The analytical psychology of K. G. Jung

Jung’s theory is more interesting than that of Adler. The map of human psychics in compliance with Jung is represented by four components. They are:

n the Person or Mask;

n the Shadow;

n the Anima and Animus;

n the Selfness.

The Person (translated from Latin as a mask) occupies the first level, the outermost, shallowest one of the psychics. The Person or Mask may be defined as a social self-identification of an individual. Everyone perceives oneself like that: ‘I’m a student’, ‘I’m a citizen of a certain state’, ‘I’m good (or bad)’, ‘I have some past’ etc. This all is the outer side of personality, its image in its own eyes. This constituent is identical mainly with the Freud’s Ego. The second level, the level of the Shadow is compounded by instincts common for a human and his animal ancestors. The Shadow may be identified with the Freud’s Id (Sub-consciousness). The name ‘Shadow’ was given because of this constituent unconscious character. A human not realizing it endeavors turns away from it and its demonstrations. It doesn’t disappear, however, and always is presented by a human like a shadow. The Anima and Animus occupy the third level. The Anima (translated from Latin as a soul) is a female component in the psychics of a man; just as the Animus (the Latin noun ‘anima’ the soul remade in masculine) is the male one in that of woman. I. e. the psychics of every sex contains an element of another sex psychics and no pure male or female psychic types exist. The name ‘Anima’ was given for an individual soul is perceived at deep levels of introspection as a woman (by men), who leads the individual to the innermost level of his (to his Spirit or the Selfness). Later Jung discovered also an analogous constituent in the female psychics and called it with the invented by him neologism ‘Animus’. This level comprises among others the image of the ideal sexual partner sought by men and women in the outer life.

The innermost level, the level of the Selfness is the base of human psychics. It’s the origin of the deepest spiritual and intuitive insights and so-called archetypes. The archetypes or the prime images are universal structures present in everyone’s psychics and compounding its ground. They manifest themselves in mythology and culture (in particular in literature). The main archetypes described by Jung are those of Hero, Wizard (Magus), the Great Mother, Great Lovers, the Scholar and others. In some or other form they are present in every culture that confirms that their grounds lie in individual psychics. Namely the archetypes and not the animal instincts are the moving engine of any human activity. In individual psychics they are contained in usual state in the hidden convolute form and unhide themselves if necessary conditions are present. In this case (when the necessary conditions occur) all the individual psychics start functioning in resonance putting themselves onto each other. In result the so-called Collective Unconsciousness (i. e. the unconsciousness of all society on the whole) appears. All the destiny-bearing historical events (wars, revolutions, and even renaissance or cultural or economical animation) are conditioned by it (when all the society starts functioning as the whole). Therefore historical forecasts can’t be reliable without taking the Collective Unconsciousness into consideration.

Date: 2014-12-21; view: 1838