Jungian archetypes 1 Jungian archetypes Carl Jung created the archetypes which “are ancient or archaic images that derive from the collective unconscious” [1] Also known as innate universal psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic symbols or representations of unconscious experience emerge. These are different from instinct as Jung saw an instinct as “an unconscious physical impulse toward actions and the archetype as the psychic counterpart” [2] There are many different archetypes and Jung has stated they are limitless in amount, but to simplify many have broken it down into a few main ones. These include the persona, the shadow, the anima, the animus, the great mother, the wise old man, the hero, and the self. [3] . The great mother, wise old man and the hero tend to be considered add on from the basic as in Jung’s map of the soul everything is covered, but those. The archetypes can be used for a sense of understanding as well as for a state of treatment[4] [5] [6] [7] "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".[8] Thus for example "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": [9] [10] such stages may include being parented, initiation, courtship, marriage and preparation for death.[11] Introduction Virtually alone among the depth psychologists of the twentieth century, Jung rejected the tabula rasa theory of human psychological development, believing instead that evolutionary pressures have individual predestinations manifested in archetypes. For Jung, "the archetype is the introspectively recognizable form of a priori psychic orderedness".[12] 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."[13] The archetypes form a dynamic substratum common to all humanity, upon the foundation of which each individual builds his own experience of life, developing a unique array of psychological characteristics. 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. Being unconscious, the existence of archetypes can only be deduced indirectly by examining behavior, images, art, myths, and religions etc. They are inherited potentials which are actualized when they enter consciousness as images or manifest in behavior on interaction with the outside world. The archetype is a crucial Jungian concept. Its significance to analytical psychology has been likened to that of gravity for Newtonian physics.[14] Chronology 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. His researches in schizophrenia later supported his early intuition that universal psychic structures exist which 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". A main part of the chronology of Jung's discovery of the archetypes is found in the Redbook which documented Jung being in touch with the archetypes and collective unconsciousness which was released much after his death. [15] Throughout ]Jung's life examination into the archetypes increased, and this was noticeable throughout the changes within his style of writing in his books. Jungian archetypes 2 Origins Jung being in touch with his unconscious during his middle age and discovered the archetypes when he became to see the figures in his dreams and see the figures within his daily life. It wasn't until his later life though when he became to understand these actually meant and begin to piece them together through archetypes. [16] These times were covered within the Red Book, [17] and thesymbols that the archetypes represented and their origins in detail could be found within a Man and His Symbols. In here he stated that the achetypes have always existed and will always exist and part of the collective unconscious [18] It is sometimes assumed that people are creating new archetypes, but they are not actually being created but discovered, and the number of archetypes in the world are limitless. Archetypes are found within dreams, and it is found within life itself. Finding new archetypes is a matter of searching deep within one's self to discover them. The origins of the archetypal hypothesis date back as far as Plato. Jung himself compared archetypes to Platonic εἶδος (eidos). Plato's ideas were pure mental forms, that were imprinted in the soul before it was born into the world. They were collective in the sense that they embodied the fundamental characteristics of a thing rather than its specific peculiarities. In fact many of Jung's Ideas were prevalent in Athenian philosophy. The archetype theory can be seen as a psychological equivalent to the philosophical idea of forms and particulars Examples and conceptual difficulties An archetype is a well recognized idea in psychology and many outside of psychology know the term was well, but many people find the topic or the idea behind the archetypes very confusing . The confusion about the 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"; it may also be attributed to the fact that, given his belief that "archetypal symbols ... are spontaneous and autonomous products of the unconscious", Jung was always intent "not to weaken the specific individual and cultural values of archetypes by leveling them out - i.e., by giving them a stereotyped, intellectually formulated meaning".[19] 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'".[20] Jung described archetypal events: birth, death, separation from parents, initiation, marriage, the union of opposites etc.; archetypal figures: great mother, father, child, devil, God, wise old man, wise old woman, Apollo, trickster[21] , hero - not to mention "Oedipus ... the first archetype Freud discovered"[22] or "number ... an archetype of order";[23] and archetypal motifs: the Apocalypse, the Deluge, the Creation, etc. 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 (including the child hero), the mother ... and her counterpart, the maiden, and lastly the anima in man and the animus in woman".[24] Alternately 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".[25] There were five main archetypes that were discussed in Jung's writing, though there are many others. The following are the five most common archetypes. [26] Five main archetypes are sometimes enumerated: [27] • The Self, the regulating center of the psyche and facilitator of individuation - the representative of "that wholeness which the introspective philosophy of all times and climes has characterized with an inexhaustible variety of symbols, names and concepts".[28] It represents all that is unique within a human being. Although a person is a collection of all the archetypes and what they learn from the collective unconscious, the self is what makes that person an I. The self can not exist without the other archetypes and the other archetypes can not exist without the Jungian archetypes 3 self; Jung makes this very clear. The self is also the part that heavily grows and changes as a person goes throughout life. [29] The self can be simply summed up as the ideal form a person wishes to be. [30] • The Shadow, This represents the traits that lie deep within ourselves. The traits that are hidden from day to day life and are in some cases the opposite of the self is a simple way to state these traits. The shadow is a very important trait because for one to truly know themselves the must know all, including what lies beneath the common, the shadow. If one chooses to know the shadow there is a chance they give into its motivation. [31] • The Anima, Some see the anima is the feminine side or form of a man, but Jung did not fully intend this to be viewed in this way. The Anima is beyond generalization of society's views and stereotypes. Anima represents what femininity truly represents it in all it's mysteries. It is what allows a man to be in touch with a woman. [32] The anima is commonly represented within dreams as a method to communicate with a person. [33] It contains all of female encounters with men to help the relationship between the to improve better. • The Animus]] Animus, is similar to the anima except for the fact the the animus allows a female to understand and communicate with a man.