The Levels of the Psyche

The human mind is a complicated machine, and human identity is even more so. However, one psychologist, in particular, Carl Jung, managed to outline the psyche into levels. These levels govern parts of what makes us whole. It takes into account the desires we hide, as well as the things we show.

Now, suppose you are to understand your true nature. In that case, it is therefore important not to view yourself as having only one meaning, but as a sum of various parts, performing their own individual functions, which then collectively inform the kind of person that you are.

That being said, there are three areas of concern here: the conscious, which represents the mind that you show to the outside world; the personal unconscious, which represents the things we repress; and the collective unconscious, which is the expression of our shared memory as a race. 

Conscious

The Conscious is the level of the psyche concerned with the self that we reveal to society and the world at large. As you know, we live in a world where no one is absolutely alone. There will always be people and human beings around us, and whether we like it or not, it is normal for us to try and adjust to others beyond the self-centered ways that our instincts usually propose for us.

Now, the way the conscious self works is twofold. Internally, the way we choose to reveal ourselves to society boils down to our very attitude.  An introverted person, for one, will tend to focus inward and will have tendencies that gravitate toward the inner self. 

They may, for example, seem a bit more selfish due to their emphasis on space and privacy. However, the same people will also likely be more emotionally sensitive and empathetic to other people’s plights.

On the other hand, extroverted people tend to emphasize the outer expression of human existence. They are not afraid to show their hands in front of other people, and they will even seem like an open book. 

However, they can also be susceptible to the effects of the spotlight and may not be able to find time for introspection. Of course, none of these definitely explain how individuals work, but there is a common trend here: they help delineate your movements in society.

And all of this is so because the ego is with us from the moment we become sentient and thoroughly aware of our actions. The ego is an aspect of the self that evolves as one lives life. We change as a result of our experiences and act in different ways, and all of these manifest through the most fundamental aspect of humans: the conscious.

Personal unconscious

This level of the psyche is perhaps one of the most contentious, and part of this has to do with the fact that it represents the more mysterious side of the human psyche, at least from an outsider’s perspective. More specifically, unlike the conscious mind, the personal unconscious revolves around what you tend to typically hide from others.

This includes things such as feelings of inadequacy or repressed emotions, sexuality, and other modes of thinking that you seem to want to hide. Now, Carl Jung, the man behind the theory, finds it perfectly reasonable that you possess this part of your psyche inasmuch as everyone else has the same thing. He knows that the personal unconscious is that subtle influence that nonetheless shapes human action.

At this point, you’ve probably noticed that Jung’s psychological concept is not unlike that of Sigmund Freud. However, they differ because Jung sees the personal unconscious as a collection of individual manifestations and a subgroup of concepts and feelings. The latter, in particular, is what makes up a complex.

In Jungian terms, a complex is a series of emotions, reactions, and various other thought processes that usually come from experiences such as traumas. You may, for example, have a mother complex that makes you unusually empathetic toward other people or vindictive towards those who might hurt your friends.

The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

For Carl Jung, the unconscious isn’t just about what lies within the individual psyche. It’s not just about the things you crave physically or even what the conscious mind tries to hide. It’s also about the things that inevitably leak out due to a subconscious want to express one’s desires.

For example, even though you tend to disguise your need for power socially because of your need to appear compromising, your desires are inevitably projected within the larger world as the things you relate to. This is why characters such as Goku and Superman exist; they represent archetypes, which then symbolize the kinds of people we want to be at a certain point.

We human beings live on a need to express our personal nature. Thus, even though we do not act on many of our basest desires, we project what we want to see. At some point, these projections are also picked up by others in a way that they themselves can relate to. This results in a proliferation of archetypes and concepts that we acknowledge deep down are essential for our personhood.

Collectively, Jung identifies these as the “collective unconscious.” This refers to all the things that we can relate to as a result of our shared experiences and desires with our ancestors and compatriots. 

No matter what era or time we’re in, we always want certain things. The images that project such desires may change over time, but they draw from the same source: the minds that form humanity’s conscious and unconscious natures.