What is the Archetype in Jungian Psychology? Jung's Theory of Energy Cores and Complexes in the Psyche

The archetype has been often misunderstood. It is neither a thing nor a type nor a place at all. Not locatable in the psyche and yet expressed through the psyche; Jung’s own analogy can help clarify:

Crystal Formation Analogy

Just as a crystal takes its axial pre-form from the mother liquid in which it waits, so the archetype works more as the mother liquid than the form that arises from that liquid. In and of itself it is neither god nor goddess, neither witch, trickster, lover, child or mother as some might assume. It is rather the potential which portends or signals these contents or types. It is never the type itself.

Mother Archetype

An example of this might be seen with the so-called mother archetype. Because all archetypal energies carry a numinous or larger than life quality, when and if this energy constellates, or is gathered into the complex of the given personality, that complex (in this case belonging to the child) is also charged with a numinous energy. No matter the actual reality of the person in the role of mother, the archetype surrounding this person will always carry a highly charged emotional quality which in turns attaches to the complex already in existence.

Archetypal Core of Personality

Because the complex (or composite of individual experience and affect) is always wrapped around the archetype, there is this mixing of the impersonal, highly charged energy of the mother archetype with the actual individual energy in the person of the mother. How the child, or child turned adult for that matter, perceives the mother depends upon this mix of archetypal core, accompanying complex, and child/adult projection.

Collective Unconscious: Keeper of Images

Jung conceived that a collective unconscious was the repository as well as promoter of mythical and archetypal images arising from dreams. Recognizable outer behaviors that cluster around pivotal, life changing or life defining events (such as birth, death, marriage, falling in love, etc) reveal how universal these images are. Furthermore, Jung perceived how the archetypes were a part of the psyche's inner life and expressed themselves as what he called: The Anima and Animus, Shadow, and Persona. The number of archetypes is in theory infinite.

Stages of Development

Jung’s theory of archetype developed in three stages beginning in 1912 when he wrote of the primordial images he recognized in his own as well as his patients dreams and unconscious life. He began to notice that all of these carried a motif of what he called the numinous. In other words, these images carried within them something more than individual personality but a universality that rested in their state of the numinous or transcendent function.

Linking Body and Soul

By 1917 he had begun to refer to a “non-personal dominant” in the individual psyche which he saw as attracting particular energies to itself. By 1919 he started to call these nodal points of energy attractions archetypes distinguishing these nodal points of energies from the images themselves. The term he chose therefore, archetype, was to distinguish between these points of energy attraction and the actual images prone to being thrown into the awareness. Furthermore, Jung saw how the archetype was a psychosomatic concept which linked body and psyche.

What is Difficult to Resist

It is now more commonly understood that archetypal patterns carry a “strong, potentially overpowering charge of energy which can be difficult to resist.” Managing these strong charges of energy is dependent upon the individual’s development. In other words, how well these great energies are managed so as not to overcome the developing ego, comes down to the degree of success in the individuation process. For Jung this process of individuation, a total self-knowledge, marked the highest achievement for the individual.

Sources: Samuels, A., Shorter, B. and Plaut, F. (2005).A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis. London: Routledge.

Whitmont C.W.(1978).The Symbolic Quest; Basic Concepts of Analytical Psycholog. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Nov 18, 2008 12:31 PM

Guest :

“Furthermore, Jung saw how the archetype was a psychosomatic concept which linked body and psyche.”

I think of the little children's song I have used in choir rehearsals, drawn from Helen Kemp:

“Body, mind, spirit, voice
It takes the whole person
To sing and rejoice.”

I believe that music, and singing most of all, is interwoven with the concepts you discuss. It involves the numinous. It links “body, mind, spirit, voice.” It is powerful: as you said, “archetypal patterns carry a 'strong, potentially overpowering charge of energy which can be difficult to resist.'” At their worst, they are amenable to the sort of thing that the Nazis accomplished with their torchlight rallies, sweeping away a whole nation by drawing on archetypes – partly through the music they used. Or, in a more banal (but equally evil, in my opinion) example, the use of music in television advertising. It contributes much to the power of such advertising to overcome rational behavior.

At their best, musical archetypes can inspire and lead people into behavior and states of mind beyond what they would otherwise have the energy to manage. The song “We shall overcome” comes to mind, in the ways it helped at key points in the civil rights struggle.

-- Andrew H.