The Twelve Archetypes
~ Tammo de Jongh, 1967
The psyche is part of the mystery of life
and it has its own structure and form like any other organism.
~ C.G. Jung
Analytical Psychology (commonly referred to as "Jungian" Psychology) originated in the work of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). Offering a comprehensive model of the human psyche, Analytical Psychology includes a psychotherapuetic approach for improving mental health and facilitating maturation of the personality as well as a theoretical body of knowledge with wide applicability to social and cultural issues.
I
Sigmund Freud analogized the human psyche as an iceberg in that only a small portion of it is visible for the world to see, while the vast majority of its content is hidden out of site. According to Freud, the majority of that which drives a human being is derived from what lies underneath the surface in the unconscious mind, our repressed memories and emotions, our confusion and dreams and desires.
Carl Jung viewed not only the iceberg as representative of the visible and hidden aspects of the human psyche, but the ocean itself in which the iceberg is immersed: the collective unconscious, a term he coined to describe the non-personal, archetypal psychic material that influences human experience. As Jung wrote: “In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.” (CW9, p. 43)
This concept of the collective unconscious is the underpinning of Jungian psychology, along with that of archetypes, the shadow, the individuation process, the anima and animus, psychological types, and the vast personal unconscious. In addition, Jungian psychology emphasizes lifelong psychological development versus development only throughout childhood.
In exploring life itself, Jung wrote: “Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the eternal flux. What we see is the blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains.” (Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections p. 4)
Expounding on Jung’s use of the image of the rhizome, analyst June Singer wrote the following in her book Boundaries of the Soul: The Practice of Jung’s Psychology: “Students in universities today engage too much in the contemplation and dissection of the blossom. Psychology courses insist that all that counts in man’s behavior, which can be measured, predicted, conditioned and manipulated. I agree that behavior merits considerable concern. But I am with many thinking people today who are not altogether satisfied with studying what is, or to be more accurate, “what appears to be.” . . . Both [the blossom and the rhizome] are necessary to the existence if the plant and its growth. But in today’s hurried world, where the blossom is all to easily seen, enjoyed, and knocked off its stem when it begins to wither and decay, the rhizome is all too often overlooked. We forget that it carries the source of tomorrow’s blossom. I admit that Jungian psychology may lay too much emphasis on the rhizome, and not enough on the blossom. . . .But just because institutional psychology has dealt with the observable phenomenon, and dealt with it relatively adequately within the limitations of its methods, it has not been necessary for Jung or Jungians to dwell overlong upon grounds that have been competently tended by others. Therefore . . . Jung’s way. . . [stressed] the importance of the unconscious rather than of consciousness, the mysterious rather than the known, the mystical rather than the scientific, the creative rather than the productive, the religious rather than the profane, the meaning of love rather than the technique of sex. (1972, p. xv-xvi)”
Additional quotes to help explore the concepts of Jungian Psychology
“Thoughtful people are recognizing that Jung provides a bridge in our time between the scientific-intellectual aspects of life and the religious-nonrational aspects. Jung has faced the apparent dichotomy between abstraction and generalization on one side and the experience of immediate knowing on the other. Our culture, steeped in the principles of Aristotelian logic, finds it difficult to accept paradoxical thinking as valid. Too often it seems necessary to make a choice between the rationalistic-academic way of life or the anti-intellectual camp. Jung’s greatness is in that he saw both of these as aspects of the same reality, as polar opposites on a single axis.”
~ June Singer, 1972, p. xi
“Jung’s teachings have much to offer to the troubled world in this third of the twentieth century, and there are not nearly enough Jungian analysts to meet the need, the interest, the demand. . . Often when Jungian analysts have spoken out to the general public about the experience of the analytic way—the “way of individuation”—small groups of people have sprung up spontaneously to meet and discuss the words and work and the life of Jung, to try to understand all this in term of their own personal experience. . . . Jung [has] the capacity to touch something essential in the human soul which needs to be touched or needs to be healed, in order to be made whole.”
~June Singer, 1972, p. xii
Jungian analysis is the psychotherapeutic process of re-establishing a healthy balance between the conscious and unconscious parts of our personality as we strive towards wholeness, not perfection. In the process, our ego is strengthened by integration of what we call the shadow, or the unconscious parts of our personality. We strive to establish a healthier relationship with our contra-sexual side and ultimately to develop a connection with the greater personality, the Self. This is accomplished through work with dreams, which reveal what is missing from our conscious perception, through discussion of everyday events and problems and through any other creative medium, ie. sandplay, art, movement, etc. The result of this work is a mitigation of unhealthy behavior patterns and greater consciousness, leading to a healthier, more filling life.
~Nancy Furlotti, M.A. Co-President, Philemon Board of Directors.
The preceding description of C.G. Jung's Analytical Psychology appears courtesy of the Philemon Foundation; a non-profit foundation devoted to bringing to publication the Complete Works of C.G. Jung including an additional, as yet unpublished, 30 volumes and 38,000 letters.
For more information about the Philemon Foundation including publications, both recent and forthcoming, upcoming events and exhibitions, or inquiries into how to support the foundation, please visit www.philemonfoundation.org.
Founded by Carl Gustav Jung, the field of analytical psychology is the descendent of the "Zürich School" of psychoanalysis which Jung spearheaded while still the heir apparent to Freud and the first president of the International Psychoanalytic Associatiion (1910-1914).
The first written occurrence of the name "analytical psychology" is in a lecture delivered by Jung to the Psycho-Medical Society in London on August 5, 1913 ("General Aspects of Psychoanalysis"). Conceived by Jung as a general (depth) psychology, the field grew in size and developed in complexity both during Jung's lifetime and after his death in 1961. By 1997 it had come to embrace some two thousand professional analysts on five continents.
In the years 1907-20 Jung worked out the main outlines of his theory, which set the course for analytical psychology. By the end of this period, the theory included psychological types, the theory of complexes and archetypes, the notions of persona, shadow, and anima/animus, and the individuation process.
Among the factors that have distinguished analytical psychology are: (a) a synthetic/symbolic component in analytic treatment; (b) a view of libido that includes a broad range of instinct groups, as well as a theory of culture that sees it based not on sublimation of sexuality but on symbolic transformation processes native to the psyche; (c) a notion of the unconscious that includes strivings toward growth and development, intelligent purpose, and orientation to meaning rather than narrowly limited to a pleasure orientation and a drive to tension release; (d) minimization of the psychosexual stages of development in childhood in favor of lifelong psychological development.
Technique also contributes important distinguishing features to analytical psychology: (a) while retaining a strong sense of the importance of transference and regression, Jung placed patients in a chair vis-à-vis the analyst and asked them to interact and maintain a dialogue; (b) frequency of sessions is variable from twice to five times per week, depending on the need; (c) the personality of the analyst as well as the analyst's associations ("amplifications") to dreams and other unconscious material come into play in a more open and explicit fashion, and the analyst seeks to be somewhat transparent and self-disclosing of emotional reactions.
Already when Jung broke with Freud at the end of 1912 he enjoyed an international reputation and quickly attracted his own students from many parts of Europe and the United States. These men and women typically returned to their countries of origin and began Analytical Psychology Clubs or similar study groups in their home cities: London (1922), Paris (1926), New York (1936), San Francisco (1939), Los Angeles (1942), Tel Aviv (1958). Interest in Jung's ideas was strong also in Berlin, but since many of the physicians drawn to him were Jewish (Gerhard Adler, Ernst Bernhardt, Werner Engel, Jean Kirsch, Ernst Neumann) and fled to the United States, England, Italy, and Israel during the 1930s, and because of the Nazi rise to power and the outbreak of World War II, the founding of a Jungian organization in Germany was delayed until 1962.
Gradually these Analytical Psychology Clubs fostered professional analyst societies which, after the Second World War, began sponsoring training institutes. The Society of Analytical Psychology, London (1945) led by Gerhard Adler, Michael Fordham, and Edward A. Bennett founded the first training program. Next came the Carl Gustav Jung Institute/Zürich (1948) with Carl A. Meier as President. In the 1960s, training institutes appeared in many parts of the world: Italy (1961), New York (1962), Germany (1962), San Francisco (1964), Los Angeles (1967), and France (1969). In the following decades, professional societies and training institutes also developed in Austria, Australia/New Zealand, Brazil, Israel, South Africa, and many urban centers in the United States. By 1996 there were twenty-three training institutes in existence worldwide.
The International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP), founded in 1955 to serve as an international umbrella organization for all professional analyst groups within the field of analytical psychology, provides a network of communication and collegiality for Jungian analysts throughout the world. There are presently thirty-two member groups of IAAP. Every three years the IAAP sponsors a Congress and publishes the papers presented. The ZürichCongress of 1995 was the thirteenth to be held.
As the field of analytical psychology developed, it experienced a vigorous display of diversity and polarization. The issue that has most divided it is the same one that originally caused the rupture between Jung and Freud: a symbolic, prospective approach to interpretation and clinical practice vs. a reductive one. Within analytical psychology this has been referred to variously as the Zurich vs. London, the classical vs. developmental, or the symbolic vs. clinical tension. In every version of this debate, the questions revolve around whether to give more prominence to working synthetically and symbolically with dreams and other direct manifestations of the unconscious or to devote one's efforts exclusively toward technique and the analysis of personal issues involving early childhood and developmental traumas, resistance, and transference. The classical school bases itself centrally on the writings of Jung and his close followers such as Marie Louise von Franz, Carl A. Meier, and Edward Edinger, while the developmental school incorporates many ideas from modern psychoanalysis, particularly object relations theory. The leading figure of the latter movement was Michael Fordham. The most recent generation of analysts has attempted to synthesize these two opposing trends and to find a balanced approach. Some have carried out investigations of the character disorders, dissociative states, and the interactive field (transference-countertransference). There have also been movements in recent decades to apply analytical psychology to the analysis of children and adolescents, society and politics, art and popular culture, small groups and large corporate organizations, and marriage and family dynamics.
Scientific studies testing the hypotheses of analytical psychology continue in many universities and institutes throughout the world. Journals of analytical psychology appear regularly in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese. The most important of these are: The Journal of Analytical Psychology (London, est. 1955), the Cahiers Jungiens de Psychanalyse (Paris, est. 1974), and the Zeitschrift für Analytische Psychologie (Berlin and Zürich, est. 1969).
MURRAY STEIN
Bibliography
Dyer, Donald. (1991). Cross-currents of Jungian thought: An annotated bibliography. Boston-London: Shambhala.
Henderson, Joseph L. (1995). Reflections on the history and practice of Jungian analysis. In Murray Stein (Ed.): Jungian analysis. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
Jung, Carl Gustav. (1966). Memories, dreams, reflections. London: Routledge. (Original work published 1962)
Samuels, Andrew (1985). Jung and the Post-Jungians. London-Boston: Routledge.
Stein, Murray (Ed.). (1995). Jungian analysis. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
"Analytical Psychology." International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Ed. Alain de Mijolla. Gale Cengage, 2005.eNotes.com. 2006. 8 Nov, 2010 <http://www.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/analytical-psychology>