Collective unconscious
Collective unconscious defined
Collective unconscious is a term of analytical psychology, and was originally coined by Carl Jung. He distinguished the collective unconscious from the personal unconscious, which is particular to each human being. The collective unconscious refers to that part of a person's unconscious which is common to all human beings. It is the whole spiritual heritage of mankind's evolution born anew in the brain-structure of every individual. It contains archetypes, which are forms or symbols that are manifested by all people in all cultures. The difference in their conceptualization of the unconscious is one of the more conspicuous differences between the psychologies founded by Jung and Freud.
In his earlier writings, Jung called this aspect of the psyche the collective unconscious; later, he changed the term to the objective psyche. The objective psyche may be considered objective for two reasons:
- It is common to everyone.
- It has a better sense of the self ideal than the ego or conscious self does, and thus directs the self, via archetypes, dreams, intuition, to self-actualization.
In the Definitions chapter of Jung's seminal work "Psychological Types", under the definition of "Collective" Jung indicates a similarity of "representations collectives" (coined by Levy-Bruhl in his 1910 book "How Natives Think")to his term, collective unconscious. The question then becomes whether Jung originally came up with this, or translated it (as a term) from cultural anthropology and synthesized its meaning with his understanding.
Jung made the exploration of the unconscious and collective unconscious his life's work. He went equipped with a background in Freudian theory and with a seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of mythology, religion, and philosophy. Jung was especially knowledgeable in the symbolism of complex mystical traditions such as Gnosticism, Alchemy, Kabala, and similar traditions in Hinduism and Buddhism. From this foundation, Jung's life work was to make sense of the unconscious and its habit of revealing itself in symbolic form through archetypes of the collective unconscious. He believed that it was only possible to live the fullest life when in harmony with these archetypal symbols; wisdom is a return to them (CW8:794).
Archetypes
The collective unconscious consists primarily of archetypes, defined as a pre-existent form, also called "motifs" in mythological research. Jung hypothesized that all of mythology could be taken as a type of projection of the collective unconscious. The key archetypes that Jung felt were especially important include : the persona, the shadow, the anima/animus, the mother, the child, the wise old man, and the self.
The persona is the mask we wear to make a particular impression on others; it may reveal and conceal our real nature. It is an artificial personality that compromises a person's real individuality and society's expectations—usually society's demands take precedence. It is made up of things like professional titles, roles, habits of social behavior, etc. It serves to both guarantee social order and to protect the individual's private life.
The shadow is the negative or inferior (undeveloped) side of the personality. It is said to be made up of all the reprehensible characteristics that each of us wish to deny, including animal tendencies that Jung claims we have inherited from our subhuman ancestors. However when individuals recognize and integrate their shadows, they progress further towards self-realization . On the other hand, the more unaware of the shadow we are, the blacker and denser it is. The more dissociated it is from conscious life, the more it will display a compensatory demonic dynamism. It is often projected outwards on individual or groups who are then thought to embody all the immature, evil, or repressed elements of the individual's own psyche.
The anima/animus personifies the soul, or inner attitude. Following a person's coming to term with their shadow they are then confronted with the problem of the anima/animus. It is usually a persona and often takes on the characteristics of the opposite sex. The anima is said to represent the feminine in men and the animus is the comparable counterpart in the female psyche. The anima may be personified as a young girl, very spontaneous and intuitive, or as a witch, or as the earth mother. It is likely to be associated with deep emotionality and the force of life itself. The animus may be personified as a wise old man, a sorcerer, or often a number of males, and tends to be logical, often rationalistic, even argumentative.
The the great mother archetype would be expected to be very nearly the same in all people, since all infants share inherent expectation of having an attentive caretaker (human instinct); every surviving infant must either have had a mother, or a surrogate (common experience); and nearly every child is indoctrinated with society's idea of what a mother should be (shared culture). Mother is the source of life and nurture and the images are nearly inexhaustible: Mother Earth, Divine Mother, deep water, womb (literal and symbolic), a vessel, the sea and the moon are but a few.
The child archetype represents original or child like conditions in the life of the individual or the species, and thus reminds the conscious mind of its origins. This archetype also takes many forms—child, god, dwarf, hobbits, elf; animals—monkey; or objects—jewels, chalices or the golden ball. It becomes a necessary reminder when the consciousness become too one sided, too willfully progressive in a manner that threatens to sever the individual from the roots of his or her being. It also signifies the potentiality of future personality development, anticipates the synthesis of opposites and the attainment of wholeness. As a result, it represents the urge and compulsion towards self-realization.
The wise old man is the archetype of meaning or spirit. It often appears as grandfather, sage, magician, king, doctor, priest, professor, or any other authority figure. It represents insight, wisdom, cleverness, willingness to help, moral qualities. His appearance serves to warn of dangers, provide protective gifts such as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. As with the other archetypes the wise old man also possesses both good and bad aspects.
The self, according to Jung, is the most important archetype. It is called the "midpoint of the personality", a centre between consciousness and the unconsciousness. It signifies the harmony and balance between the various opposing qualities that make up the psyche. The symbols of the self can be anything that the ego takes to be a greater totality than itself. Thus many symbols fall short of expressing the self in its fullest development. Symbols of the self are often manifested in geometrical forms (mandalas) or by the quaternity (a figure with four parts). Prominent human figures which represent the self are the Buddha or Christ. This archetype is also represented by the divine child and by various pairs—father and son, king and queen, or god and goddess.
Critique
Some have pointed out that this is essentially metaphysics since it is a hypothesis that is yet to be widely accepted.
Less mystical proponents of the Jungian model hold that the collective unconscious can be adequately explained as arising in each individual from shared instinct, common experience, and shared culture. The natural process of generalization in the human mind combines these common traits and experiences into a mostly identical substratum of the unconscious.
Regardless of whether the individual's connection to the collective unconscious arises from mundane or mystical means, the term collective unconscious describes an important commonality that is observed to exist in all human beings.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Jung, C.The Development of Personality (Collected Works of C.G. Jung Vol.17). Bollingen Publishers. ISBN 0691018383.
- Whitmont,Edward C. (1979). The Symbolic Quest. Princeton University Press. (Oiginally published 1969) ISBN 0691024545.
- Gallo, Ernest. Synchronicity and the Archetypes. Published in Skeptical Inquirer, Vol.18, No. 4, Summer 1994.
External links
- Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism: A pictorial and written archive of mythological, ritualistic, and symbolic images from all over the world and from all epochs of human history.
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