Jungian archetypes
Jungian archetypes are a concept from psychology that refers to a universal, inherited idea, pattern of thought, or image that is present in the collective unconscious of all human beings.
The psychic counterpart of instinct, archetypes are thought to be the basis of many of the common themes and symbols that appear in stories, myths, and dreams across different cultures and societies.
Carl Jung rejected the tabula rasa theory of human psychological development, which suggests that people are born as a "blank slate" and their experiences shape their thoughts, behaviors, and feelings.
Appearing in all existential realms and at all levels of systematic recursion, they are organized as themes in the unus mundus, which Jung... described as "the potential world outside of time," and are detectable through synchronicities.
Later in life, Jung's research in Burghölzli Hospital on psychotic patients and his own self-analysis supported his belief in the existence of universal psychic structures that underlie all human experience and behavior.
[16] The word is derived from Greek, with the first element, "arche," meaning "beginning, origin, cause, primal source principle," as well as "position of a leader, supreme rule, and government."
"[17] In later years, Jung revised and broadened the concept of archetype, conceiving them as psycho-physical patterns existing in the universe, given specific expression by human consciousness and culture.
[20] Jung developed this concept with the collaboration of Austrian quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who believed that the psychoid archetype was crucial to understanding the principles of the universe.
[21] Jung used the term unus mundus to describe the unitary reality that he believed underlies all manifest phenomena, observable or perceivable things that exist in the physical world.
He conceived of archetypes as the mediators of the unus mundus, organizing not only ideas in the psyche, but also the fundamental principles of matter and energy in the physical world.
For example, the red light in the spectrum might represent the influence of primal instincts and emotional impulses on our behavior, such as the desire for food, shelter, and reproduction.
The ultra-violet light at the end of the spectrum might represent the influence of universal archetypes, such as the hero, the wise elder, or the trickster, on our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
[19] This color might represent the influence of psychological factors that are not easily explained or understood, such as synchronicities, dreams, and other phenomena that defy rational explanation.
[5] Anthony Stevens argues that the concept of social instincts, which was proposed by Charles Darwin, the faculties of Henri Bergson, as well as the isomorphs of Wolfgang Kohler are all related to archetypes.
All of these concepts relate to the studies of Strauss, who believed that "all forms of social life [are] a projection of universal laws responsible for regulating the unconscious activities of the psyche.
"[3] In Biological theory and the concept of archetypes, Michael Fordham considered that innate release mechanisms in animals may be applicable to humans, especially in infancy.
Jung was also intent on retaining the raw and vital quality of archetypes as spontaneous outpourings of the unconscious and not to give their specific individual and cultural expressions a dry, rigorous, intellectually formulated meaning.
Laplanehe and Pontalis point out that all the so-called primal fantasies relate to the origins and that "like collective myths they claim to provide a representation of and a 'solution' to whatever constitutes an enigma for the child".
This means that the right hemisphere is better at getting a picture of a whole from a fragment, is better at working with confused material, is more irrational than the left, and is more closely connected to bodily processes.
[53] Archetypal psychology relativizes and deliteralizes the ego and focuses on the psyche (or soul) itself and the archai, the deepest patterns of psychic functioning, the "fundamental fantasies that animate all of life".
Specifically, scholar Robert Eisner has argued that the anima concept within Jungian thought exists in prototype form within the goddess characters in said stories.
[57] In the context of the medieval period, British writer Geoffrey Chaucer's work The Canterbury Tales has been cited as an instance of the prominent use of Jungian archetypes.
[58] In British intellectual and poet John Milton's epic work Paradise Lost, the character of Lucifer features some of the attributes of an archetypal hero, including courage and force of will, yet comes to embody the shadow concept in his corruption of Adam and Eve.
[61] The very act of watching movies has important psychological meaning not just on an individual level, but also in terms of sharing mass social attitudes through common experience.
Film criticism has long applied Jungian thought to different types of analysis, with archetypes being seen as an important aspects of storytelling on the silver screen.
[62] A study conducted by scholars Michael A. Faber and John D. Mayer in 2009 found that certain archetypes in richly detailed media sources can be reliably identified by individuals.
Actors such as James Dean and Steve McQueen in particular have been identified as rebellious outcasts embodying a particular sort of Jungian archetype in terms of masculinity.
Twelve archetypes have been proposed for use with branding: Sage, Innocent, Explorer, Ruler, Creator, Caregiver, Magician, Hero, Outlaw, Lover, Jester, and Regular Person.
Modern scholarship has characterized archetypes as an Eurocentric and colonialist device to level the specifics of individual cultures and their stories in the service of grand abstraction.
This skepticism opened Jung up to the charge of countering materialism with another kind of reductionism, one that reduces everything to subjective psychological explanation and woolly quasi-mystical assertions.
