Archetypes Archives - Applied Jung

FOUR ARCHETYPES Mother, Rebirth, Spirit, Trickster

By C.G. Jung Published by Routledge, 2003 “The hallmarks of spirit are, firstly, the principle of spontaneous movement and activity; secondly, the spontaneous capacity to produce images independently of sense perception; and thirdly, the autonomous and sovereign manipulation of these images.” (pp. 107-108, CW9 par. 393) When Carl Gustav Jung (1875 – 1961) passed away aged 86, he left a prolific legacy of profound psychological writings which even in recent years have been gradually released to the public, such as the recent publications...

June 14, 2022

By Stephen FarahArchetypes, Book and Movie Reviewsarchetypes, book review3 Comments

The Anima: a post-Jungian perspective

The Jungian concept of the anima and animus is one of Jung’s most engaging and potent contributions to psychoanalysis. Of all the articles we have published on this site the posts on the anima and animus consistently get the most views and rank highest on Google’s search engines. It is one of those ideas that has come to be definitive of Jungian psychology.Simultaneously, of all the concepts we have taught at the Centre none has proved more difficult than the...

June 29, 2020

By Stephen FarahAnima and Animus, Archetypes21 Comments

Book Review: Ego and Archetype by Edward F. Edinger

Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche.

This book review is by Lynelle Pieterse. The Jungian Book Club will be exploring this book during this month. In the introduction we are reminded that Jung “achieved a magnificent synthesis of human knowledge.” Through his work we have come to know the reality of the psyche and the phenomenology of how it manifests in us and in the world. We can therefore recognise the same phenomenology expressed in the culture-products: myth, religion, philosophy, art and literature. The...

August 31, 2016

By Anja van KralingenArchetypes, Book and Movie Reviews, Ego, Uncategorized1 Comment

Jung’s dream house and discovering your own archetypal home

In Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung reports a seminal dream in his discovery of the collective unconscious. I was in a house I did not know, which had two storeys. It was "my house". I found myself in the upper storey, where there was a kind of salon furnished with fine old pieces in Rococo style. On the walls hung a number of precious, old paintings. I wondered that this should be my house and thought, "Not bad". But then...

June 19, 2014

By Stephen FarahArchetypes, Jungian Themesarchetypes, Jung, personal narratives, symbols8 Comments

What Story are You Telling (?): a Peek Behind the Scenes of Personal Narratives.

I want to share an exercise with you that I have found to be quite illuminating.[1] This exercise, seemingly very simple (almost simplistic), provides a powerful tool to examine the nature of the story you are telling. This exercise can help you to: Locate yourself and your narrative. Discover what archetype/s you are constellating in your personal narrative. Better understand what it means (i.e. how it feels and influences) to constellate an archetype in your narrative and sense of identity. Perhaps most importantly...

February 4, 2013

By Stephen FarahArchetypes, Jungian Themes, Narrative Analysis, Practicallyindividuation, meaning, personal narratives, stories6 Comments

The Primal Scene in the 21st Century is about Money not Sex

The idea of the Primal Scene was given to psychology and 20th Century Culture by Sigmund Freud the father of Psychoanalysis[1]. The Primal Scene is the first time you discovered your parents having sex and understood what you are seeing, hearing or becoming aware of in any other form, even if just through your intuition. The idea here is that sex, certainly at the time Freud was writing but even today, although possibly less so, was a taboo...

July 12, 2012

By Stephen FarahArchetypes, Jungian Themesmoney, primal scene, sex7 Comments

The Genius-Demon of Women: and the Challenge of Staying Sane after 35

I am currently working with a most exceptional woman through a process of articulating the hidden, or what Jung called the second, personality. Whilst doing this work I had the most astounding realisation about the genius-demon that lies in a woman's soul, and brings a great charge of libido with it that is so very difficult to contain in today's world. This awakening came to me the way so many truths do. It is something I have been aware of...

November 14, 2011

By Stephen FarahArchetypes, Jungian Themesfeminine archetype, midlife crisis, women4 Comments

Common Dream Archetypes

This is a Guest Post by Patricia Duggan. Carl Jung believed that dreams had their own language. The things we see in our dreams are not signs that represent one specific idea, but rather fluid images to which we ascribe meaning based on our individual experiences. Dreams may reveal truths, philosophical revelations, illusions, fantasies, memoires, plans, irrational experiences or even prophetic visions. The images in our dreams are ultimately representations of our own unconscious. Although they come from our individual minds, many images...

October 16, 2011

By Anja van KralingenArchetypes, Dream Work, Jungian ThemesDream interpretation4 Comments

Unfortunately…it seems We Will Have to Kill the Child

I don't know about you, but I truly love children. Of course I love my own children, but beyond them I love children generally. Children possess a humanity which is absent in most adults. They know how to love, how to laugh, how to cry, and perhaps most importantly how to play. What is life, after all, if we're not at play. Sometimes I encounter kids who seem like little adults, embedded in reality; or as Freud would put it, living...

August 22, 2011

By Stephen FarahArchetypes, Practicallyarchetypes, child3 Comments

Why Dont You Act like Youve Got a Pair: or, How to Find Your Inner Cowboy.

Once a long, long time ago in a land far, far away there was a particular type of man. A man who lived life as if he had a pair. This truly was an exotic creature, not to be confused with your garden variety metro-sexual. I speak of a man that is not some lily livered, hormonally imbalanced, girl man. A man who measured himself by how he crushed his enemies underfoot, how many women he had taken to his bed,...

August 8, 2011

By Stephen FarahArchetypes, Practicallyarchetypes, cowboy0 Comments