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Table of Contents Table of Contents Trending Videos Close this video playerArchetypes are universal, inborn models of distinct aspects of identity and personality that play a role in influencing human behavior. Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung's theory suggested that these archetypes were archaic forms of innate human knowledge passed down from our ancestors.
In Jungian psychology, these archetypes represent universal patterns and images that are part of the collective unconscious. Jung believed that we inherit these archetypes much in the way we inherit instinctive patterns of behavior.
Continue reading to learn more about Jung's four main archetypes, their unique characteristics and functions, and how to achieve individuation.
Jung was originally a follower of Sigmund Freud. The relationship eventually fractured over Jung's criticism of Freud's emphasis on sexuality during development, which led Jung to develop his own psychoanalytic approach known as analytical psychology.
While Jung agreed with Freud that the unconscious played an important role in personality and behavior, he expanded on Freud's idea of the personal unconscious to include what Jung called the collective unconscious.
Jung believed that the human psyche was composed of three components:
According to Jung, the ego represents the conscious mind, and the personal unconscious contains memories—including those that have been suppressed.
The collective unconscious is a unique component in that Jung believed that this part of the psyche served as a form of psychological inheritance. It contained all of the knowledge and experiences that humans share as a species.
Jung believed that archetypes come from the collective unconscious. He suggested that these models are innate (unlearned), hereditary, and universal. Archetypes organize how we experience certain things throughout life.
"All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes," Jung explained in his book, "The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche."
This is particularly true of religious ideas, but the central concepts of science, philosophy, and ethics are no exception to this rule. In their present form, they are variants of archetypal ideas created by consciously applying and adapting these ideas to reality. For it is the function of consciousness, not only to recognize and assimilate the external world through the gateway of the senses but to translate into visible reality the world within us.
Jung rejected the concept of tabula rasa or the notion that the human mind is a blank slate at birth to be written solely by experience. He believed that the human mind retains fundamental, unconscious, biological aspects of our ancestors. These "primordial images," as he initially dubbed them, serve as a basic foundation of how to be human.
The archaic and mythic characters that make up the archetypes reside within all people from all over the world, Jung believed. Archetypes symbolize basic human motivations, values, and personalities.
Jung believed that each archetype played a role in personality, but felt that most people were dominated by one specific archetype. According to Jung, the actual way in which an archetype is expressed or realized depends upon a number of factors, including an individual's cultural influences and unique personal experiences.
Jung identified four major archetypes but also believed that there was no limit to the number that may exist. The existence of these archetypes cannot be observed directly but can be inferred by looking at religion, dreams, art, and literature. Jung's four major archetypes are: the persona, the shadow, the anima/animus, and the self.
The persona is how we present ourselves to the world. The word "persona" is derived from a Latin word that literally means "mask." It is not a literal mask, however.
The persona represents all of the different social masks that we wear among various groups and situations. It acts to shield the ego from negative images. According to Jung, the persona may appear in dreams and take different forms.
Over the course of development, children learn that they must behave in certain ways in order to fit in with society's expectations and norms. The persona develops as a social mask to contain all of the primitive urges, impulses, and emotions that are not considered socially acceptable.
The persona archetype allows people to adapt to the world around them and fit in with the society in which they live. However, becoming too closely identified with this archetype can lead people to lose sight of their true selves.
The shadow is a Jungian archetype that consists of sex and life instincts. It is part of the unconscious mind and is composed of repressed ideas, weaknesses, desires, instincts, and shortcomings.
The shadow forms out of our attempts to comply with cultural norms and expectations. It is this archetype that contains all of the things that are unacceptable not only to society but also to one's own personal morals and values. It might include things such as envy, greed, prejudice, hate, and aggression.
Jung suggested that the shadow can appear in dreams or visions and may take a variety of forms. It might appear as a snake, a monster, a demon, a dragon, or some other dark, wild, or exotic figure.
This archetype is often described as the darker side of the psyche, representing wildness, chaos, and the unknown. These latent dispositions are present in all of us, Jung believed, although people sometimes deny this element of their own psyche and instead project it on to others.
The anima is the feminine part of the male psyche, and the animus is the male part of the female psyche. The feminine is characterized by empathy, trust, intuition, and emotional connections with others. The masculine anima is related to logical thinking, problem-solving, and emotional stability.
These archetypal images are based upon both what is found in the collective and personal unconscious. For example, in regards to the anima in men, the collective unconscious may contain notions about how women should behave while personal experience with wives, girlfriends, sisters, and mothers contribute to more personal images of women.
Jung believed that physiological changes as well as social influences contributed to the development of sex roles and gender identities. Jung suggested the influence of the animus and anima archetypes were also involved in this process. According to Jung, the animus represents the masculine aspect that is often suppressed in women while the anima represents the feminine aspect that is suppressed in men.
The anima/animus serves as the primary source of communication with the collective unconscious.
In many cultures, however, men and women are encouraged to adopt traditional and often rigid gender roles. Jung suggested that this discouragement of men exploring their feminine aspects and of women exploring their masculine aspects served to undermine psychological development.
Integrating both the feminine and masculine aspects of our personality into an authentic unified whole is a healthy part of human development. A good balance would be a person who relies on both emotion and reason, intuition and logic, cooperation and competition, and so on,
The combined anima and animus is known as the syzygy or the divine couple. The syzygy represents completion, unification, and wholeness.
The self is an archetype that represents the unified consciousness and unconsciousness of an individual. Jung often represented the self as a circle, square, or mandala.
Creating the self occurs through a process known as individuation, in which the various aspects of personality are integrated. Jung believed that disharmony between the unconscious and the conscious mind could lead to psychological problems. Bringing these conflicts into awareness and accommodating them was an important part of the individuation process.
Jung suggested that there were two different centers of personality:
You can think of this by imagining a circle with a dot right at the center. The entire circle makes up the self, whereas the small dot in the middle represents the ego.
For Jung, the ultimate aim was for an individual to achieve a sense of cohesive self, similar in many ways to Maslow's concept of self-actualization.
Jung suggested that the number of existing archetypes was not static or fixed. Instead, many different archetypes may overlap or combine, creating new archetypes such as the father (a stern, powerful authority figure), the hero (a champion, defender, or rescuer), and the trickster (a deceiver, liar, and troublemaker).
Jung acknowledged that the four main archetypes can intermingle and give rise to 12 archetypical figures (also known as archetypical images). These include:
Jung's ideas have not been as popular as Freud's and his archetypes have not been viewed favorably in modern psychology. This might be because it is more complex, and his work tended to veer into the mystical and pseudoscientific. It is therefore often studied more as a historical artifact in realms of literary criticism and popular culture applications of mythology than as a major contribution to the science of the mind and behavior.
Other criticisms of Jung's archetypes suggest that they are overly stereotyped, reductionistic, and culturally biased.
According to Jung, your persona is the social mask that you wear and present to the world. It is designed to make an impression on others, but it also serves to conceal your true self.
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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd
Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."
