Carl Jung's contribution to the development of ideas about the archetypes of the human psyche
Carl Jung is one of the founders of the psychoanalytic movement.
Together with Sigmund Freud, he researched depth psychology and unconscious manifestations of the human psyche. In the course of his scientific activity, he developed Freud's approach to the human psyche as a multi-level and multi-polar energetically contradictory system.
Subsequently, Carl Jung began individual research and formulated his own theory about the features of analytical human psychology, which had a great influence on both psychology and psychiatry and many related sciences.
According to the scientist, the personality structure includes three components: Ego, Personal unconscious and Collective unconscious. It was in the collective unconscious that Jung identified substructures that he called archetypes of human personality.
Are you an expert in this subject area? We invite you to become the author of the Directory Working Conditions
General concept of archetypes
According to Carl Jung, the collective unconscious finds its manifestation in archetypes that are common to all humanity.
Unlike the individual unconscious, the collective is common to all people and contributes to the formation of a universal basis for the mental life of each person. It is the collective unconscious that is the deepest level of the psyche and the main structural element of a person’s personality, which includes the entire cultural and historical experience of humanity, which is reflected in the human psyche in the form of inherited archetypes.
Definition 1
Archetypes are innate tendencies located within the collective unconscious and are internal determinants of human mental life. It is thanks to archetypes that the process of directing human actions in a certain direction is carried out, similar to those behavioral strategies that existed among previous generations of humanity.
Finished works on a similar topic
Coursework Archetype of the Shadow 480 ₽ Essay Archetype of the Shadow 280 ₽ Test paper Archetype of the Shadow 230 ₽
Receive completed work or specialist advice on your educational project Find out the cost
An archetype can also be defined as a mental prototype, on the one hand, which determines a person’s predisposition to certain behavioral reactions, and on the other hand, collective ideas, images and theories of humanity manifested in myths and fairy tales.
Carl Jung paid special attention to the fact that archetypes act as a link between matter and the human psyche and have the ability to influence the physical world of man.
Note 1
Archetypes find their manifestation in the human mind in the form of emotions and are associated with such moments of a person’s life experience as birth and death, the main stages of the life path, as well as reactions to emerging mortal danger.
The image of the soul (animus and anima).
This figure was called by Jung the "anima" in the female psyche and the "anima" in the male psyche. Enmity and anima always exist in close connection with the shadow. The archetypal figure of the soul image always symbolizes the complementary part of the psyche, which belongs to the opposite sex and reflects both our attitude towards this aspect of our soul and our experience of everything that is associated with the opposite sex. The image of the soul is the image of the opposite sex that we carry within ourselves as individuals and at the same time as representatives of a certain biological species. The hidden, undifferentiated and unconscious content of the psyche is always projected outward, and this is true both for Eve, a man, and for Adam, a woman. Through another person we experience not only our shadow, but also the elements of the opposite sex contained within us. We fall in love with those who represent our anima/enmity qualities.
The image of the soul is a fairly strong functional complex. Therefore, the inability to separate from it leads to the development of types such as the capricious, feminine-impulsive, emotionally unstable man or the hostile, self-confident, argumentative know-it-all who reacts to things in a masculine way, and not in accordance with his natural instincts.
The variety of forms that the image of the soul can take is inexhaustible. The characteristics associated with this gender are typical for that gender, but may otherwise have various contradictions. Anima can take the form of a tender young maiden, a goddess, a witch, an angel, a demon, a beggar, a passerby, a faithful friend, an Amazon, and so on. Animation can also take different forms: typical figures are Dionysus, Bluebeard, the Flying Dutchman, Siegfried, and at a lower, primitive level - famous film actors, boxing champions. Animation or animation can be symbolized by animals and even inanimate objects with specific feminine or masculine characteristics; as a rule, this occurs when the anima or anima has not yet reached the level of the human figure and manifests itself in a purely instinctive form. Thus, the anima can take the form of a cow, cat, tigress, ship, cave, etc., while the anima takes the form of an eagle, bull, lion, spear, tower or any other phallic-shaped object.
Here, as in the case of the shadow and all other elements of unconscious content, it is necessary to distinguish between internal and external manifestations. We encounter internal forms of animus or anima in dreams, fantasies, visions and other manifestations of the unconscious when they reveal the anti-sex features of our psyche; we deal with external forms when we project our unconscious onto someone in our environment.
Both animation and anima have two main forms: light and dark, “higher” and “lower,” positive and negative.
Positive manifestations of anima: patronage, care, beauty. Negative: absorption, devouring, whim, hysteria, black mysticism. A spiritually mature person has developed animation and has subtlety, sensitivity, smell, creativity and creativity. The undeveloped anima in the immature man is bizarre, grossly erotic and destructive.
Positive manifestations of hostility: altruism, generosity, passing the transformation test.
Negative: subtle cruelty, heartlessness, a tendency to play games with a cold mind, a sense of attraction with an inability to love.
Wise Elder and Great Mother
Features of the manifestation of the Shadow archetype according to Carl Jung
Carl Jung identified many archetypes, but the ones most often mentioned in his studies are:
- A person,
- Anima and Animus
- Shadow,
- Self.
Let's look at the Shadow archetype in more detail.
The Shadow archetype, identified by Carl Jung, in his opinion, is the center of the personal unconscious of the human personality, a focus for material repressed from consciousness. This archetype is a kind of reverse side of the “I”.
This archetype includes desires, memories, and experiences that a person has that are denied by a person due to their incompatibility with the image of the Person or that contradict the social standards and ideals existing in a given society.
The shadow represents the totality of all our immoral, violent, passionate and completely unacceptable desires and actions. However, it is worth noting that, just like the Persona, this archetype has two sides and the positive influence of the Shadow is that it acts as a source of human creative impulses and the experience of deep emotional states.
The Shadow archetype finds its expression in the shadow animal side of a person’s personality and includes socially unacceptable sexual and aggressive impulses of a person, immoral thoughts and passions present in him. At the same time, this archetype is able to act as a source of human vitality, a creative principle in his activities.
Carl Jung, in his description of this archetype, noted that in the functioning of this archetype, consciousness plays a decisive role, which is capable of directing the energy of the Shadow in the right direction and helping to ensure that a person, on the one hand, is able to control the harmful aspects of his personality, and on the other hand, has the opportunity to openly express his desires and impulses and enjoy a healthy and creative life.
The emergence of analytical psychology
Let us remember what the main idea of psychoanalysis was. According to Freud, personal behavior is determined by unconscious motives, which are based on sexual attraction, and the cause of internal conflicts - neuroses and depression - is nothing more than the inevitable contradictions that arise between the conscious part of the personality (superego) and unconscious impulsive desires (id) , conditioned by the animal nature of man, which is invariably suppressed by social and ethical attitudes.
Thus, in Freud's teachings, man as an animal and man as a social being were in a state of natural contradiction.
Carl Jung's ideas regarding libido and the unconscious were similar to Freud's only at first glance, and some of them, especially his views on the unconscious, were based on views that were very exotic for that time.
In general, by accepting the very idea of libido, Jung deprived it of its main function - sexual. In his understanding, the original source of conflict was not only sexual energy, but a certain psychic energy as such. Sexual energy was nothing more than a part of it and came to the fore (like any other need) only in those moments when it became relevant for the individual.
In such a coordinate system, any human need, if not fulfilled, could serve as a source of psychological problems, and the list of such needs expanded very far beyond the limits of purely animal impulses. More precisely, the nature of basic (animal) energy according to Jung remained the same, but manifested itself not only in the sphere of animal needs, but also in types of activity inherent only to humans.
Jung also invested completely different meanings in understanding the motives for personal development. Thus, Freud's famous idea about the Oedipus complex in Jung's understanding takes on a slightly different context. Now, Jung explains, for the most part, the child’s attachment to his mother by the fact that the mother is the source of satisfaction of the current needs of the individual, for example, the basic needs for food and warmth. As for sexual energy, according to Jung’s logic, it became much more relevant during puberty, and therefore much later. At the same time, Jung did not at all deny the fact of sexual desires at an early age, but they were reduced only to fragmentary manifestations, along with other mental needs.
Based on the difference in views on the dominant mental energy, a much more far-reaching difference followed regarding the basic paradigm of views on a person’s personality, or more precisely on how this personality is determined at a given moment in time.
Thus, according to Freud’s views, the basis of human personality, its motives and impulses in the present were largely determined by the past, namely, the childhood period of development. Jung argued that personality development does not end in childhood. A person can change significantly at any age, and his motivations are equally determined not only by his childhood traumas, but also by current motives and tasks that exist now and are determined in the present.
Thus, using Freud's psychoanalysis as a basis, Jung treated his teacher's theory quite radically.
However, Jung's truly revolutionary view was his interpretation of the unconscious, which became one of the foundations of the new theory of personality.
