Overcoming the Archetype, Why it Can't be Done

Wounded Hero, Trickster, Peter Pan, Witch Can be Turned into Allies

Jan 10, 2009

The archetypes cannot be chosen or abandoned, but they can become allies to the individual who wants to work with them and discover the gold they hold inside.

A lot has been written about the archetype. What it is, where it comes from, ways in which it helps determine certain personality tendencies. But what is not yet understood is how the archetypes have nothing to do with what a person chooses. Or, for that matter, what a person does not choose.

The archetype is beyond rational mind and cannot be shaped by willpower or “overcome” by practice. Nor is this something one would even want to happen. The archetype is not to be overcome; it is to be recognized, then worked with and understood.

It has become fashionable to give names to these various archetypes as they are recognized in one’s own or someone else's behavior. Jung himself spoke at great length about the mother archetype, the trickster and the puer or eternal youth, what is more commonly called the Peter Pan archetype. Carol Pearson has written extensively about the expression of archetypes such as the destroyer, creator, ruler, magician, sage and fool in her fine book Awakening the Heroes Within.

Not to be Overcome

But in none of these explanations of archetype is anyone suggesting that the archetype needs to be overcome. The archetype needs to be recognized as the gift it is and worked with. Once the psyche recognizes what kind of archetype it is carrying, the individual can find ways to work with it in order to release its projections and take back the energy.

These archetypes serve only as templates; in and of themselves they are nothing. Only as the archetype comes into contact with the personality structure of the individual does it begin to make known in particular ways. To try to overcome such a template would be against the very life of the psyche itself. It simply could not be achieved as long as the individual drew breath.

What can be overcome, or dealt with, is how the archetype manifests itself. Is it the witch or the good mother that is expressing itself or is it something in between? How it expresses itself is as much driven by the complexes and personality structure of the individual as it is by the underlying, core archetype. Does the hero act for good or is he acting as a malevolent force out to harm and destroy in the name of his idealism? Is the trickster teaching a lesson out of love or from some more sinister motivation. Again this is determined largely by what is being projected onto that silent, formless archetypal energy.

Along with the complexes carried by the individual, what determines how the archetype expresses itself are the projections the individual imposes upon that archetype and what others in relationship to it project as well. Once again, it is in the projection itself and not the impersonal archetype that determines its final expression for good or for ill.

In the Words of Carl Jung

As Carl Jung states, "our task is not, therefore, to deny the archetype, but to dissolve the projections, in order to restore their contents to the individual who has involuntarily lost them by projecting them outside himself.”

Four Archetypes, Mother/Rebirth/Spirit/Trickster by Carl Jung (1969). Princeton: Bollingen Press.

The copyright of the article Overcoming the Archetype, Why it Can't be Done in Analytical Psychology is owned by Megge Hill Fitz-Randolph. Permission to republish Overcoming the Archetype, Why it Can't be Done in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.