PERSONALITY AND PERSONAL GROWTH

Unit III: Significant Contributors to understand of Self (Freud; C Jung;

Winnicott; H. Kohut; Eric Fromm; A. Maslow; Rollo May; Vicktor Frankel;
Martin Seligman; B.F Skinner; Anna Freud; Karen Horney, Allport and Lacan)

 The word "personality" stems from the Latin word persona, which refers to
a theatrical mask worn by performers to play roles or disguise their
identities, public face we display to the people around us.
 According to Allport (1961) personality is the “dynamic organisation within
the individual of those psycho-physical systems that determine his unique
adjustment to his environment”.
 Personality is not static but dynamic, the organisational pattern determines
the kind and degree of adjustment of the individual to his environment,
and this adjustment-pattern is unique to the individual.

CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF PERSONALITY

 Now if you carefully analyse all these definitions of personality, you will
find the following:

a) Psychophysical systems: Personality is a system that has both psychological

and physical aspects. This system is composed of interacting elements and the
main elements of the system are traits, emotions, intellect, temperament,
character and motives. All these elements are psychological but they are based
in the neurology and endocrinology of the body.

b) Dynamic organisation: It signifies that different elements of psychological

system are independent but function in an interlocking manner and are
subject to change. However, this change can take place over a period of time in
a gradual manner.

c) Unique adjustment to environment: Every person is characterised with a

dynamic organisation of psychological traits that makes his adjustment. The
reason for this is that experiences of every person are unique therefore their
reaction to the environment is also unique. You may notice that even identical
twins who come out of the same embryo, though have the same genetic make-
up, react differently to the same situation because their frame of references is
unique.

Traits

 Traits are relatively permanent characteristics of personality which compel

an individual to behave consistently across different situations. People can
 be compared by measuring these traits. We call these traits relatively
permanent because they change over time.
 Characteristics: Enduring characteristics, stable, predictable, may vary with
the situation and unique.

Approaches to personality

 Psycho dynamic approach (psychoanalysis & Neo-psychoanalytic)

 Trait and type approach
 Life span approach
 Behaviouristic approach
 Humanistic approach
 Cognitive approach
 Social learning approach

Some major issues on theories

 Theories are different on some points

 Formal theories or Personal theories
 Free will or Determinism
 Nature or Nurture
 Past or Present
 Uniqueness or Universality
 Equilibrium or Growth
 Optimism or Pessimism

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY (Sigmund Freud, 1856-1939)

 Emphasis on unconscious processes, sex & aggression, instincts, early
childhood experiences, and sexual conflict as a cause of neurosis.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Freud developed a technique that he called
psychoanalysis and used it to treat mental disorders.

 According to psychoanalytic theory, personality development takes place as

a result of the attempts to resolve conflicts between unconscious sexual and
aggressive impulses and societal demands to restrain these impulses.
 Freud’s theory of development has two primary ideas:

1) Everything you become is determined by your first few years – indeed, the
adult is exclusively determined by the child’s experiences
2) The story of development is the story of how to handle anti-social impulses
in socially acceptable ways.

1) Instinct theory
 Instincts: Mental representation of internal stimuli, such as hunger, that
drive a person to take certain actions.

Characteristics of instincts: Source, impetus, aim/object.

 Source: Internal, biological condition (hunger), Mind transforms it into a

wish (mental representation)
 Impetus: person experiences a feeling of a tension or pressure. We need to
maintain homeostasis (physiological equilibrium)
 Aim: satisfy the need. We can channelize our need to some other activity. 2
types are:
 Eros and thanatos are those two driving forces.
a) Life instincts/Eros: the drive for ensuring survival of the individual or
species by satisfying the basic needs. Eros is the god of love in Greek
mythology. According to Freud, Eros is the life force. It is responsible for
our life instinct and survival, which includes sexual desire, reproduction
desire, and pain avoidance.
 Libido, the psychic energy (sexual) manifested by the life instincts, drives
toward the pleasurable behaviour and thoughts.
 Cathexis: an investment of psychic energy in an object or person.

b) Death instincts/Thanatos: the unconscious drive toward decay,

destruction and aggression (an unconscious wish to die). The counterpart
of Eros is Thanatos-the death force or instinct (Thanatos is the god of death
in Greek mythology). It is responsible for negative feelings like, violence,
aggression, and hate. The aim of thanatos is to balance the drive of Eros by
driving us towards death and destruction.
 Aggressive drive: the compulsion to conquer, and kill.

Instincts provide energy, motivation and direction tom all facets of life.

2) Topological theory: The Conscious, the Preconscious, and the

Unconscious

Freud believed that most mental processes are unconscious. He proposed that
people have three levels of awareness: the preconscious, the conscious and the
unconscious. Freud published this idea in The Psychopathology of Everyday
Life in 1901.

 According to him, our conscious mind is that part which deals with the
current information. That is, all the thoughts, feelings and actions of which
you are aware at the very moment are part of the conscious mind. The
conscious contains all the information that a person is paying attention to
at any given time.

Example: The words Dan is reading, the objects in his field of vision, the sounds
he can hear, and any thirst, hunger, or pain he is experiencing at the moment
are all in his conscious.

 Preconscious or subconscious mind deals with all those information for

which you are not currently aware but can become only if you pay
attention. The preconscious contains all the information outside of a
person’s attention but readily available if needed.

Example: A close friend’s telephone number, the make of one’s car, and many of
the past experiences are in the preconscious.

 The unconscious contains thoughts, feelings, desires, and memories

(probably socially unacceptable) of which people have no awareness but
that which influence every aspect of the individual’s day-to-day lives.

Example: Rakesh’s unconscious might contain angry feelings toward his

mother or a traumatic incident he experienced at age four, about none of
which he is aware .

Freud believed that information in the unconscious tries to come into the
conscious and very often it is seen in slips of the tongue, jokes, dreams, illness
symptoms, and the associations people make between ideas.

3) Structural theory: (anatomy of personality): The Id, the Ego, and the
Superego

Freud proposed that personality has three components: the id, the ego, and the
superego.

a) Id: Id is conceived as a reservoir of instinctual energy that contains

biological urges such as impulses toward survival, sex, and aggression.
 The id is unconscious and operates according to the pleasure principle, the
drive to achieve pleasure and avoid pain.
 The id is characterised by primary process thinking, which is illogical,
irrational, and motivated by a desire for the immediate gratification of
impulses.
 This part of personality operates unconsciously. It deals with basic
instincts, biological needs, and aggressive impulses.
 It is the most primitive part of human personality present since birth. From
id, other parts of the personality (ego and superego) develop.
 The aim of id is to gratify one’s need immediately without considering the
moral values of the society and the individual.
 Eros and thanatos are the two driving forces of id (Eros is the god of love in
Greek mythology). According to Freud, in the context of id, Eros is the life
force. It is responsible for our life instinct and survival, which includes
sexual desire, reproduction desire, and pain avoidance.
 The counterpart of Eros is Thanatos-the death force or instinct (Thanatos is
the god of death in Greek mythology). It is responsible for negative feelings
like, violence, aggression, and hate. The aim of thanatos is to balance the
drive of Eros by driving us towards death and destruction.
 When personality is dominated by id, then the individual tends to become
more impulsive. Such people will do what they want irrespective of time,
place and situation, just like a child.

b) Ego: Ego is considered as the component that manages the conflict between
the id and the constraints of the real world.
 Some parts of the ego are unconscious, while others are preconscious or
conscious.
 The ego operates according to the reality principle, the awareness that
gratification of impulses has to be delayed in order to accommodate the
demands of the real world.
 For instance, a 10-year-old child wants to eat a scoop of ice-cream kept in
the refrigerator. But the child knows that eating ice-cream without seeking
permission from parents will be punished. Thus, the ego restricts the child
for instant need gratification.
 The ego is characterised by secondary process thinking, mature thought
processes help to deal rationally with the external world which is logical
and rational.
 The ego’s role is to prevent the id from gratifying its impulses in socially
inappropriate ways.
 The part of the personality responsible for the reality check which emerges
from id and its main objective is to strike a balance between id’s impulsive
needs and the reality of this world.
 It is the decision-making component of our psyche and works on logic only.
In the words of Freud, “ego is that part of the id which has been modified
by the direct influence of the external world” (Freud, 1923).
 If ego would not be able to resolve the conflict between the impulsive
demands of the id and realistic demands of this world, then it would lead to
the development of anxiety and stress. To ward off this anxiety, individual
will be motivated to use unconscious defense mechanisms

c) Superego: This is considered to be the moral component, moral master or

moral guru of our personality.
 It contains all the moral standards learned from parents and society.
 The superego forces the ego to conform not only to reality but also to its
ideals of morality. Hence, the superego causes people to feel guilty when
they go against society’s rules.
 Like the ego, the superego operates at all three levels of awareness.
 Let us continue the same example referred above. Whether that 10-year-old
child will ask permission from parents or not for eating a scoop of ice
cream depends on the development of her/his superego. Since seeking
permission is morally correct behaviour, it will indicate the presence of
superego in the child.
 Role of the superego is to internalise the moral and ethical value of society
through the process of socialisation.
 This part of our psyche develops between the ages of three to five years.
 Further, according to Freud, our superego consists of two systems: (i)
conscience and (ii) ideal self.
 The conscience’s role is to punish or reward ego, through the feeling of
pride or guilt, depending on its behaviour. For example, if ego gives in id’s
demand and breaks the moral code of conduct, superego will make you feel
guilty about your behaviour.
 The second system, the ideal self is idealised picture of your own self, also
does the job of making you feel guilty or pride, depending on your
behaviour.
4) Economic theory
Conflict: Freud believed that the id, the ego, and the superego are in constant
conflict. He focused mainly on conflicts concerning sexual and aggressive
urges because these urges are most likely to violate societal rules.

Anxiety–a feeling of fear or apprehension without an obvious cause. It is a

threat to ego, internal conflicts can make a person feel anxious. In Freud’s
view, anxiety arises when the ego cannot adequately balance the demands of
the id and the superego.

3 kinds of anxiety

 Reality or objective anxiety: fear of tangible danger

 Neurotic anxiety: conflict between id & ego
 Moral anxiety: conflict between id & superego

Defense Mechanisms: One of the roles of ego is to protect the person from
anxiety and stress. To manage these internal conflicts, people use defense
mechanisms.

 Defense mechanisms are behaviours that protect people from anxiety.

 “The unconscious strategies people use to protect themselves from anxious
thoughts and feelings”.
 There are different defense mechanisms, many of which are automatic and
unconscious.

 Repression: This refers to keeping unpleasant thoughts, memories, and

feelings shut up or pushed back into the unconscious.

Example: Ram witnessed his mother being beaten by agoonda on a motor cycle
who was trying to snatch away her gold chain. This happened around when he
was seven years of age. He does not remember this incident as of today as an
adult. This is so because he has repressed that traumatic incident into the
unconscious.

 Reaction formation: This refers to behaving in a way that is opposite to

behaviour, feelings, or thoughts that are considered unacceptable.

Example: Nisha feels attracted to her boss but does not admit this to herself.
Instead, she constantly makes very disparaging comments about the boss,
exactly opposite of her gfeelings of attraction.

 Projection: This means attributing one’s own unacceptable thoughts or

feelings to someone else.
Example: Karan gets attracted to women other than his wife and feels bad about
it. However, he is unable to state anything about it nor he wants to accept such
feelings within him. He therefore unconsciously projects these feelings on to his
wife saying that she is unfaithful and that she goes with other men and gets
attracted to other men etc.

 Rationalization: This refers using incorrect but self-serving explanations

to justify unacceptable behaviour, thoughts, or feelings.

Example: Ronak jumps a red light while driving. He justifies this by telling to
himself that he was already in the intersection when the light changed to red.

 Displacement: transferring feelings about a person or event onto someone

or something else.

Example: Seth is angry at his professor for giving him a bad grade. He leaves
class and shouts angrily at a passer-by who accidentally bumps into him.

 Denial: refusing to acknowledge something that is obvious to others.

Example: Rashmi has started drinking alcohol which has started to affect her
academic performance, her job, and her relationships. However, she insists that
she drinks only to relieve stress and that she does not have an alcohol problem.

 Regression: reverting to a more immature state of psychological

development.

Example: When six-year-old Jameel gets less attention from his parents because
of a new baby brother, he suddenly starts to wet his bed at night.

 Sublimation: channeling unacceptable thoughts and feelings into socially

acceptable behaviour.

Example: Priya deals with her angry feelings toward her family by writing
science fiction stories about battles between civilizations which contains a lot of
aggression.

5) Psychosexual Stages of Development

 He thought that as children grow up, their focus of pleasure and sexual
impulses shifts from the mouth to the anus and eventually to the genitals.
As a result, we go through five stages of psychosexual development: oral,
anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Our adult personality, Freud (1917)
claimed, is determined by the way we resolve conflicts between sources of
pleasure at each stage and the demands of reality.
 During the five psychosexual stages, which are the oral, anal, phallic, latent,
and genital stages, the erogenous zone associated with each stage serves as
a source of pleasure. The psychosexual energy, or libido, was described as
the driving force behind behavior.
 Psychoanalytic theory suggested that personality is mostly established by
the age of five. Early experiences play a large role in personality
development and continue to influence behavior later in life.
 If a child’s needs in a particular stage are gratified too much or frustrated
too much, the child can become fixated at that stage of development.
Fixation is an inability to progress normally from one stage to another, a
persistent focus on an earlier psychosexual stage. If certain issues are not
resolved at the appropriate stage, fixations can occur. Those 5 stages are;

The Oral Stage

 Age Range: Birth to 1 Year

 Erogenous Zone: Mouth
 The infant derives pleasure from oral stimulation through gratifying
activities such as swallowing and sucking. Children completely depend on
their caregivers especially mother.
 Over gratification or under gratification may lead to the fixation at this
early oral stage resulting into the development of over-eating behaviour,
drinking or smoking in adulthood. Freud called such people as oral-
incorporative or oral-ingestive.
 Later during this stage, children experience pleasure from chewing and
biting. Unable to resolve the psychological conflict of this stage may
develop the habit of nail biting and object chewing in adulthood. Freud
further pointed out that these people are more critical and sarcastic in
nature. He referred such people as oral-aggressive or oral-sadistic.
 If fixation occurs at this stage, the individual would have issues with
dependency or aggression. Oral fixation can result in problems with
drinking, eating, smoking, or nail-biting.

The Anal Stage

 Age Range: 1 to 3 years

 Erogenous Zone: Bowel and Bladder Control
 The primary focus of the libido was on controlling bladder and bowel
movements. The major conflict at this stage is toilet training.
 According to Freud, success at this stage is dependent upon the way in
which parents approach toilet training.
 According to Freud, inappropriate parental responses can result in
negative outcomes. If parents take an approach that is too lenient, Freud
suggested that an anal-expulsive personality could develop in which the
individual has a messy, wasteful, or destructive personality.
 If parents are too strict or begin toilet training too early, Freud believed
that an anal-retentive personality develops in which the individual is
stringent, orderly, rigid, and obsessive.

The Phallic Stage

 Age Range: 3 to 6 Years

 Erogenous Zone: Genitals
 Phallic word comes from the Greek word Phallos which means penis.
Children knowingly or unknowingly touch their genitals for pleasure.
 The primary focus of the libido is on the genitals. At this age, children also
begin to discover the difference between male and female.
 Freud also believed that boys begin to view their fathers as a rival for the
mother’s affections. The Oedipus complex describes these feelings of
wanting to possess the mother and the desire to replace the father.
However, the child also fears that he will be punished by the father for
these feelings, a fear Freud termed castration anxiety (removal of penis).
 The term Electra complex has been used to describe a similar set of feelings
experienced by young girls. It involves the sexual attraction for father,
feeling of rivalry for mother and a threat of getting punished by the mother
for having this feeling towards father. Freud, however, believed that girls
instead experience penis envy.
 Successful resolution of this complex develops mature sexual identity.
According to Freud, by the end of this stage personality is formed
completely.

The Latent Period

 Age Range: 6 to Puberty

 Erogenous Zone: Sexual Feelings Are Inactive
 During this stage, the superego continues to develop while the id's energies
are suppressed. Children develop social skills, values and relationships
with peers and adults outside of the family.
 The development of the ego and superego contribute to this period of calm.
The stage begins around the time that children enter into school and
become more concerned with peer relationships, hobbies, and other
 interests. The latent period is a time of exploration in which the sexual
energy repressed or dormant.
 As with the other psychosexual stages, Freud believed that it was possible
for children to become fixated or "stuck" in this phase. Fixation at this stage
can result in immaturity and an inability to form fulfilling relationships as
an adult.

The Genital Stage

 Age Range: Puberty to Death

 Erogenous Zone: Maturing Sexual Interests.
 The onset of puberty causes the libido to become active once again. During
the final stage of psychosexual development, the individual develops a
strong sexual interest in the opposite sex.
 Freud believed that the ego and superego were fully formed and
functioning at this point. Where in earlier stages the focus was solely on
individual needs, interest in the welfare of others grows during this stage.
The goal of this stage is to establish a balance between the various life
areas.
 Teens in the genital stage of development are able to balance their most
basic urges against the need to conform to the demands of reality and
social norms.

Carl Jung: Analytical psychology

 Carl Gustav Jung (pronounced as “yoong”), (1875-1961) was a Swiss

psychiatrist and a close friend of Sigmund Freud.
 Carl Jung broke from the traditional orthodox psychoanalytic theory of
Freud and developed his own separate theory of personality called
analytical psychology.
 Analytical psychology is a school of psychology that aims at personality
development in an individual and his or her ability to contribute in
substantive manner to the society. For these purposes, it focuses on the
personal and collective unconscious and their conflict in an individual’s
life. There has to be a balance between the various opposing forces of
personality like extraverted and introverted; conscious and unconscious;
male and female; and thus people may achieve self- realization.
 Freud had warm personal feelings for Jung and regarded him as a man of
great intellect. These qualifications prompted Freud to select Jung as the
first president of the International Psychoanalytic Association.

 In 1906, Jung began a regular correspondence with Sigmund Freud. By

1913, however the collaboration had dissolved, with Jung rejecting many of
Freud- most cherished views about instincts and human sexuality.

 Jung emerged from his period of self-scrutiny to create his own school of
personality psychology, which he called analytical psychology.

As Jung’s theory emphasizes the role of unconscious processes on personality

it is considered similar to that of psychoanalytic theory even though it differs
in other aspects.

Jung Freud
Unconscious mind: Jung divided the Freud’s Position: Freud believed the
human psyche into three parts. But in unconscious mind was the epicentre of
Jung’s view the unconscious was our repressed thoughts, traumatic
divided into the ego, the personal memories, and fundamental drives of
unconscious and the collective sex and aggression. He saw it as a
unconscious. To Jung, the ego is the storage facility for all hidden sexual
conscious, the personal unconscious desires, resulting in neuroses, or what
includes memories (both recalled and we would nowadays call mental
suppressed) and the collective illness. He declared that the human
unconscious holds our experiences as mind centres upon three structures –
a species or knowledge that we are the id, the ego and the super ego. The
born with (for example, love at first id forms our unconscious drives
sight). Jung’s take on the human (mainly sex), and is not bound by
psyche was inspired by his studies into morality but instead only seeks to
Eastern philosophy and religion such satisfy pleasure. The ego is our
as Buddhism and Hinduism. He also conscious perceptions, memories and
believed that the contents of the thoughts that enable us to deal
unconscious are not restricted to effectively with reality. The superego
repressed material. attempts to mediate the drives of the id
through socially acceptable
behaviours.

Dreams: Freud believed that we could Like Freud, Jung believed that dream
learn much about an individual analysis allowed for a window into the
through the interpretation of dreams. unconscious mind. But unlike Freud,
Freud argued that when we are awake Jung did not believe that that the
our deepest desires are not acted upon content of all dreams was necessarily
because a) there are the considerations sexual in nature or that they disguised
of reality (the ego) and also morality their true meaning. Instead, Jung’s
(the superego). But during sleep these depiction of dreams concentrated
restraining forces are weakened and more on symbolic imagery. He
we may experience our desires believed dreams could have many
through our dreams. different meanings according to the
dreamer’s associations. Jung was
Freud also believed that our dreams against the idea of a ‘dream dictionary’
are able to access repressed or anxiety where dreams are interpreted by fixed
provoking thoughts (mainly sexually meanings.
repressed desires)– for example,
someone dreaming of a large stick in
Freud’s view would be dreaming of a
penis. It was the job of the analyst to
interpret these dreams in light of their
true meaning.

Sex & Sexuality: To Freud, repressed
and expressed sexuality was
everything. He felt it was the biggest
motivating force behind behaviour
(and as such psychopathology).
Jung felt that Freud’s attention was too
focused upon sex and its impact on
behaviour. Jung decided that what
motivates and influences behaviour is
a psychic energy or life force, of which
sexuality could be only one potential
manifestation. Jung also disagreed also
with Oedipal impulses. He thought that
the relationship between mother and
child was based upon the love and
protection granted by the mother to
the child.

In Jung’s view, there is constant and According to him, endless repetition of

often
creative development in an individual,
the search for completion, wholeness
and desire for reincarnation.
Jung saw parapsychology and
“psychic phenomena” as very
important.
instinctual themes until death
intervenes.
Freud was against studying such ideas
and linking them to psychoanalysis; he
believed doing so would distort
existing theories.
Freud did use “complex” in his
theories, like “Oedipus complex” or
“castration complex.”
For Jung, the term “complex” meant
emotionally charged images or
concepts that behave like their own
split personality. Each complex had
an archetype at its center, and it was
related to the concept of trauma.

THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY

 Personality as a whole, or psyche, as Jung calls it, consists of a number of

differentiated but interacting systems. The principal ones are-

• The ego
• Personal unconscious and its complexes
• The collective unconscious and its archetypes (persona, anima and animus,
shadow, etc)
• Development of self

1. The Ego
 Ego resides in the conscious mind and comprises of conscious thoughts,
memories,
feelings and perceptions.
 It plays a major role in an individual’s feelings of continuity and identity
from an individual perspective and is considered as the center of
consciousness.
 Healthy individuals are in contact with their conscious world, but they also
allow themselves to experience their unconscious self and thus to achieve
individuation

2. The personal unconscious and its complexes

a) The personal unconscious
 Personal unconscious adjoins with the ego and comprises of once conscious
experiences, that have now been suppressed, repressed, forgotten or
ignored and also of events or experiences which were too weak to make a
conscious impact on the individual.
 Formed by our individual experiences and is therefore unique to each of
us.
 Contents of the personal unconscious are called complexes.

b) The complexes
 Complex is a structured group which contains collective thoughts, feelings,
memories
and perceptions that exist in the personal unconscious.
 According to Jung, 1934, it has a nucleus that acts like a magnet attracting
or "constellating" various experiences to it.
 For example, the mother complex. This nucleus is derived from cultural
experiences with mothers in part and in part from the child's experiences
with his/her mother.
 Feelings, ideas and memories concerning the mother are attracted to the
nucleus and form a complex.
 An individual’s thoughts, actions and feelings are guided by the conception
of the mother if she/he has a strong mother complex.

3. The collective unconscious and its archetypes

a) The collective unconscious
 Transpersonal or the collective unconscious stores the latent memory
traces inherited from one's ancestral past.
 Has roots in the ancestral past of the entire species, that is inherited and
pass from one generation to the next as psychic potential.
 Distant ancestors’ experiences with universal concepts such as God,
mother, water, earth, and so forth have been transmitted through the
generations so that people in every clime and time have been influenced by
their primitive ancestors’ primordial experiences.
 For example-Humans are predisposed to fear the dark or the snakes.
 This is because primitive humans i.e., the early generations faced many
threats in the dark and were victims of poisonous serpents.
 Consequently, such tendencies are observed even in modern humans and
makes one more susceptible to such experiences.
 Humans, like other animals, come into the world with inherited pre-
dispositions to act or react in certain ways if their present experiences
touch on these biologically based predispositions.
 These latent or potential memories depend upon inherited structures and
pathways that have been engraved on the brain as a result of the
cumulative experiences of mankind.
 Hence, collective unconscious influences what an individual learns from an
experience, and it further influences the behavior of the person.
 It is responsible for people’s many myths, legends, and religious beliefs.
The personal and the collective unconscious - two unconscious regions of the
mind can
be of immense service to humans.

ARCHETYPES: The structural components of the collective unconscious are

called by various names (Jung, 1943):
• archetypes
• dominants
• primordial images
• images
• mythological images
• behavior patterns
 Archetypes have a biological basis but originate through the repeated
experiences of humans’ early ancestors.
 These are the ancient or archaic images that derive from the collective
unconscious.
 An archetype is a universal thought form (idea) that contains a large
element of emotion.
 This thought form creates images or visions that correspond in normal life
to some aspect of the daily life situations.
 Archetypes are permanently ingrained in the mind of an individual as an
experience that has been continuously repeated a long time. An example
can be people have seen the sun make its daily appear from one horizon to
the other for many generations.
 The repetitive nature of this experience was ultimately imprinted in the
collective unconscious as an primordial image of the sun- the powerful,
god, dominating, heavenly body, light- giving that people idolized and
worshipped.
 These archetypes function in a more holistic manner to make meaning out
of a situation and they are not isolated from one another in the collective
unconscious, instead these archetypes interact with each other.
 Dreams are the main source of archetypal material. Hallucinations of
psychotic patients also offered evidence for universal archetypes
 It is assumed that there are many archetypes in the collective unconscious.
Few of them are magic, birth, death, rebirth, power, unity, the hero, God,
the child, the demon, the earth mother, the animal and the old wise man.

The persona: The side of the personality that people show to the world.
 The term refers to the mask worn by actors in the early theatre.
 According to Jung, 1945, the persona is a mask assumed to be worn by an
individual to fulfil the demands of the social world and custom and also to
his/her own inner archetypal wishes.
 This is the public personality, consisting of those aspects of an individual
that one displays to others in the outside world as compared to the masked
personality which is present behind the social facade.
 Like all archetypes, this archetype, came into being as people of a
particular culture experience certain events.
 Here, humans assume a social role in response to social interactions which
served the purpose of humans as social animals. (Persona resembles
Freud's superego in some respects).

The Anima and the Animus: Jung recognized the human as a bisexual
animal. He proposed that every man has a feminine side to his personality and
similarly every female has a masculine side to her personality which
constitutes their respective archetypes.
 The feminine side in males is referred to as the anima, while the masculine
side in females is referred to as the animus.
 These archetypes, though accustomed by the sex chromosomes and the sex
glands, are a result of the cultural experiences of males with females and
females with males.
 It can be said, living with each other, each sex has acquired some traits or
mannerism of the other (males have feminized and females have
masculinized).
 These archetypes cause both the sexes to manifest features of the other,
and also act as collective images that motivate each other to react to and
comprehend members of the other sex.
 But, if the archetypal image is anticipated without respect for the real
character of the other sex, it, may lead to misunderstanding and discord.
 Thus, a compromise has to be maintained between the needs of the
collective unconscious and the realities of the external world for a person
to be practically well adjusted.
Anima: Feminine archetype in men which represents irrational moods and
feelings.
 To master the projections of the anima, men must realize the feminine side
of their personality.
 Originated from early men’s experiences with women mothers, sisters, and
lovers.
 Source of misunderstanding in male female relationships, but also be
responsible for the alluring mystique woman has in the psyche of men.
 In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung vividly described this experience,
intrigued by this “woman from within”, Jung concluded that she must be
the “soul”, in the primitive sense, and I began to speculate on the reasons
why the name “anima” was given to the soul.
 Why was it thought of as feminine? Later I came to see that this inner
feminine figure plays a typical, or archetypal , role in the unconscious of a
man, and I called her the “anima.”
Animus: Masculine archetype in women, represent symbolic of thinking and
reasoning
 Like the anima, the animus appears in dreams, visions, and fantasies in a
personified form.
 In every female male relationship, the woman runs a risk of projecting her
distant ancestors ’ experiences with fathers, brothers , lovers, and sons onto
the unsuspecting man.
 The corresponding figure in the unconscious of woman I called the
“animus”.

The shadow: This archetype consists of the animal instincts that humans
inherited in their evolution from lower forms of life (Jung, 1948).
 As a result, the shadow typically represents the animal side of human
nature.
 Archetype of darkness and repression, qualities we do not wish to
acknowledge but attempt to hide from ourselves and others.
 Morally objectionable tendencies, it is easier to project the dark side of our
personality onto others, to see in them the ugliness and evil that we refuse
to see in ourselves.
 This archetype is in control of one’s perception of initial evil and becomes
the sin or devil, when projected outside.
 This archetypal image is also accountable for the occurrence of unpleasant,
socially undesirable thoughts, feelings, and actions in a person’s
consciousness.
 These may then be hidden by the facade or suppressed into the personal
unconscious. (It resembles Freud's concept of id).

Great Mother: This pre-existing concept of mother is always associated with

both positive and negative feelings.
 The great mother, therefore, represents two opposing forces—fertility and
nourishment on the one hand and power and destruction on the other.
 The fertility and nourishment dimension of the great mother archetype is
symbolized by a tree, garden, ploughed field, sea, heaven, home, country,
church, and hollow objects such as ovens and cooking utensils.
 Power and destruction, she is sometimes symbolized as a godmother, the
mother of God, Mother Nature, Mother Earth, a stepmother, or a witch.
 Legends, myths, religious beliefs, art, and literary stories are filled with
other symbols of the great mother, a person who is both nurturing and
destructive.
 Fertility and power combine to form the concept of rebirth, which may be a
separate archetype, but its relation to the great mother is obvious.
 Rebirth is represented by such processes as reincarnation, baptism,
resurrection, and individuation or self-realization.
 People throughout the world are moved by a desire to be reborn: that is, to
reach self-realization, nirvana, heaven, or perfection.

Wise Old Man: Archetype of wisdom and meaning, symbolizes humans’ pre-
existing knowledge of the mysteries of life.
 Political, religious, and social prophets who appeal to reason as well as
emotion (archetypes are always emotionally tinged) are guided by this
unconscious archetype.
 Personified in dreams as father, grandfather, teacher, philosopher, guru,
doctor, or priest. He appears in fairy tales as the king, the sage, or the
magician who comes to the aid of the troubled protagonist and, through
superior wisdom, he helps the protagonist escape from myriad
misadventures.

Hero: Represented in mythology and legends as a powerful person,

sometimes part god, who fights against great odds to conquer or vanquish evil
in the form of dragons, monsters, serpents, or demons.
 Heroic deeds can be performed only by someone who is vulnerable. An
immortal person with no weakness cannot be a hero.
 When the hero conquers the villain, he or she frees us from feelings of
impotence and misery; at the same time, serving as our model for the ideal
personality.
Self: It was considered equivalent to the psyche or total personality earlier
and it was found that self was representative of human’s determination for
unity.
 According to Jung, all the other systems are accumulated around self,
which is considered the midpoint of personality.
 The self combines this system and the person is provided with unity,
equilibrium and stability.
 This archetypal image can be expressed with the help of many symbols,
mandala or magic circle being the major one.
 Furthermore, the goal of human life is the development of self, a process
known as individuation.
 Individuation is a dynamic complex and lifelong balancing act, whereby
the person seeks to synthesize the various opposites in personality in order
to become a whole, i.e., an ultimate integration of both conscious and
unconscious.
 Each person possesses an inherited tendency to move toward growth,
perfection, and completion, and he called this innate disposition the self.
 Archetype of archetypes because it pulls together the other archetypes and
unites them in the process of self-realization.
 Symbolized by a person’s ideas of perfection, completion, and wholeness,
but its ultimate symbol is the mandala, which is depicted as a circle within
a square, a square within a circle, or any other concentric figure.
 It represents the strivings of the collective unconscious for unity, balance,
and wholeness.
 Mandala (Sanskrit: मण्डल, Mandala, 'circle') is a spiritual and ritual symbol in
Hinduism and Buddhism, representing the Universe.
 The basic form of most mandalas is a square with four gates containing a
circle with a center point. Each gate is in the general shape of a T. Mandalas
often exhibits radial balance.
 The self includes both the conscious and unconscious mind, and it unites
the opposing elements of psyche male and female, good and evil, light and
dark forces.
 He later wrote: The essential thing is to differentiate oneself from these
unconscious contents by personifying them, and at the same time to bring
them into relationship with consciousness.
 That is the technique for stripping them of their power. It is not too difficult
to personify them, as they always possess a certain degree of autonomy, a
separate identity of their own.
 Their autonomy is a most uncomfortable thing. However, the archetype of
self does not become evident until the person has reached middle age.

THE ATTITUDES
A predisposition to act or react in a characteristic direction.
 Each person has both an introverted and an extraverted attitude, although
one may be conscious while the other is unconscious.
 Jung differentiated between these two main orientations and attitudes
towards the environment among persons responsible for individual
differences.
 Extraversion familiarizes an individual about the outer objective world
whereas; introversion familiarizes an individual about the internal
subjective world.
 Introversion: Turning inward of psychic energy with an orientation toward
the subjective
 Extraversion: Turning outward of psychic energy so that a person is
oriented toward the objective and away from the subjective.
 Both the contrasting orientations exist in the personality but only one of
them is dominant and conscious whereas the other is subordinate and
unconscious.

THE FUNCTIONS
 Both introversion and extraversion can combine with any one or more of
four functions, forming eight possible orientations, or types.
 According to Jung, there are four fundamental functions that help an
individual to understand his or her events in their lives: thinking, feeling,
sensing, intuiting.

Thinking- Logical intellectual activity that produces a chain of ideas.

 Through thinking, a person analyses an event in a rational and intellectual
manner.
 Logical intellectual activity that produces a chain of ideas.
•Extraverted thinking people rely heavily on concrete thoughts, but they may
also use abstract ideas if these ideas have been transmitted to them from
without, for example, from parents or teachers. E.g., mathematicians,
accountants, engineers.
•Introverted thinking people react to external stimuli, but their interpretation
of an event is colored more by the internal meaning they bring with them than
by the objective facts themselves. E.g., inventors, philosophers.
Feeling- The process of evaluating an idea or event.
 Feeling is the value function. Through feeling, a person experiences an
event emotionally, through pleasure, pain, love, fear or joy.
 Feeling is the evaluation of every conscious activity, even those valued as
indifferent

•Extraverted feeling people use objective data to make evaluations. They are
not guided so much by their subjective opinion, but by external values and
widely accepted standards of judgment.
•Introverted feeling people base their value judgments primarily on
subjective perceptions rather than objective facts.

Sensing- Sensing is the perception or reality function and produces

measurable evidences about an event. Simply the individual’s perception of
sensory impulses.
•Extraverted sensing people perceive external stimuli objectively, in much
the same way that these stimuli exist in reality.

 This facility is essential in such occupations as proofreader, house painter,

wine taster, or any other job demanding sensory discriminations congruent
with those of most people.

•Introverted sensing people are largely influenced by their subjective

sensations of sight, sound, taste, touch, and so forth.

 Portrait artists, especially those whose paintings are extremely

personalized, rely on an introverted-sensing attitude.

Intuition- It is the perceiving through subliminal contents and unconscious

processes. It goes beyond facts, feelings and idea to apprehend the hidden
unconscious essence of an event.
 Intuition involves perception beyond the workings of consciousness.
 More creative, often adding or subtracting elements from conscious
sensation.
•Extraverted intuitive people are oriented toward facts in the external world.
Rather than fully sensing them, however, they merely perceive them
subliminally
•Introverted intuitive people are guided by unconscious perception of facts
that are basically subjective and have little or no resemblance to external
reality
 Mystics, prophets, surrealistic artists, or religious fanatics.
 Feeling and thinking are referred to as the rational functions as they make
use of judgment, reason, generalization and abstraction. Thereby, enabling
an individual to search for truth in the world.
 Intuition and sensation are referred to as the irrational functions as they
use the perception of the particular, accidental and the concrete. Usually
for an individual, one of the four functions is most developed while one is
subordinate and deeply buried in unconscious.
•Sensing tells people that something exists;
•Thinking enables them to recognize its meaning;
•Feeling tells them its value or worth; and
•Intuition allows them to know about it without knowing how they know.