Archetypes and the collective unconscious

" ……… the mind has grown to its present state of consciousness as an acorn grows into an oak or as saurians developed into mammals. As it has for so long been developing, so it still develops, and thus we are moved by forces from within as well as by stimuli from without. " C.G. Jung, Man and His Symbols 1 Knowledge of the collective unconscious is essential in order to use the symbolic content of dreams and visions in a fruitful way. Without this knowledge, the symbolism lacks its true meaning and appears simply as a way to deal with the immediate stresses of everyday life. This results in indifference to the guidance available from the vast reservoir of wisdom and intelligence contained within the collective unconscious In order to help facilitate the therapeutic use of dreams and symbols we will first look at the difference between the personal and the collective unconscious and then explore symbols and their role in communication between the former and the latter. We will then examine the nature of archetypes and archetypal symbolism and attempt to understand how they relate to the healing process. In the western world, when most people consider the unconscious they think of Sigmund Freud. Freud's theory is that the unconscious is made up of repressed and forgotten material of the individual. It also includes impulses that have been subliminally registered, like scenes viewed in our peripheral vision. Jung agreed with Freud's definition of the unconscious but felt that it was limited, covering only the personal unconscious. According to Jung, material from the personal unconscious is filled with personal stories and sorrows, long forgotten memories of hurts and humiliation, but he also felt that there was another dimension to the unconscious. Through observation of disturbed individuals, he saw that the contents of their dreams and fantasies could not be limited to their personal experience. He perceived that these individuals had entered into a realm of ancient symbolism to which they had no conscious access. Their dreams and fantasies often contained mythological themes that existed in cultures they had never visited and times previous to the birth of any of their relatives. From these observations he developed his theory of the collective unconscious, which he defined as the ancestral heritage of possibilities of representation common to all human beings and, perhaps, even all animals. 2 Because Jung wished to understand …