Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Part One)
Ignorance was introduced into the field of psychology by Sigmund Freud and played a very important role in his psychoanalytic theory. People, he believed, were largely unaware of these internal forces, which led them to behave in ways that didn’t always align with their conscious understanding of themselves.
However, it was Carl Gustav Jung who recognized the unconscious of individuals, but also, after years of research, he has shown that in every individual there is also a collective unconscious. According to Jung, this collective unconscious is formed by instincts and archetypes that are symbols, signs, patterns of behavior, and thinking and experiencing, that are physically inherited from our ancestors. Moreover, the collective unconscious consists of mythological themes, as well as original paintings, which projected outside, create myths and symbols. Themes of archetypal images are the same for all cultures, are common to all people of different ages, races, and cultures and correspond to the phylogenetically conditioned part of the human structure.[1]
Jungian concept of human personality
Carl Gustav Jung was a psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology. He is one of the most eminent scholars of the twentieth century. His teaching of psychology is not only confined to university lectures. He also led many seminars in his home country, Switzerland, as well as abroad—particularly in England and the United States. Jung was especially interested in consciousness studies and its phenomenology. Due to this fact, Jung travelled abroad, in order to explore the life of primitive peoples, and to be in direct contact with them. He spent a long time among the Pueblo Indian tribes residing in Arizona and New Mexico.[2]
He was also among the inhabitants of Africa, Kenya, Asia, and the tribes that inhabited the islands of Oceania. He conducted various meetings, conversations, and correspondence with various people of science, which filled Jung with wisdom and bore fruit in his research.[3]
Jung saw three psychic levels in the human personality – the level of conscious and unconscious, but the unconscious was divided into two categories: the personal unconscious and collective unconscious. Moreover, Jung also identified four mental functions: perception, thinking, feeling, and intuition.
Perception tells us that something exists; thinking tells us “what” is what that exists; feeling allows us to judge whether something is pleasant or unpleasant; and finally, intuition is the perception of the possibilities contained in a given situation. Jung was of the opinion that our conscious is formed by the content we receive from these four functions, whereas the individual unconscious consists of subliminal and suppressed contents. However, the collective unconscious consists of the instincts (biologically conditioned response patterns), and the archetypes, or symbols, signs, patterns of behavior, thinking and experiencing, physically inherited from our ancestors.
In terms of Jung, archetype is intended to mean the original, main idea, and a certain pattern determining human development and it should also include the law governing this development, which focuses on three levels: inside the mental, interpersonal, and the law relating to the relationship between the psyche and the outside world.[4]
Archetypes are a bridge to the world of the spirit, whereas instincts connect us with the reality of matter. Their ultimate nature is transcendental and unable to recognize. Themes of the archetypal images are the same for all cultures, are common to all people of different ages, races and cultures and correspond to the phylogenetically conditioned part of the human structure. Myths and fairy tales of world literature contain certain motifs that appear everywhere with similar content. We find the same themes in fantasies and dreams, both in healthy and sick people. For this reason, cultural studies are important in understanding the nature of the unconscious. Jung claimed that to smile, cry, or the ability of sucking in the newborn, is archetypal. Similarly, all repetitive behaviors and gestures which define us as humans are of archetypal form.
Archetypes are the common heritage of mankind. Not only do they determine human behavior, but they can also transform the human personality, and they can dominate it completely, control and even destroy it, because the archetype is both a factor and the motive which organizes some elements that confers a form of mental images.
Archetypes are the means of action and may take the form of images, dreams, or they are a stimulus to a specific action. Jung says that dreams are archetypal guidance and are the wisdom of past generations. Unaware parts of the psyche are often associated with certain events with an archetypal pattern, with similar events taking place many times in history.
Archetypes often carry a strong emotional charge, because relationships with people are the result of differences in the dominant sphere of archetypal feelings. Usual antipathy and sympathy can be regarded as the archetypal conditions. Archetypes form in depth of our ever-changing mental mosaic, which penetrates the mythical imagination. Symbols are combined together with the archetypes and the collective unconscious and they are perceived as the languages of the soul, and their absence may lead to many neuroses. Symbols appear not only in dreams, but also in numerous psychiatric manifestations.
The most important of archetypes is the self, which symbolizes the fullness of personality. It is an ideal, which an individual is never able to reach, but toward which he or she directs all his or her life. It is a fusion of all parts of the personality; a condition in which awareness will be expanded and will include elements that were previously unacceptable and displaced. The archetype of the self drives an individual to self-knowledge, to the development of the psyche, to integration of the personality, and to overcome selfishness, arrogance, careerism, and fear.
Jungian concepts of personality allows us to see an individual in a broader aspect, than was presented by Freud. In Freud’s theory, the most important period of life is childhood. The lack of a good childhood often leads to various pathological conditions in the child’s personality, such as anxiety, hyperactivity, complexes, or mental illness. The unconscious consists of subliminal and suppressed contents, which have a decisive influence on human psychological development and define the structure of personality. According to Jung, the unconscious bodies are important for the development of personality, but the archetypes are the decisive factor for its development. Archetype is a determinant pattern of human development; it contains the laws regulating this development. It is both an element and the motive which organizes the elements giving them a form of mental images. Archetypes form the depths of our ever-changing mosaic of mental health. They appeared together with life and they are in disposition of themselves. They never had a beginning in the field of organic life and they organized the material gathered in the mind and gave it a set figure.[5]
[1] Jung C.G. Archetypy i symbole. Trans. Jerzy Prokopiuk. Warsaw: PWN, 1981.
[2] Jung C.G. Rozmowy, wywiady, spotkania. Warsaw: McGuire, 1999.
[3] Jacobi J. Psychologia Carla Gustawa Junga. Trans. Stanisław Łypacewicz. Warsaw: Wodnik, 1993
[4] Pascal E. Psychologia jungowska teoria i praktyka. Poznań: Zysk i S-ka, 1992
[5] Storr A. Jung. Trans. Agnieszka Grzybek. Warsaw: Prószyński i S-ka, 2000.
