Jung
a very short introduction
Anthony Stevens
Chapter 2, Archetypes and the collective unconscious
Remember this is a theory, which cannot be proved but it is interesting to talka bout
After this Jung bit, I can say briefly pose other ideas such as the introjection and congruence as a short example to what may be influencing us,
before then I can move onto the more sciency bit to help just give a bit of leighway and desparation showing how difficult this whole topic is...
appendices , Jung's diagram 15. schematic of Jung's model of the psyche p49
"Jung held it to be the business of the psychologist to investigate the collective unconscious and the functional units of which it is composed - the archetypes, as he eventually called them. Archetypes are 'identical psychic structures common to all' (CW V, para. 224) which together constitute 'the archaic heritage of humanity' (CW V, para. 259) " p47
"Essentially, he concieved them to be innate neuropsychic centres possessing the capacity to initiate, controland mediate the common behaviorial characteristics and typical experiences of all human beings." p48
"An indivudual's entire archetypipal endowment makes up the collective unconsious, whose authority and power is vested in a central nucleus, responsible for integrating the whole personality, which Jung termed the Self." p48
"diagram should be viewed as a three-layered onion."
At the centre, permeating the entire system with its influence in the self.
Within the inner is collective unconscious - composed of archetypes
outer circle is consciousness, focal ego orbiting like the Moon
Between that is the personal unconscious, made up of complexes
"complexes are personifications of archetypes; they are the means through which archetypes manifest themselves in the personal psyche." p48
similar to Plato's world of forms, ideas
Example to illustrate is the fingerprints, all different but have them.
"Where Jung's archetypes differ from Plato's ideas is in their dynamic, goal-seeking properties. Archetypes actively seek their actualisation in the personality and the bahviour of the individual, as the life cycle unforls in the context of the environment." p50
"An archetype, he said, is not 'an inherited idea' but rather 'an inherited mode of functioning, corresponding to the inborn way in which the chick emerges from the egg, the bird builds its nest.... In other words, it is a "pattern of behaviour". This aspect of the archetype,'" p52
support of Jung, other's have rediscovered his theory
]
Jung is saying we come into this world with already a blueprint of preprogrammed things, this makes sense, our instinct this sounds like. Obviously would affect us, the instinctfor survival is a strong one and instincts are difficult to overcome.
Compatible with theoretial formulations of contemporary ethologists, sociobiologists, and psychiatrists. p54
"The French molecular biologist and Nobel Laureate Jacques Monod reached an identical conclusion: 'Everything comes from experience, yet not from actual experience, reiterated by each indivdual with each generation, but instead from experience accumulated by the entire ancestry of the species in the course of its evolution." p54
science agreeing
Jung didn't give good example for his theory
better one was the mother-child arcetype
This is an idea with profound implications
"If Jung is beleived, archetyped pre-condition all existence then they must manifest in the spiritual achievements of art, science, and religion as well as in the organisation of organic and inorganic matterm and can provide a standpoint capable of transforming our understanding of all these phenomena" p58
"Whatever else the archetypal hypethesis may achieve, it can at least provide a bridge between the science of the mind and the science of behaviour." p59
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so archetypes are good necessary, instinctual almost, they suggest.... we are already programmed with certain things, if we are then we may be conditioned to act in a certain way, correct?
Chapter 3 The stages of life
"the psychic nucleus repsonsible for co-ordinating this lifelong sequence Jung called the Self." p60
other archetypal structures: the ego, persona, shadow, anima, animus
The Self is different than the self for Jung, the Self is more about the blueprint and wholeness of our whole existence
"The ego is itself the centre of the consciousness and it is what we refer to when we use the terms 'I' or 'me'. It is responsible for our continuing sense of identity so that we still feel ourselves at 80 to be exactly the same person we were at 8." p62
never made a clear distinction between ego and consciousness
"the self, like unconsious, is an a priori existent out of which the ego evolves' (CW XI, para. 391). p63
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every personality has a persona
"through the persona we codify ourselves in a form which we hope will prove acceptable to others" p63
depends on ones success or failure to society
" 'One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which onself as well as others think one is' (CW IX, para. 221)
very important quote, the heart of what I wanted to know here
"The persona begins to form in early childhood our of a need to conform to the wishes and expectations of parents, peers and teachers. Children quickly learn that certain attitudes and behaviours are acceptable and may be rewarded with approval while others are unacceptable and may result in punishment or the withdrawl of love. The tendency is to build acceptable traits into the persona and to keep unacceptable traits hidden or repressed. These socially undesirable aspects of the maturing personality are usually regulated to the personal unconsious, where they coalesce to form another complex, or part personality, that Jung called the shadow."
still important
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the shadow, unwanted freudian dark part
appear in dreams
frued similar superego
Dorian Gray example, dr jeckyl and mr hyde. The shadow complex
"The moral complex forms on the basis of an archetypal imperative to learn and maintain the values of the culture into which we happen to have been born. If no such imperative existed, anarchy would be the natural human condition: we should all be psychopaths, incapable of co-operation or mutual trust, and the species could not conceivably exist." p66
this imposes severe restrains on the Self which regulates the shadow.. when experienced, seen as a threat.
"not only do we repress the shadow in the personal unconsious, but we deny its existence in ourselves, and project it out on to others. This is done quite unconsciously; we are not aware that we do it." p66
"It explains the the ubiquitous practice of scapegoating and underlies all kinds of prejudice against people belonging to identifiable groups other than our own. Shadow projection is also involved in the psychiatric symptom of paranoia, when one's own hostile, persecutory feelings are disowned and projected onto others, who are then experienced as being hostile and persecutatry towards onself" p66
major threat to social and international peace.
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Well that is my link into the projection element I wanted to discuss... difficulty here trying to find something to latch onto directly related to photography, perhaps I'm not thinking clearly enough at present.
The problem could be that there is notthing really there to be a representation of anyway
" ' Behind a man's actions there stands neither public opinion nor the moral code, but the personality of which he is still unconscious. Just as a man still is what he always was, so he already is what he will become. The conscious mind does not embrace the totality of a man, for this totality consists only partly of his conscious contents . . . In this totality the conscious mind is contained like a smaller circle within a larger one. ' " (CW XI para. 390) p73
Simon Johnson
www.thephilosophicalphotographer.co.uk
Jung a very short introduction
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