Archetypes and Symbols of C. G. Jung

Through his works, Carl Gustav Jung encompassed almost all areas of life and science, bringing numerous psychological and human insights. His teachings on archetypes, dreams, and personality typology introduced something significant and new to psychology. He is the founder of analytical psychology, which distinguishes between two levels of the unconscious: the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. His ideas permeate modern psychology, as he introduced concepts such as extraversion, introversion, and archetype.

He was born on July 26, 1875, in Kesswil, Switzerland, but he lived in Basel from the age of four, where he also completed his medical studies. Immediately after finishing his studies, he specialized in psychiatry.

Over the years that followed, Jung discovered new and unknown realms of the human psyche. Traveling to North Africa, Kenya, Arizona, and New Mexico, where primitive tribes lived, he sought to deepen his research on the collective unconscious. He devoted the last decades of his life to this pursuit. exploring mythology, symbolism, alchemy, religions…
The usual division of his psychology into two parts that interpenetrate each other. The first is the theoretical part, which includes the main segments of the psyche structure and the laws of the flow and functioning of the psyche, while the second implies the application of knowledge, i.e., treatment methods in a narrower sense that stem from the theoretical part.
Although, unlike the physical, the psychic is not tangible, for Jung, the psychic is no less real than the physical. The subject of his psychology studies is the whole person in whom the psychic is the “organ” through which they perceive the world and existence. Conscious and unconscious psychic processes are like two spheres of the psyche that complement each other.
That which is forgotten, repressed, that which is beyond consciousness, Jung calls the “individual unconscious.” The foundation of the overall individual psychic is the “collective unconscious,” which is a human heritage. It is precisely in the collective unconscious that archetypes and archetypal representations exist. For Jung, the unconscious is older than the physical… Consciousness has its own language, while a person’s Self participates in both areas. Their learning is not an abstract theory created speculatively, but rather a learning that is grounded in experience.

ARCHETYPES

For Jung, the unconscious has its own language, which is composed of archetypes and symbols. Jung initially called them prototypes, but starting in 1919, he began referring to them as archetypes. He borrowed the term archetype from the Corpus Hermeticum and the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, specifically De divinis nominibus.

The word archetype itself is of Greek origin and means original pattern, prototype, first imprint. It refers to innate and universal patterns of behavior and thinking that represent the fundamental structures of the collective unconscious.

It is often noted that Jung’s archetypes are similar to Plato’s concept of ideas. What stands out as a difference is that, according to Jung’s conception, the idea in Plato represents the prototype of perfection itself, while the archetype inherently carries both the dark and the light side within its bipolar structure.

An important characteristic of archetypes is that they do not evolve. Archetypes do not manifest in each individual separately, but rather they are generated through the influence of the socio-cultural context of each individual. An individual does not develop archetypes based on their personal experiences, but rather based on the social experiences of the community they live in. Through generational transmission, a series of common archetypes are created for all people. For these reasons, Jung claimed that all people have a common substrate in their psychic structure. That is, each person develops a series of archetypes based on the experiences of their ancestors.

In Jung’s teachings, the collective unconscious contains four main archetypes or universal primordial forms or patterns: the self, animus, anima, and shadow, although Jung states that there are countless archetypes. All archetypes are patterns that appear in all cultures through various expressions.

The self, or the “true self,” represents the totality of the psyche. The self is the center, and wholeness, unity, and balance are crucial to a person’s psychological life.

The animus is the male archetype in women, and the anima is the female archetype in men. Women in men. They mediate between the Self and the inner world of a man. Jung was particularly interested in answering the question: To what extent does a man carry the psychic woman within himself, or does every woman carry some psychic imprint of a man within herself? Jung called this need for inner wholeness anima and animus, considering them archetypal values. Through their expression in a man, animus and anima can have positive and negative characteristics, and the goal is to establish their balance.

The shadow is a central obstacle that hinders and destroys the individual, a sum of self-destructive energies of the unconscious, the dark side of our nature. It represents an aspect of the personality that is closely connected to the person, i.e., with their psychological functions that are not sufficiently developed. Therefore, a child does not have a shadow, it is characteristic of a developed consciousness in an adult. We most often perceive the shadow, as well as all other unconscious contents, through projection. When we are not aware of our shadow, we always find someone else to blame. Taking into consideration the shadow means building a philosophical attitude towards oneself. Because the shadow consists of instincts and impulses and desires that are incompatible with a person’s consciousness. The persona is a disguise, so the shadow is not visible in the external world, but if it remains suppressed, directly or indirectly, the shadow drives towards awareness. However, by becoming aware of the shadow, we get to know the dark part of the psyche, which results in expanding our consciousness and strengthening unity within ourselves. Thus, the shadow also has its value because confronting the shadow means getting to know oneself.

The persona is the general way a person behaves towards their surroundings. It represents a system of psychological reactions and relationships to the external world. The original meaning of the Greek word persona is a mask. It is a compromise between the inner and outer worlds. Maintaining and wanting to present a certain impression of oneself to the external world is the main function of the persona.

Often, our self gets identified with the persona, and such a person lives their life within a scenario that defines them and lives what they are not, but what others expect them to be. I, and often she herself, think that she is. The biggest problem is that in that case, the person lives in the shadow of the persona, instead of the other way around.

How are archetypes expressed? According to Jung, they are expressed through speech, emotional reactions, the individual’s behavior, and their dreams.

Archetypes represent universal inner prototypes of human behavior. Based on the archetype with which we are consciously or unconsciously identified, it is possible to predict our reactions. Jung used specific archetypes in his practice when diagnosing behavioral disorders or complexes, such as the “mother complex,” “father complex,” “martyr complex,” and so on.

For Jung, archetypes are deeply rooted in consciousness and in their structure carry both a dark and a light side, and therefore cannot be fully explained.

MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS

My views on “archaic remains,” which I call “archetypes” or “primordial images,” are constantly criticized by people lacking knowledge of dream psychology and mythology. The term In “archetype”, it is often misunderstood as a label for certain specific mythological images or motifs. But those images and motifs are nothing more than conscious representations; and it would be meaningless to claim that such fleeting representations can be inherited.

An archetype is a tendency to create such representations of motifs that can vary greatly in detail, without losing their basic form.

For example, there are many representations of motifs about discordant brothers, but the motif itself remains the same. My critics falsely claimed that I deal with “inherited representations” and based on that, they dismissed the idea of an archetype as mere prejudice. They overlooked the fact that if archetypes were to be created in our consciousness (or acquired by it), we would certainly understand them and not be confused or surprised when they appear in our consciousness. They are, in fact, an instinctive trend that is as striking as the urge in birds to build nests or in ants to create organized settlements.

They have an unknown origin and are “We are formed at all times and in all parts of the world… The character of the hero is an archetype that has existed since ancient times. However, while personal complexes never create anything more than personal prejudices, archetypes create myths, religions, and philosophy that influence entire nations and historical epochs and leave their mark on them. We believe that personal complexes are compensation for one-sided or misguided consciousness; similarly, myths of a religious nature can be interpreted as a form of spiritual therapy for the suffering and anxieties of humanity as a whole… The fact is that in earlier times, people did not ponder over their symbols; they lived them and were unconsciously guided by their meaning… Our present life is dominated by the god of Reason, which is our greatest and most tragic illusion. Through reason – we convince ourselves – we have conquered nature… But that is just a slogan… Change must indeed begin with the individual; it can be any one of us. No one can afford to look around and wait for someone else to.” he dislikes doing what he himself dislikes doing.

However, the general underestimation of the human soul is so great that neither major religions, nor philosophies, nor scientific rationalism have wanted to look into it twice.

But the meaning of life is not exhaustively explained by someone’s professional life, nor is the deep longing of the human heart satisfied by a bank account.

The most powerful tool of man – his psyche – is thought of insignificantly, often openly doubted and despised, “it’s just psychological” too often means: It’s nothing.

The study of individual, as well as collective symbolism, is a tremendous task that has not yet been mastered. But it has finally been initiated. The first results are encouraging and seem to point us towards answering many unanswered questions of today’s humanity.

Jung’s life’s work is the result of his sixty years of research. He never left the empirical dimension, he always stayed within its limits.

As I am firmly convinced that there is still much to be discovered, I will continue to study and explore different fields to gain a more complete understanding of the human psyche. The time for a comprehensive theory that would focus on and present all the contents, processes, and phenomena of the psyche has not yet come. I consider my understandings as proposals and attempts to formulate a new naturalistic psychology that will primarily be based on direct human experiences.

It is not about psychopathology, but about general psychology that includes experiential material. We do not research for the sake of research, but with the direct intention to help.

Collected Works of C. G. Jung