In The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Jung discussed at length many of the archetypal patterns. one major contribution is Jung's theory of Individuation. as related to those archetypes designated as the shadow, the persona and the anima. Individuation is a psychological growing up the process of discovering one's self that make one an individual must consciously recognize the various aspects, unfavorable as well as favorable, of one's total self.
The shadow, the persona and the anima are structural components of the psyche that human beings have inherited just we encounter the symbolic projections of these archetypes throughout the myths and the literature of the humankind. In melodrama, such as the traditional television or western film or cop story, the persona, the anima, and the shadow are projected, respectively in the characters of the hero, the heroine and the villain. The 'shadow' is the darker side of our unconscious self, we wish to suppress. Jung says that "the shadow is the invisible saurian (reptilian) tail that man still drags behind him." The shadow, the persona and the anima are structural components of the psyche that human beings have inherited just we encounter the symbolic projections of these archetypes throughout the myths and the literature of the humankind. In melodrama, such as the traditional television or western film or cop story, the persona, the anima, and the shadow are projected, respectively in the characters of the hero, the heroine and the villain. The 'shadow' is the darker side of our unconscious self, we wish to suppress. Jung says that "the shadow is the invisible saurian (reptilian) tail that man still drags behind him."
The anima is perhaps the most complex of Jung's archetypes. it is the "Soul-image", the spirit of man's 'elan vital', his life force or vital energy. in the sense of soul, says Jung, anima is the "living thing in man, that which lives of itself and cause life... Were it not for the leaping and twinkling of the soul, man would not away in his greatest passion, idleness." Jung gives the anima a feminine designation in the male psyche, pointing out that the "anima-image is usually projected upon women" (the female psyche this archetype is called as 'animus'). In this sense, anima is the contrasexual part of a man's psyche, the image of the opposite sex that he carries in both his personal and his collective unconscious. As an old German proverb puts it, "Every man has his own Eve within him"- in other words, the human psyche is bisexual, though the psychological characteristics of the opposite sex in each of us are generally unconscious, revealing themselves only in dreams or in projections on someone in our environment.
The phenomenon of love, especially love at first sight, may be explained at least in part by Jung's theory of the anima: we tend to be attracted to the members of the opposite sex who mirror the characteristics of our inner selves. in literature, Jung regards such figures as Helen of Troy, Dante's Beatrice, Milton's Eve, and H.Rider Haggard's She as personifications of the Anima. Following his theory, we might say that any female figure who is invested with unusual significance or power is likely to be a symbol of the anima. One other function of the anima is noteworthy here. The anima is a kind of mediator between the ego (conscious) and the unconscious or inner world of the male individual. This function will be somewhat clearer if we compare the anima with the persona.
The persona is the obverse of the anima in that it mediates between our ego and the external world. speaking metaphorically, let us say that the ego is a coin. The image on one side is the anima; on the other side, the persona. the persona is the actor's mask, that we show to the world- it is our social personality, a personality that is sometimes quite different from our true self. Jung, in discussing this social mask, explains that explains that, to achieve psychological maturity, the individual must have a flexible, viable persona that can be brought into harmonious relationship with the other components of his or her psychic makeup. He states, furthermore, that a persona that is too artificial or rigid results in such symptoms of neurotic disturbance as irritability and melancholy... ☺☺☺
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