fish" and its archetype were not adequately explained by Jung. Here the image of the fish is not strictly speaking an archetype. The "archetype of the fish" points to the ubiquitous existence of an innate "fish archetype" which gives rise to the fish image. In clarifying the contentious statement that fish archetypes are universal, Anthony Stevens explains that the archetype-as-such is at once an innate predisposition to form such an image and a preparation to encounter and respond appropriately to the creature per se. This would explain the existence of snake and spider phobias, for example, in people living in urban environments where they have never encountered either creature.[2]
The confusion about the essential quality of archetypes can partly be attributed to Jung's own evolving ideas about them in his writings and his interchangeable use of the term "archetype" and "primordial image". Jung was also intent on retaining the raw and vital quality of archetypes as spontaneous outpourings of the unconscious and not to give their specific individual and cultural expressions a dry, rigorous, intellectually formulated meaning.[13]
Actualization and complexes
Archetypes seek actualization within the context of an individual's environment and determine the degree of individuation. Jung also used the terms "evocation" and "constellation" to explain the process of actualization. Thus for example, the mother archetype is actualized in the mind of the child by the evoking of innate anticipations of the maternal archetype when the child is in the proximity of a maternal figure who corresponds closely enough to its archetypal template. This mother archetype is built into the personal unconscious of the child as a mother complex. Complexes are functional units of the personal unconscious, in the same way that archetypes are units for the collective unconscious.Stages of life
An initiation ceremony in Papua New Guinea
As we mature the archetypal plan unfolds through a programmed sequence which Jung called the stages of life. Each stage of life is mediated through a new set of archetypal imperatives which seek fulfillment in action. These may include being parented, initiation, courtship, marriage and preparation for death.[14]
"The archetype is a tendency to form such representations of a motif – representations that can vary a great deal in detail without losing their basic pattern ... They are indeed an instinctive trend".[15] Thus, "the archetype of initiation is strongly activated to provide a meaningful transition ... with a 'rite of passage' from one stage of life to the next":[16][17] such stages may include being parented, initiation, courtship, marriage and preparation for death.[18]
General developments
Claude Lévi-Strauss was an advocate of structuralism in anthropology. In his approach to the structure and meaning of myth, Levi-Strauss concluded that present phenomena are transformations of earlier structures or infrastructures: 'the structure of primitive thoughts is present in our minds'.The concept of "social instincts" proposed by Charles Darwin, the "faculties" of Henri Bergson and the isomorphs of gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Kohler are also arguably related to archetypes.
In his work in psycholinguistics, Noam Chomsky describes an unvarying pattern of language acquisition in children and termed it the language acquisition device. He refers to 'universals' and a distinction is drawn between 'formal' and 'substantive' universals similar to that between archetype as such (structure) and archetypal image.
Jean Piaget writes of 'schemata' which are innate and underpin perceptuo-motor activity and the acquisition of knowledge, and are able to draw the perceived environment into their orbit. They resemble archetypes by virtue of their innateness, their activity and their need for environmental correspondence.
Ethology and attachment theory
In Biological theory and the concept of archetypes, Michael Fordham considered that innate release mechanisms in animals may be applicable to humans, especially in infancy. The stimuli which produce instinctive behaviour are selected from a wide field by an innate perceptual system and the behaviour is 'released'. Fordham drew a parallel between some of Lorenz's ethological observations on the hierarchical behaviour of wolves and the functioning of archetypes in infancy.[19]Stevens (1982) suggests that ethology and analytical psychology are both disciplines trying to comprehend universal phenomena. Ethology shows us that each species is equipped with unique behavioural capacities that are adapted to its environment and 'even allowing for our greater adaptive flexibility, we are no exception. Archetypes are the neuropsychic centres responsible for co-ordinating the behavioural and psychic repertoire of our species'. Following Bowlby, Stevens points out that genetically programmed behaviour is taking place in the psychological relationship between mother and newborn. The baby's helplessness, its immense repertoire of sign stimuli and approach behaviour, triggers a maternal response. And the smell, sound and shape of mother triggers, for instance, a feeding response.[19]
Biology
Stevens suggests that DNA itself can be inspected for the location and transmission of archetypes. As they are co-terminous with natural life they should be expected wherever life is found. He suggests that DNA is the replicable archetype of the species.[19]Stein points out that all the various terms used to delineate the messengers – 'templates, genes, enzymes, hormones, catalysts, pheromones, social hormones' – are concepts similar to archetypes. He mentions archetypal figures which represent messengers such as Hermes, Prometheus or Christ. Continuing to base his arguments on a consideration of biological defence systems he says that it must operate in a whole range of specific circumstances, its agents must be able to go everywhere, the distribution of the agents must not upset the somatic status quo, and, in predisposed persons, the agents will attack the self.[19]
Psychoanalysis
Melanie Klein
Jacques Lacan: Lacan went beyond the proposition that the unconscious is a structure that lies beneath the conscious world; the unconscious itself is structured, like a language. This would suggest parallels with Jung. Further Lacan's Symbolic and Imaginary orders may be aligned with Jung's archetypal theory and personal unconscious respectively. The Symbolic order patterns the contents of the Imaginary in the same way that archetypal structures predispose humans towards certain sorts of experience. If we take the example of parents, archetypal structures and the Symbolic order predispose our recognition of, and relation to them.[19] Lacan's concept of the Real approaches Jung's elaboration of the psychoid unconscious, which may be seen as true but cannot be directly known. Lacan posited that the unconscious is organised in an intricate network governed by association, above all 'metaphoric associations'. The existence of the network is shown by analysis of the unconscious products: dreams, symptoms, and so on.[19]
Wilfred Bion
Sigmund Freud
Robert Langs: More recently, adaptive psychotherapist and psychoanalyst Robert Langs has used archetypal theory as a way of understanding the functioning of what he calls the "deep unconscious system".[20] Langs' use of archetypes particularly pertains to issues associated with death anxiety, which Langs takes to be the root of psychic conflict. Like Jung, Langs thinks of archetypes as species-wide, deep unconscious factors.[21]
Neurology
Rossi (1977) suggests that the function and characteristic between left and right cerebral hemispheres may enable us to locate the archetypes in the right cerebral hemisphere. He cites research indicating that left hemispherical functioning is primarily verbal and associational, and that of the right primarily visuospatial and apperceptive. Thus the left hemisphere is equipped as a critical, analytical, information processor while the right hemisphere operates in a 'gestalt' mode. This means that the right hemisphere is better at getting a picture of a whole from a fragment, is better at working with confused material, is more irrational than the left, and more closely connected to bodily processes. Once expressed in the form of words, concepts and language of the ego's left hemispheric realm, however, they become only representations that 'take their colour' from the individual consciousness. Inner figures such as shadow, anima and animus would be archetypal processes having source in the right hemisphere.[19]Henry (1977) alluded to Maclean's model of the tripartite brain suggesting that the reptilian brain is an older part of the brain and may contain not only drives but archetypal structures as well. The suggestion is that there was a time when emotional behaviour and cognition were less developed and the older brain predominated. There is an obvious parallel with Jung's idea of the archetypes 'crystallising out' over time.[19]
Literary criticism
Archetypal literary criticism argues that archetypes determine the form and function of literary works, and therefore, that a text's meaning is shaped by cultural and psychological myths. Archetypes are the unknowable basic forms personified or concretized in recurring images, symbols, or patterns which may include motifs such as the quest or the heavenly ascent, recognizable character types such as the trickster or the hero, symbols such as the apple or snake, or images such as crucifixion (as in King Kong, or Bride of Frankenstein) are all already laden with meaning when employed in a particular work.[19]Psychology
Archetypal psychology was developed by James Hillman in the second half of the 20th century. Hillman trained at the Jung Institute and was its Director after graduation. Archetypal psychology is in the Jungian tradition and most directly related to analytical psychology and psychodynamic theory, yet departs radically. Archetypal psychology relativizes and deliteralizes the ego and focuses on the psyche, or soul, itself and the archai, the deepest patterns of psychic functioning, "the fundamental fantasies that animate all life".[22] Archetypal psychology is a polytheistic psychology, in that it attempts to recognize the myriad fantasies and myths, gods, goddesses, demigods, mortals and animals – that shape and are shaped by our psychological lives. The ego is but one psychological fantasy within an assemblage of fantasies.The main influence on the development of archetypal psychology is Jung's analytical psychology. It is strongly influenced by Classical Greek, Renaissance, and Romantic ideas and thought. Influential artists, poets, philosophers, alchemists, and psychologists include: Nietzsche, Henry Corbin, Keats, Shelley, Petrarch, and Paracelsus. Though all different in their theories and psychologies, they appear to be unified by their common concern for the psyche – the soul. Many archetypes have been used in treatment of psychological illnesses. Jung's first research was done with schizophrenics. A current example is teaching young men or boys archetypes through using picture books to help with the development.[23] In addition nurses treat patients through the use of archetypes.[16] Archetype therapy offers a wide range of uses if applied correctly, and it is still being expanded in Jungian schools today. With the list of archetypes being endless the healing possibilities are vast.
Pedagogy
Archetypal pedagogy was developed by Clifford Mayes. Mayes' work also aims at promoting what he calls archetypal reflectivity in teachers; this is a means of encouraging teachers to examine and work with psychodynamic issues, images, and assumptions as those factors affect their pedagogical practices. More recently the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator (PMAI), based on Jung's theories of both archetypes and personality types, has been used for pedagogical applications (not unlike the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator).In popular culture
Archetypes abound in contemporary films and literature as they have in creative works of the past, being unconscious projections of the collective unconscious that serve to embody central societal and developmental struggles in a media that entertain as well as instruct. Films are a contemporary form of mythmaking, reflecting our response to ourselves and the mysteries and wonders of our existence.[24]In national trauma
A contemporary definition is given by O'Brien (2017) as follows: "Archetypes are universal organizing themes or patterns that appear regardless of space, time, or person. Appearing in all existential realms and at all levels of systematic recursion, they are organized as themes in the unus mundus, which Jung (1970 Vol. 14. Mysterium coniunctionis. (1970), p. 505) described as “the potential world outside of time,” and are detectable through synchronicities".[25] |
Hero: Rick Blaine in Casablanca
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Shadow and Shapeshifter: Jekyll / Hyde
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The Shadow, one's darker side, often associated with the villain of numerous films and books, but can be internal as in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The shapeshifter is the person who misleads the hero or who changes frequently and can be depicted quite literally e.g. The T-1000 robot in Terminator II. The Trickster creates disruptions of the status quo, maybe childlike and help us see the absurdity in situations, provide comic relief; e.g. Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, Bugs Bunny and Brer Rabbit. The Child often innocent; could be someone childlike who needs protecting but may be imbued with special powers (e.g. E.T.). The Bad Father – often seen as a dictator type, or evil and cruel (e.g. Darth Vader in Star Wars). The Bad Mother (e.g. Mommie Dearest), along with evil stepmothers and wicked witches. The Bad Child; e.g., The Bad Seed, The Omen.
Jungian archetypes are heavily integrated into the personalities of the characters in the Persona series of games. In Persona 3 and Persona 4, the characters with whom you form relationships, (in the game called "Social Links") which are each based on a particular archetype. They are formally differentiated by different tarot arcana, however the primary basis of the game's characterization originates from archetypes.
In marketing, an archetype is a genre to a brand, based upon symbolism. The idea behind using brand archetypes in marketing is to anchor the brand against an icon already embedded within the conscience and subconscious of humanity. In the minds of both the brand owner and the public, aligning with a brand archetype makes the brand easier to identify. Twelve archetypes have been proposed for use with branding: Sage, Innocent, Explorer, Ruler, Creator, Caregiver, Magician, Hero, Outlaw, Lover, Jester, and Regular Guy/Girl.[26]
Criticism
Jung's staunchest critics have accused him of either mystical or metaphysical essentialism. Since archetypes are defined so vaguely and since archetypal images have been observed by many Jungians in a wide and essentially infinite variety of everyday phenomena, they are neither generalizable nor specific in a way that may be researched or demarcated with any kind of rigor. Hence they elude systematic study. Jung and his supporters defended the impossibility of providing rigorous operationalised definitions as a problem peculiar not only to archetypal psychology alone, but also other domains of knowledge that seek to understand complex systems in an integrated manner.Feminist critiques have focused on aspects of archetypal theory that are seen as being reductionistic and providing a stereotyped view of femininity and masculinity.[27]
Another criticism of archetypes is that seeing myths as universals tends to abstract them from the history of their actual creation, and their cultural context.[28] Some modern critics state that archetypes reduce cultural expressions to generic decontextualized concepts, stripped bare of their unique cultural context, reducing a complex reality into something "simple and easy to grasp".[28] Other critics respond that archetypes do nothing more than to solidify the cultural prejudices of the myths interpreter – namely modern Westerners. Modern scholarship with its emphasis on power and politics have seen archetypes as a colonial device to level the specifics of individual cultures and their stories in the service of grand abstraction.[29]
Others have accused him of a romanticised and prejudicial promotion of 'primitivism' through the medium of archetypal theory. Archetypal theory has been posited as being scientifically unfalsifiable and even questioned as to being a suitable domain of psychological and scientific enquiry. Jung mentions the demarcation between experimental and descriptive psychological study, seeing archetypal psychology as rooted by necessity in the latter camp, grounded as it was (to a degree) in clinical case-work.[30]
Because Jung's viewpoint was essentially subjectivist, he displayed a somewhat Neo-Kantian perspective of a skepticism for knowing things in themselves and a preference of inner experience over empirical data. This skepticism opened Jung up to the charge of countering materialism with another kind of reductionism, one that reduces everything to subjective psychological explanation and wooly quasi-mystical assertions.[31]
Post-Jungian criticism seeks to contextualise, expand and modify Jung's original discourse on archetypes. Michael Fordham is critical of tendencies to relate imagery produced by patients to historical parallels only, e.g. from alchemy, mythology or folklore. A patient who produces archetypal material with striking alchemical parallels runs the risk of becoming more divorced than before from his setting in contemporary life.[19]
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