collective unconscious

January 5, 2023

Collective Unconscious: The Jungian Theory on Psychology

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Carl Jung is a Swiss psychologist inspired by Sigmund Freud, who is often regarded as the founding father of psychoanalysis. Jung collaborated with Freud, and they both had a strong interest in the dynamics of the collective unconscious. Jung believed that there was a shared unconscious energy at work among people passed down from previous generations. 

This shared psychological experience, he believed, was the collective unconscious. Jung defined the collective consciousness and unconscious as the aggregation of instinctive memories and psychological material shared by individuals in a society. Memory patterns, strange images, and intuitive responses were thought to be part of the collective unconscious.

Unlike a person’s unique personal set of experiences, this innate data is made up of universal patterns that resonate across cultures. Archetypes intuitively embody these fundamental principles, yet they are deliberately articulated through art, music, religion, and dreams, to name a few. Are you ready to dive deeper into the realm of the collective unconscious?

We’ve got you covered! In this article, you’ll learn about:

  • Defining the Collective Unconscious in the Jungian Theory
  • Discovering the 8 Types of Personality and the Archetypes
  • Diving deeper into the Psyche of the Collective Unconscious
  • The Development and Psychology of the Collective Unconscious

What is the Collective Unconscious for you?

The behavior that takes place psychologically without one’s conscious knowledge being brought to bear on it can be referred to as “unconscious.” For instance, when a person is going through a stressful circumstance, he may find himself going to the freezer to get some ice cream to eat as a “comfort food,” even though he is not actively looking for a way to alleviate the discomfort he is feeling at the time. 

The word “collective unconscious” can be characterized as the universal psychological experience shared by members of a culture and founded on the experiences of the culture’s ancestors. It is the experience that triggers automatic responses to the stimuli of the environment. This definition of the collective unconscious incorporates the idea that all members of the human species share certain innate qualities. 

In its most basic form, this is what the collective unconscious refers to. One good illustration of this would be the widespread dread of snakes and spiders. Jung would argue that the experiences of preceding generations have “hard-wired” an unconscious fear of these potentially lethal creatures in their minds.

What is the development of the Collective Unconscious?

Jung was of the opinion that the collective unconscious was an inherited store of information and pictures that are present in every human being from the moment of birth. People are generally oblivious to the things stored in their collective unconscious. However, when a person is going through a difficult moment, their mind may open the door to the collective unconscious. 

The images stored in the unconscious usually reveal themselves in dreams, which is why Jungian psychologists focused a lot of their attention on interpreting dreams. Jung was of the opinion that dreams offered a significant window into the collective unconsciousness and that many of the symbols present in dreams have a universal and consistent significance. 

For instance, dreams about one’s birth could portend the emergence of a novel concept or the growth of an unexplored facet of one’s personality. The collective unconscious has been the subject of some discussion regarding how it should be read, namely whether it should be taken literally or metaphorically. 

A literal interpretation suggests that the images of mythology and other spiritual symbols are the legacy one receives from one’s parents at birth, whereas an interpretation equates to little more than the belief that all humans have certain behavioral dispositions. Symbolic interpretations are less common than literal interpretations. The former is founded in science, while the latter is an unsubstantiated theory in the realm of pseudoscience.

What is the Collective Unconscious in Contemporary Psychology?

The idea of the collective unconscious is utilized sparingly in most modern psychotherapy. On the other hand, dream interpretation remains an integral component of many types of psychotherapy, and the general public is interested in this topic. For instance, hundreds of websites provide listings of the various symbols and what they represent in dreams. 

Most of these interpretations are derived from Jung’s initial thoughts on the matter. Contemporary evolutionary psychology is not a Jungian field. Still, it has made assertions that have been widely accepted, and one of its goals has been to identify innate behavioral inclinations that all humans share. 

For instance, a substantial amount of research has been done on the hypothesis that two individuals are more likely to engage in selfless behavior if they are related. Therefore, in today’s world, Jung can argue that selflessness is one of the archetypes found in the collective unconscious.

What are the 8 Types of Personality?

  1. Extraverted Thinking – rational, objective, idealistic, and principled.
  2. Introverted Thinking – independent, fearful of intimacy, and influenced by ideas.
  3. Extraverted Feeling – external and adaptive.
  4. Introverted Feeling – people pleaser, reserved, sympathetic, and dependent.
  5. Extraverted Sensation – realistic, pleasant, friendly, and concrete.
  6. Introverted Sensation – passive, calm, restrained, and controlled.
  7. Extraverted Intuition – outgoing, irresponsible, and enterprising.
  8. Introverted Intuition – dreamer, artist, mystical, and obsessive.

What are the Jungian Archetypes?

#1: Jungian Persona

The persona, often known as the mask, is the face one shows to the outside world. Jung refers to this aspect of ourselves as the “conformity” archetype since it masks who we truly are. This is the persona or role that a person shows to the outside world, which may be very different from who they actually are.

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#2: Jungian Anima/Animus

The anima and animus represent the second form of the archetype. The “anima/animus” is the mirror reflection of our biological sex, the unconscious feminine aspect in males and the masculine impulses in women. In other words, it is the unconscious feminine aspect in males and the masculine tendencies in women. 

Because they have coexisted for so many years, people of both sexes have adopted the attitudes and behaviors of the other. A woman’s psyche contains male components (the animus archetype), while a man’s psyche contains feminine aspects. Both genders have masculine and feminine aspects in their minds (the anima archetype).

#3: Jungian Shadow

The shadow comes up next. This is the element of our personality that is more animalistic (like the id in Freud). It is the wellspring from which our destructive and creative energy flow. Jung’s archetypes may reflect predispositions that formerly had survival value, which would be consistent with the evolutionary idea of how life evolved.

#4: Jungian Self

In the end, there is the self, which offers a sense of coherence throughout the experience. According to Jung, the ultimate goal of every individual is to achieve a state of selfhood, which is comparable to the concept of self-actualization. In this regard, Jung is moving toward a more humanist viewpoint.

What is the Psyche Model in the Collective Unconscious?

The ego is an abbreviation for the conscious mind, which is the part of the mind that is aware of its existence and has a sense of self. This is where your personality develops, and your thoughts, intuitions, feelings, and experiences are organized. It is the portal that connects the psyche’s inside and outer worlds.

The personal unconscious comprises subliminal, repressed, or wholly forgotten memories. Certain portions of one’s inner unconscious can be brought back into conscious awareness. Jung felt that for individuation to occur, a person’s conscious ego has to merge with their unconscious.

Carl Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious, often known as the transpersonal unconscious, is one of his most inventive and contentious contributions to the field of personality theory. This theory’s primary assumption is that every member of the human species has a version of the personal unconscious identical to the one detailed here. Jung referred to these shared primordial memories as archetypes, which resulted from evolution. These archetypes are illustrated by universal motifs seen in many civilizations.

One of these innate characteristics is a natural dislike of particular objects, such as the dark or spiders. On the other hand, Jung proposed that archetypes are more than just isolated cases; they have evolved into diverse subsystems of the psyche due to primordial visions and memories.

What is the Psychodynamics of the Collective Unconscious?

Despite the fact that Jung did not invent psychodynamics, the evolution of the area as a whole was significantly influenced by the contributions that Jung made. Jung held that the psyche, also commonly referred to as the soul, was continuously moving toward individuation. His psychodynamic approach to psychology was centered on archetypes that can be discovered inside the individual unconscious, the collective unconscious, and the ego. 

In addition, Jung was a staunch supporter of the transcendent function, which he defined as the propagation of archetypes across the collective unconscious. Jung’s psychodynamic theories recognized the presence of a spiritual force within every person and various other components that serve as organizers within the psyche. These numerous archetypes and aspects might occasionally disagree with one another, which can lead to conflict inside the individual.

What does the Individuation of the Collective Unconscious mean?

The term “individuation” is used in Jungian psychology to refer to the process through which an individual undergoes a metamorphosis into the type of person to whom they were most naturally predisposed. People who suffer from their emotions often have the sense that their lives are disorganized, jumbled, and full of a variety of emotions experienced to variable degrees. This is a common perception among those who struggle with their emotions.

When an individual compartmentalizes the various components of their personality, they put themselves in a position to experience inner conflict and accidental self-sabotage, both of which can be detrimental to forward movement. Incorporating all of a person’s past experiences, both positive and negative, in such a way that the individual may lead a healthy, productive, and emotionally secure life is part of the individuation process. This process is also known as psychosocial integration.

The individuation process allows a person to become distinctive and fundamentally distinct from other humans and the collective unconscious. This is made possible for the person due to the individuation process. A human being who is wholly grown, healthy in all aspects, and harmonious is the fruit of an individuation process. Individuation can occur through various methods, including the interpretation of dreams and active imagination.

Final Word:

The Collective Unconscious is a region of the mind that contains memories and impulses of the individual is unaware of. This is universal to humanity and stems from the hereditary nature of the brain’s structure.

What is it about the Collective Unconscious that interests you the most?

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