It contains suppressed memories. The collective unconscious that reflects shared memories with the whole of humanity. This is where ancestral memory comes into play. According to Jung, the collective unconscious contains ancestral memory—imagery, symbols and themes that are hereditary. They shape our experiences, knowledge and perceptions. These fragments of memory comprise four main archetypes that make up the human personality. These four archetypes reflect human ambition, values, morals, beliefs and motivations.
Carl Jung identified four main archetypes—the persona, the shadow, the anima or animus and the self. These recurring themes help us understand the Jungian archetypes. These Jungian archetypes represent a journey from an unconscious state to individuation—a merging of the conscious and the unconscious.
The Jungian persona defines the different masks we wear in a social context. Who we are with our family is different from who we are at work. Our persona takes different forms based on our culture, upbringing and general environment. Social media has willed us to create different personas to appeal to different audiences.
With its origin in theatrical masks, a persona reflects how we adapt to our surroundings—whether to fit in or protect ourselves. Rather, the archetypes provide the structure, not the specific form of the symbolic image. The specific form the images take differ from culture to culture and even individually. Therefore, as one takes note of, and reflects on the symbols as they are manifested in consciousness, knowledge of the archetypal structure of the mind can be obtained.
Erich Neumann describes the role of the symbol in producing knowledge of the archetypes in the following way:. It neither attempts nor is able to seize hold of and define its objects in a series of discursive explanations, and reduce them to clarity by logical analysis. The way of the unconscious is different. Symbols gather round the thing to be explained, understood, interpreted. The act of becoming conscious consists in the concentric groupings of symbols around the object, all circumscribing and describing the unknown from many sides.
Each symbol lays bare another essential side of the object to be grasped, points to another facet of meaning. Only the canon of these symbols congregating about the centre in question, the coherent symbol group, can lead to an understanding of what the symbols point to and of what they are trying to express. To provide an example of the types of symbols which are manifested by the archetypes we will look at the archetype Jung called the Self.
The Self is the central archetype and its role is in unifying the other archetypal structures of the psyche. According to Jung, the importance of the Self archetype coincides with the fact that it is the source of many of the symbols found in religions and myths.
Edward Edinger, in Ego and Archetype , reveals the wide array of symbols manifested by the Self:. All images that emphasize a circle with a center and usually with the additional feature of a square, cross, or some other representation of quaternity, fall into this category…There are also a number of other associated themes and images that refer to the Self.
Such themes as wholeness, totality, the union of opposites, the central generative point, the world naval, the axis of the universe. Indeed, the richest sources of the phenomenological study of the Self are in the innumerable representations that man has made of the deity.
What is interesting to realize is that Jung believed that the various representations of deities in myths and religions, both past and present, were at root symbolic manifestations of the Self archetype. It is simply the medium from which religious experience seems to flow. As to what the further cause of such experience may be, the answer to this lies beyond the range of human knowledge.
Knowledge of God is a transcendental problem. At times he suggested they arose in an evolutionary manner and were subject to change over long periods of time. The following passage reflects this view:. He is not born as a tabula rasa, he is merely born unconscious. The syzygy represents completion, unification, and wholeness. The self is an archetype that represents the unified unconsciousness and consciousness of an individual. Jung often represented the self as a circle, square, or mandala. Creating the self occurs through a process known as individuation, in which the various aspects of personality are integrated.
Jung believed that disharmony between the unconscious and the conscious mind could lead to psychological problems. Bringing these conflicts into awareness and accommodating them in conscious awareness was an important part of the individuation process. Jung suggested that there were two different centers of personality:. You can think of this by imagining a circle with a dot right at the center. The entire circle makes up the self, where the small dot in the middle represents the ego.
For Jung, the ultimate aim was for an individual to achieve a sense of cohesive self, similar in many ways to Maslow's concept of self-actualization. Jung suggested that the number of existing archetypes was not static or fixed. Instead, many different archetypes may overlap or combine at any given time. The following are just a few of the various archetypes that Jung described:.
Jung's ideas have not been as popular as Freud's and his archetypes have not been viewed favorably in modern psychology. This might be because his work tended to veer into the mystical and pseudoscientific, and are therefore often studied more as a historical artifact and in realms of literary criticism and popular culture applications of mythology than as a major contribution to the science of the mind and behavior.
Other criticisms of Jung's archetypes suggest that they are overly stereotyped, reductionistic , and culturally biased. Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. American Psychological Association. APA Dictionary of Psychology. Collective unconscious. Jung C. Collected Works of C. Stevens A. Living Archetypes: The selected works of Anthony Stevens. Oxon: Routledge; ISBN Jung CG. Princeton University Press. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellMind.
At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page. These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. We and our partners process data to: Actively scan device characteristics for identification. I Accept Show Purposes. The Persona The persona is how we present ourselves to the world. The Shadow The shadow is an archetype that consists of the sex and life instincts.
The Anima or Animus The anima is a feminine image in the male psyche, and the animus is a male image in the female psyche. The Self The self is an archetype that represents the unified unconsciousness and consciousness of an individual.
Jung suggested that there were two different centers of personality: The ego makes up the center of consciousness, but it is the self that lies at the center of personality.
Personality encompasses not only consciousness but also the ego and the unconscious mind. Other Archetypes Jung suggested that the number of existing archetypes was not static or fixed. The following are just a few of the various archetypes that Jung described: The father : Authority figure; stern; powerful The mother : Nurturing; comforting The child : Longing for innocence; rebirth; salvation The wise old man : Guidance; knowledge; wisdom The hero : Champion; defender; rescuer The maiden : Innocence; desire; purity The trickster : Deceiver; liar; trouble-maker.
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