Wellness Calendar: Thursday 13 November

Collective unconsciousness

Have you ever wondered how, as humans, we have a need for folklore, for passing on stories from one generation to the next, where certain themes and characters keep cropping up no matter where in time and space they originate?

When Sigmund Freud introduced his notion of the unconscious and how we tend to suppress passions, urges and desires deep inside ourselves, he was thinking only of one’s personal unconsciousness – populated by familiar people and situations from our own world. Carl Jung, his psychoanalytical colleague, however, went one step further: not only is there a personal unconsciousness, but there’s also a collective unconscious at play, too, hotwired into all of our psyches from birth.

Just as reaching the sea is instinctive to turtles as soon as they break free from their beach-buried egg, so too do we draw from a well of our collective existence and take from it certain universal themes, patterns and symbols. Jung called these ‘archetypes.’

To tap into the unconscious collective directly and personally, we tend to do this through being in a dream state, through being in an altered state, or through having great moments of introspection.

What do you make of this?
How might knowing this be useful to us?
The philosophy of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic practice is to raise awareness, to bring more of the unconscious into the conscious so that it can be dealt with, so that it doesn’t fester in hidden pockets of our thoughts, feelings and actions. Is this something you’re up for, generally speaking?

The shadow (& other archetypes)

Let’s now take a look at some of these collective archetypes that Jung identified and see if they bring anything up for us.

The ‘persona’ is a surface-level version of ourselves. It gives the world a basic, often superficial impression of us, while concealing our true identity.

The ‘shadow’ is the twin opposite of persona. This is all that we have repressed and buried deep inside us; stuff that makes us uncomfortable, anxious and stressed. Yet the shadow is so much more than just negative stuff. There are treasures within this archetype. There are hopes and dreams. There are answers to be found in the dark. This is how shadow work, as a therapy, exists to bringing light into the darkness, to integrating the shadow into our conscious being, to unify and harmonise it with the rest of our self.

Other archetypes include:

The rebel: a misfit and revolutionary figure who seeks to improve that which doesn’t work; striving for freedom.
The explorer: a seeker of new things, fearful of being boxed in or being bored.
The caregiver: a selfless protector and healer of others, known for generosity and compassion.
The everyday person: a sociable, likeable character who blends easily into a crowd and can sometimes lose their own identity in pursuit of fitting in.
The hero: has a strong need to prove themselves through courageous missions.

[There’s more about this last archetype in the next entry]

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