I’ve had a short book sitting on my shelf
for some time. A lovely limey-colored paperback. Animus and Anima: Two
Essays. Authored by Jung. I’d pulled it off the shelf a number of times and
admired the color. But that, and flipping the still crisp pages, was as much as
I’d enjoyed about it. Despite the color really drawing me in, and the very
unintimidating length, it just hadn’t called to me yet. But this time, what
stood out as I glanced at it was the name. Emma Jung. Not Carl, but his wife.
I’ve always been interested in the symbolism and etymology of names. In fact, it
may be through names that my interest in symbolism was born. And so, I
wondered: what does Emma mean?
The name Emma derives from Germanic ermen, which connotes whole and complete. It’s an etymological curiosity that seems less like coincidence and more like synchronicity. Carl Jung's clinical work and psychological theory development was conducted from the masculine side of the psyche. A pillar of his work is the anima, being man’s inner feminine, projected outward onto women who carry what he cannot carry himself. Emma, who became a practicing analyst herself, supplied what her husband's framework largely left out. Her work, and this essay on the animus in particular, became a compensatory work to her husband’s and completed from the other side what would otherwise remain half a psychology. The woman whose name means ‘whole’ can be said to have made her husband’s work complete, I think.
Emma Jung argued that the figures a woman falls in love with (or becomes fascinated by) are reflections of a figure she carries internally. The animus, as she understood it, is the masculine principle within the feminine psyche. It’s an autonomous presence with its own developmental arc. And like all things psychic, it matures. Or it fails to.
The word animus carries the Latin meaning of spirit, breath, or mind. Carl Jung associated it with Logos, which is the principle of discrimination, word, and meaning. And he contrasted it to Eros, the principle of relatedness and feeling, which he linked to the anima. To say a woman is developing her animus is not to say she is becoming more masculine in the conventional sense. It is rather to say that something in her is striving for clarity, rational expression, and the capacity to move through the world with intention and authority. The men she loves, Emma Jung suggests, embody that capacity before she can take it on herself.
Four Faces of the Inner Masculine
To characterize the masculine principle of the animus, Emma Jung turns to the German novelist and philosopher Goethe. In Faust, the title character considers the Gospel of John’s opening line, “In the beginning was the Word.” But is that right, he wonders? Wouldn’t it better to say, “In the beginning was Power?” Or meaning? And finally, Faust writes, “In the beginning was the Deed.” Emma Jung observed that these four attempts to render the Greek logos are not competing translations but rather a sequence: power, deed, word, meaning. "Power corresponds very well to the first stage," she writes, "the deed follows, then the word, and finally, as the last stage, meaning... Just as there are men of outstanding physical power, men of deeds, men of words, and men of wisdom, so, too, does the animus image differ in accordance with the woman's particular stage of development or her natural gifts."[1]
Emma is careful to note that these are not categories or rigid stages as much as dominant qualities. The animus seldom appears in a pure form, and its development is neither linear nor tidy. But the overall arc is real, and a woman who reflects on the men she has been most powerfully drawn to, she’ll find herself – her animus - somewhere on that arc.
The First Stage: Physical Power. At its earliest and most undeveloped, the animus appears as pure embodied force. The man who carries this projection is a physical authority and manifestation of brute strength. He organizes and manipulates the material world. He might be an athlete, a soldier, or a cop. The stereotypical hero. Emma Jung notes that "for the primitive woman, or the young woman, or for the primitive in every woman, a man distinguished by physical prowess becomes an animus figure."[2] What she is reaching toward, through him, is her own capacity for physical aliveness and her ability to shape the world around her.
The Second Stage: Man of Deeds. As the animus develops, brute force gives way to initiative and will. The figure at this stage is still highly externalized, but now he appears as the romantic hero, the man who acts decisiveness, who takes risks, and who pursues what he wants across whatever lies between him and it. Deed implies will and purpose, to which power becomes the means. Power and deed "mutually condition one another," Emma Jung observes, and so the transition from one to the other is smooth. But what the woman is reaching toward is her own capacity for agency. It’s planned action, and a striving for what she wants rather than waiting to have it provided.
The Third Stage: Bearer of the Word. At the third stage, the animus begins to take on the quality of Logos. The figure might now be a professor, preacher, or politician. A man whose authority derives not from his strength or daring, but from his ability to articulate, to teach, and to transmit knowledge and wisdom. And it is here, Emma Jung writes, that "the animus becomes problematical.” Her reason for saying so is familiar to any woman who has met her inner critic. "We hear from it a critical, usually negative comment on every movement, an exact examination of all motives and intentions, which naturally always causes feelings of inferiority, and tends to nip in the bud all initiative and every wish for self-expression."[3] The woman who finds herself drawn to intellectual men and the one who is vexed by interior judgement are encountering the animus as Logos. What she is reaching toward now is her own voice. She’s ready to speak with authority from her own interior ground, and to stand it.
The Fourth Stage: Meaning and Spirit. At its most developed, the animus ceases to be only a worldly power and becomes a mediator between the ego and the deeper layers of the psyche. Emma Jung associated this stage with Hermes, the guider of souls and the one who moves between worlds. The man who carries this projection may be a guru, a philosopher, or a poet. He point the woman beyond herself toward something that transcends her. The woman is now prepared for direct contact with the nature of meaning itself. She embodies the capacity to not just speak, but to listen, to receive, and serve as a vessel for something that transcends the personal. This is the animus at its most refined, and its most developmentally useful. The inner masculine has become her guide toward the Self.
The Man in Us Isn’t About Men
It’s an important point that what Emma Jung describes are not four types of men. It is a developmental psychology of the inner life of women. Men are screens upon which that life is projected. The woman’s task is not to find the right man but to recognize in each of these carriers of her anima a quality that belongs to herself, and that is waiting to be claimed and integrated. Or reclaimed, for as with so many things Jungian, animus development is of a continuously expanding, cyclical nature.
"The first stage on the right road," she writes, "is therefore the withdrawal of the projection by recognizing it as such, and thus freeing it from the object... Through this withdrawal of the projection we recognize that we are not dealing with an entity outside ourselves but a quality within; and we see before us the task of learning to know the nature and effect of this factor, this 'man in us,' in order to distinguish him from ourselves."[4]
This “man in us” and the sequence of men who carry it, is all along the way a representation of the woman’s interior life seeking to come into its own. The athlete, the adventurer, the professor, and the sage are never just themselves. They are psychopomps, escorting her along a path that was about her all along.
Completing, or compensating Carl Jung’s framework as it does, Emma Jung’s work remains classically Jungian. And it’s not the last word, nor unchallenged. Post-Jungian thinkers have pushed back on the assumptions embedded in her work – many of the same ones that are challenged in Carl Jung’s work itself. Questions about gender, on who “gets” to carry which principle, and about what significance the animus may have to men’s psychology have become relevant and important. I’ll pick those ideas up in part two of this article.
The name Emma derives from Germanic ermen, which connotes whole and complete. It’s an etymological curiosity that seems less like coincidence and more like synchronicity. Carl Jung's clinical work and psychological theory development was conducted from the masculine side of the psyche. A pillar of his work is the anima, being man’s inner feminine, projected outward onto women who carry what he cannot carry himself. Emma, who became a practicing analyst herself, supplied what her husband's framework largely left out. Her work, and this essay on the animus in particular, became a compensatory work to her husband’s and completed from the other side what would otherwise remain half a psychology. The woman whose name means ‘whole’ can be said to have made her husband’s work complete, I think.
Emma Jung argued that the figures a woman falls in love with (or becomes fascinated by) are reflections of a figure she carries internally. The animus, as she understood it, is the masculine principle within the feminine psyche. It’s an autonomous presence with its own developmental arc. And like all things psychic, it matures. Or it fails to.
The word animus carries the Latin meaning of spirit, breath, or mind. Carl Jung associated it with Logos, which is the principle of discrimination, word, and meaning. And he contrasted it to Eros, the principle of relatedness and feeling, which he linked to the anima. To say a woman is developing her animus is not to say she is becoming more masculine in the conventional sense. It is rather to say that something in her is striving for clarity, rational expression, and the capacity to move through the world with intention and authority. The men she loves, Emma Jung suggests, embody that capacity before she can take it on herself.
Four Faces of the Inner Masculine
To characterize the masculine principle of the animus, Emma Jung turns to the German novelist and philosopher Goethe. In Faust, the title character considers the Gospel of John’s opening line, “In the beginning was the Word.” But is that right, he wonders? Wouldn’t it better to say, “In the beginning was Power?” Or meaning? And finally, Faust writes, “In the beginning was the Deed.” Emma Jung observed that these four attempts to render the Greek logos are not competing translations but rather a sequence: power, deed, word, meaning. "Power corresponds very well to the first stage," she writes, "the deed follows, then the word, and finally, as the last stage, meaning... Just as there are men of outstanding physical power, men of deeds, men of words, and men of wisdom, so, too, does the animus image differ in accordance with the woman's particular stage of development or her natural gifts."[1]
Emma is careful to note that these are not categories or rigid stages as much as dominant qualities. The animus seldom appears in a pure form, and its development is neither linear nor tidy. But the overall arc is real, and a woman who reflects on the men she has been most powerfully drawn to, she’ll find herself – her animus - somewhere on that arc.
The First Stage: Physical Power. At its earliest and most undeveloped, the animus appears as pure embodied force. The man who carries this projection is a physical authority and manifestation of brute strength. He organizes and manipulates the material world. He might be an athlete, a soldier, or a cop. The stereotypical hero. Emma Jung notes that "for the primitive woman, or the young woman, or for the primitive in every woman, a man distinguished by physical prowess becomes an animus figure."[2] What she is reaching toward, through him, is her own capacity for physical aliveness and her ability to shape the world around her.
The Second Stage: Man of Deeds. As the animus develops, brute force gives way to initiative and will. The figure at this stage is still highly externalized, but now he appears as the romantic hero, the man who acts decisiveness, who takes risks, and who pursues what he wants across whatever lies between him and it. Deed implies will and purpose, to which power becomes the means. Power and deed "mutually condition one another," Emma Jung observes, and so the transition from one to the other is smooth. But what the woman is reaching toward is her own capacity for agency. It’s planned action, and a striving for what she wants rather than waiting to have it provided.
The Third Stage: Bearer of the Word. At the third stage, the animus begins to take on the quality of Logos. The figure might now be a professor, preacher, or politician. A man whose authority derives not from his strength or daring, but from his ability to articulate, to teach, and to transmit knowledge and wisdom. And it is here, Emma Jung writes, that "the animus becomes problematical.” Her reason for saying so is familiar to any woman who has met her inner critic. "We hear from it a critical, usually negative comment on every movement, an exact examination of all motives and intentions, which naturally always causes feelings of inferiority, and tends to nip in the bud all initiative and every wish for self-expression."[3] The woman who finds herself drawn to intellectual men and the one who is vexed by interior judgement are encountering the animus as Logos. What she is reaching toward now is her own voice. She’s ready to speak with authority from her own interior ground, and to stand it.
The Fourth Stage: Meaning and Spirit. At its most developed, the animus ceases to be only a worldly power and becomes a mediator between the ego and the deeper layers of the psyche. Emma Jung associated this stage with Hermes, the guider of souls and the one who moves between worlds. The man who carries this projection may be a guru, a philosopher, or a poet. He point the woman beyond herself toward something that transcends her. The woman is now prepared for direct contact with the nature of meaning itself. She embodies the capacity to not just speak, but to listen, to receive, and serve as a vessel for something that transcends the personal. This is the animus at its most refined, and its most developmentally useful. The inner masculine has become her guide toward the Self.
The Man in Us Isn’t About Men
It’s an important point that what Emma Jung describes are not four types of men. It is a developmental psychology of the inner life of women. Men are screens upon which that life is projected. The woman’s task is not to find the right man but to recognize in each of these carriers of her anima a quality that belongs to herself, and that is waiting to be claimed and integrated. Or reclaimed, for as with so many things Jungian, animus development is of a continuously expanding, cyclical nature.
"The first stage on the right road," she writes, "is therefore the withdrawal of the projection by recognizing it as such, and thus freeing it from the object... Through this withdrawal of the projection we recognize that we are not dealing with an entity outside ourselves but a quality within; and we see before us the task of learning to know the nature and effect of this factor, this 'man in us,' in order to distinguish him from ourselves."[4]
This “man in us” and the sequence of men who carry it, is all along the way a representation of the woman’s interior life seeking to come into its own. The athlete, the adventurer, the professor, and the sage are never just themselves. They are psychopomps, escorting her along a path that was about her all along.
Completing, or compensating Carl Jung’s framework as it does, Emma Jung’s work remains classically Jungian. And it’s not the last word, nor unchallenged. Post-Jungian thinkers have pushed back on the assumptions embedded in her work – many of the same ones that are challenged in Carl Jung’s work itself. Questions about gender, on who “gets” to carry which principle, and about what significance the animus may have to men’s psychology have become relevant and important. I’ll pick those ideas up in part two of this article.