All of Carl Gustav Jung's theories, contained within the 18 volumes of his collected works¹, are attempts to illuminate the workings of the human psyche, of which a small portion is conscious and the rest unconscious. His empirical data were drawn from many sources, but especially the unconscious materials, such as dreams and fantasies, of his patients.

Ego-Consciousness and Psychological Types

The ego is the focal point of consciousness, what we refer to when using the words 'I' or 'me'. The ego carries our conscious awareness of existing, together with a continuing sense of personal identity. It is the conscious organiser of our thoughts and intuitions, our feelings and sensations, and it has access to those memories which are unrepressed and readily accessible.

The ego is also the bearer of personality, and, placed on the outer layer of the psyche, it mediates between subjective and objective realms of experience; it stands at the junction between inner and outer worlds. People differ as to which of these two realms is more important to them, and this determines their attitude type: for extraverts the outer, objective world has greater significance, while introverts are orientated primarily to their inner, subjective experiences.

Jung describes the extravert as 'an outgoing, candid and accommodating nature that adapts easily to a give situation, quickly forms attachments and will often venture forth with careless confidence into unknown situations.' The introvert, on the other hand, is 'a hesitant, reflective, retiring nature that keeps itself to itself, shrinks from objects, is always slightly on the defensive and prefers to hide behind mistrustful scutiny.'²

Jung recognised this division to be a very general distinction and that great differences will be shown by individuals belonging to the same group. Also, everyone possesses, to a greater or lesser extent, both mechanisms as expression of one's natural life-rhythm. In order to determine more specific differences between individuals belonging to a definite group, further steps are required.

Jung observed that people differ with regard to the conscious use they make of each of four primary functions: thinking, feeling, intuition and sensation. Jung defines these functions as follows: sensation tells you that something exists; thinking tells you what it is; feeling tells you whether it is agreeable or not; and intuition tells you where it comes from and where it is going ³. In any individual one of these functions becomes superior, which means that it is more highly developed than the other functions, since greater use is made of it. This determines the functional aspect of the psychological type.

Jung considered feeling and thinking to be a rational function, having more to do with evaluating the significance of objects and events. Sensation and intuition were conceived of as non-rational functions since they proceeded behond the confines of rationality.

In Jung's view, therefore, an individual's psychological type is determined by which of the two conscious attitudes and which of the four conscious functions the ego habitually employs. Out of the 2 attitude and 4 functional types there emerge, theoretically, 8 possible psychological types: introverted thinking types, extraverted thinking types, introverted feeling types, extraverted feeling types and so on.

Whilst recognising that all typological possibilities are inherently available in the Self, Jung observed that in the course of growing up an individual tends to rely on one rational and one non-rational function in addition to the introverted or extraverted attitude, while the other two functions remain relatively unconscious. Thus an extraverted thinking-intuitive would have an introverted feeling-sensation shadow and visa versa. In dreams, for instance, a human figure with an opposite temperament from the dreamer, and usually of the same sex, may represent the dreamer's inferior attitude or function.

Getting to know one's psychological type is not to put oneself into a straightjacket, but to become aware of where there is scope for personal development. Given such development a person's type can change over the course of a person's life.

It is the case that differences in attitude and function types can often lead to conflicting opinions and misunderstandings. However, there are commonalities in the psychic structure of all and that each personality is composed of some consciousness - ego and the contents readily accessible to it - and much that is unconscious, chiefly the Persona, the Shadow, and the Animus or Anima. Each of these contents may be personified in dreams, being capable of endless variations and forms.

Structures of the Personal Unconscious

The personal unconconscious is that portion which has been forgotten or repressed. The functional units making up the personal unconscious are complexes, and those of which the collective unconscious are composed are archetypes. These functional 'components' can be conceived as dynamic 'systems' in constant process of interaction and change. A complex is a group of associated ideas bound together by a shared emotional charge⁴: it exerts a dynamic effect on conscious experience and behaviour. Conversely, an archetype is an innate 'centre' or 'dominant', common to both the brain and the psyche, having the capacity to initiate, influence, and mediate the behavioural characteristics and typical experiences of all humans, irrespective of race, culture, historical epoch or geopgraphical location. A close functional relationship exists between complexes and archetypes, in that complexes are 'personifications' of archetypes: complexes are the means through which archetypes manifest themselves in the personal psyche.

In making a complex conscious, the effect is one of reducing and often eliminating the effect of the complex in our everyday life. This is primarily because a complex is like a split-off part of the psyche that has a tendency to behave like a partial, but separate, personality, often diametrically opposed to one's conscious wish, thereby manipulating us into disagreeable situations and disturbing one's normal conscious behaviour. Some complexes remain deeply unconscious, and the less conscious a complex is, the more complete its autonomy. We may believe we can master our complexes, but all too easily we become their slaves. Examples of major complexes include the mother, father and child complex, also the more widely known guilt and power complexes.

The Persona was the name for the mask worn by actors in antiquity. It is the term Jung applied to those aspects of the personality by which one adapts to the outer world, the role we characteristically play, the face we put on, when relating to others. It is the 'packaging' of the ego: the ego's PR man or woman, responsible for advertising to people how one wants to be seen and reacted to. It simplifies relationships, oils the wheels of social intercourse and avoids the need for lengthy explanations and introductions.

The best kind of persona to possess is one that adapts flexibly to different social situations while simultaneously being a good reflection of the ego qualities that stand behind it. Difficulties arise when: one tries to assume a persona that does not fit or keep up some kind of posture which one does not possess the personal wherewithal to sustain; one identifies with the persona, for this means sacrificing the rest of the personality and imposes a harmful degree of constraint on the realisation of one's undeveloped potential.

The Shadow complex possesses qualities opposite to those manifested in the persona. It is the inferior part of the personality consisting of the qualities and traits of character one prefers to hide, those that are unadapted and awkward. Consequently, these two aspects of the personality complement and counterbalance each other, the shadow compensating for the pretensions of the persona, the persona compensating for the antisocial propensities of the shadow. However, the shadow is not always negative and it is simplistic to assume that it is simply bad. Positive traits, too, can be rejected and repressed because they are unacceptable within a social or family milieu.

The shadow can manifest itself in dreams and, more commonly, in the outside world by the mechanism of projection. That is, we put onto others, usually of the same sex, the unconscious, unacceptable shadow traits of ourselves⁵. Repetitive conflict situations and constantly blaming others tells us that our shadow is speaking. Other places where shadow figures turn up is in fairytales⁶ and literature; for example, in the classic Robert Louis Stevenson novel Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The novel's vast popularity is due to the co-existence of two deeply contrasting personalities in the same subject, it being an endless source of fascination in modern life. Jung felt intuitively that the tem 'shadow' was appropriate for this dissociated subpersonality because, denied the light of consciousness, it was relegated to the twilight zone in the personal unconscious.

When, from time to time, shadow contents impinge on awareness, they are often accompanied by strong emotion, perhaps engendering feelings of shame, guilt or anger, or bringing fears that one will be rejected should they be discovered or exposed. Integrating one's shadow can therefore be a painful and disturbing experience, but necessary if one is to achieve a better adaptation to society. As the shadow is a real, substantial part of ourselves, psychological work commences in recognising, confronting and withdrawing of shadow projections, until finally accepting the dark, unconscious side of our personalities.

The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Jung's 'experiments with the unconscious' - his work on 'occult phenomena' and 'complexes' that function like subpersonalities, and the delusional material of his schizophrenic patients - and his anthropological studies led him to conclude that the unconscious mind exists in its own right and functions autonomously from the conscious mind. He found dream images that paralleled mythological motifs which the dreamer could not have learned, and hypothesised that that these common motifs arise out of a common mental substratum.

The contents making up the collective unconscious come from the heritage of humanity, which Jung described as archetypal.

An archetype is not an idea acquired by humanity but rather a 'possibility of representation' - i.e. an innate predisposition to an image, a common psychic structure that parallels the common human physical structure. Its existence is analagous to the axial system of a crystal, which preforms the crystalline structure in the mother liquid, although having no material existence of its own. Thus, the archetype itself cannot be experienced; all we can know of it is its effects on dreams, other mental contents, emotions, and actions.

There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life, such as birth, death, separation from parents, and relationships to the opposite sex. The major archetypal images described by Jung are the persona, the shadow, the anima and animus, wise old man, Magna Mater or great mother, the eternal child, the hero/saviour and the Self. In addition to the archetypal images in personified form, there also exist a host of archetypal objects, most notably the mandala; others are trees, snakes, the sun and moon, fish, birds, the sea, ships, the mountains, etc. Each rich and belonging to a mythological context.

Self and the Individuation Process

Jungian psychology can be read as an attempt to reconcile the opposites within us and the psychic energy that springs from its source in the tension between these opposites⁷. The process of differentiating and bringing into awareness the contents of the unconscious mind is called Individuation, and the agent and the goal of this process is termed 'Self'.

Jung's psychological theory centres around his concept of Individuation, the process of psychological development by which a person becomes a whole or integrated, as well as unique, personality. The Self, as the organising genius behind the total personality, is responsible for implementing the blueprint through each stage of life and bringing about the best adaptation that individual circumstances will allow. According to Marie-Louise von Franz, the experience of Self, brings a feeling of standing on solid ground inside oneself, on a patch of eternity, which even physical death cannot touch⁸.

In Jung's view the individuation process starts in earnest in the second-half of life, often triggered by a 'mid-life crisis - where the conscious aspects of the personality (i.e. one's superior function) has diverged too far from the unconscious causing a split. By confronting opposite tendencies (and 'inferior' functions) in one's psyche, one realises and progressively integrates unconscious contents, such as the shadow and the anima or animus. For Jung, the favourite image of the Self was the Mandala, it being an age-old symbol of wholeness and totality, with its centre emphasised and usually containing some reference to a deity. Other symbols of unity and the emergence of Self are the tree, a jewel, a flower, a chalice (e.g. the Holy Grail).

Anima and Animus

The Anima and Animus are aspects of the psyche that carry one's image of the opposite sex. To Jung, we all incorporate both masculinity and femininity, reflecting the minority gene structure within each human being. The unconscious feminine part of the male is the anima, and the unconscious masculine part of the woman is the animus. In dreams, these contrasexual 'inner figures' possess the power and influence of autonomous complexes, and, as archetypal forces, have their source in the collective unconscious⁹. Having a collective (archetypal) image of a man or woman in the unconscious mind therefore helps the person to apprehend the nature of the opposite sex, both in the outer world and within one's own psyche.

As feminine psychological tendencies, the anima can manifest as vague feelings and moods, prophetic hunches, receptiveness to the irrational, capacity for personal love, feeling for nature, as well as facilitating his relation to the unconscious. In its individual manifestation, the character of a man's anima is as a rule shaped by his mother. If his mother had a negative influence, his anima will often express itself in irritable, depressed moods, uncertainty, passivity, insecurity, and touchiness. Dark 'anima moods' can therefore infect his life, taking on a sad and oppressive aspect.

Myths and legends abound with examples of dark anima figures, the so-called femme fatale. The German Lorelei, for instance, are water spirits or nymphs whose singing lures men to their death. In the Odyssey, Odysseus is warned by Circe (the enchantress) to ignore the Siren's call that would so enrapture the hearer that all earthly tasks would be forgotten. Such elemental, entrancing creatures would lure men away from reality, symbolising the illusionary, destructive aspect of the anima. Tha anima may take the form of erotic fantasy. Men may be driven to watch strip-tease shows or day-dream over pornographic material. This becomes compulsive only when a man fails to cultivate his feeling relationships - when his feeling attitude remains under-developed and immature. It is also the presence of the anima that causes a man to fall suddenly in love when he sees a woman and knows instantly that this is 'she'; the man feeling as if he has known this woman intimately for all time.

The anima (like the shadow) also has a benevolent aspect in taking on the role of guide, or mediator, to the world within and to the Self. As femme inspiratrice she may serve as muse, inspiring his artistic or spiritual development, and putting him in touch with right inner values and hidden depths of his personality.

Jung said that if we deny these contrasexual figures in the unconscious, reject or ignore them, they turn against us and show its negative face. It is only by accepting, understanding and forming a conscious relationship with the anima or animus that the positive side appears and becomes available for conscious awareness¹⁰.

As corollary of the man's anima, the animus represents the woman's 'recessive maleness', her urge for action, her capacity for judgement and discrimination. A woman in an animus-dominated state tends to be dogmatic, argumentative and overgeneralising. She may argue not to discover truth but in order to be 'right', to win and have the last word. She would rather be right in an argument than to take human relatedness into consideration. Life and men are judged and rejected if they do not fit the mould of her preconceived notions.

Just as the man's anima is shaped by his mother, so the animus is basically influenced by a woman's father. The father endows his daughter's animus with the special colouring of unarguable, incontestably 'true' convictions - convictions that never include the personal reality of the woman herself as she actually is.

In In myths and fairy tales the dark anima plays the role of robber and murderer. One example is Bluebeard, who secretly kills all his wives in a hidden chamber. In this form the animus personifies all those semi-conscious, cold, destructive reflections that invade a woman, especially when she has failed to realise some obligation of feeling. A particular form of the animus that lures women away from all human relationships, and all contact with men, is the 'ghostly lover.' Heathcliff, the sinister protagonist of Emily Brontë's novel, Wuthering Heights, is partly a negative, demonic animus figure who imprisons Emily in a cocoon of dreamy thoughts, filled with desire and judgements about the way things 'ought' to be, cutting her off from the reality of life.

In dreams, the animus often appears as a group of men, symbolising the fact that it represents a collective rather than a personal element. Because of this collective-mindedness women habitually refer to 'one' or 'they' or 'everybody', with their speech frequently containing the words 'always','should' and 'ought'.

Like the anima, the animus has a positive and valuable side; he too can build a bridge to the Self through creative activity, and can personify initiative, courage, objectivity, and spiritual wisdom.
Where the governing principle of anima was eros, that of the animus is logos. That is, the power of meaning and competence is derived from tasks in the outer world, whereas the anima has traditionally been about establishing relationships to the inner world. However, with the changing social structure, where for many women the animus is already well developed, the task paradoxically may be to develop more anima-like issues ¹¹ (e.g. conflict over whether or not to have a baby).

Dreams

Though dreams play a central role in Jungian analysis, Jung never organised his ideas about them into a general theory. He did, however, spell out his attitude toward them. Inevitably, some of his concepts are cast in the form of disagreements with Freud.

Jung did not regard the dream as a potentially deceptive message requiring careful decoding or as a wish fulfilment, nor did he agree with Freud that all unconscious contents were repressed conscious material. Instead, Jung described the dream as a psychic fact, and as a spontaneous self-portrayal, in symbolic form, of the actual situation in the unconscious.¹² In short, the dream is a natural and meaningful event, generated by psychically determined activity in the unconscious.

Jung observed that the psyche is a self-regulating system that maintains its own equilibrium just as the body does. That is, every process that goes too far inevitably calls forth compensations. As a basic law of psychic behaviour, the theory of compensation remains at the heart of a Jungian approach to dream interpretation. One of the key questions when confronted by a patient's dream is: What
conscious attitude does it compensate? This approach acknowledges that the dream is not an isolated event separate from daily life and lacking its character. It brings the unconscious into relation with consciousness, and provides what is needed to restore psychic balance and wholeness. It also essential to have a thorough knowledge of the dreamer's personal situation at that moment, given the dream contains material which the dreamer's outer life has constellated in the unconscious.

Compensation, therefore, accounts for the appearance in a dream of psychic material that is necesssary to correct a one-sided conscious attitude, and thereby promote a better adaptation to life. An example, given by Jung, of a compensatory dream is that of a young man whose father was driving erratically while drunk. Having no foundation in fact, the son is convinced his father would never behave in this extreme fashion. His relation to his father is positive (too positive), admiring him for being unusually successful. The dream, in presenting an unfavourable picture of the father (and elevating the son) is an (compensatory) attempt to bring the father down a peg, forcing the son to contrast himself with his father, which is the only way he could become conscious of himself.¹³

The actual dream may be unpleasant or painful since it shows aspects of the dreamer's life that are going wrong, but which the dreamer, for various reasons, has neglected, ignored or repressed. In this sense, dreams express what the ego doesn't know or understand: an inner reality, not as the dreamer prefers it to be, but as it is. Assimilating unconscious (dream) contents is then considered an ethical process, making it important that the values of the conscious personality are not denigrated and remain intact. It is up to the dreamer to make an informed decision to change in the light of the dream's message.

Alchemy

Jung came to understand analysis as a series of alchemical operations, with the work of alchemy providing a paradigm for the individuation process. He applied insights gained from alchemy into the phenomenon of the transference and counter-transference taking place in the relationship between analyst and patient. Using a medieval alchemical text, the Rosarium, to illustrate and amplify this transferential experience, he created a psychological model of the transference.¹⁴

At the unconscious level both analyst and patient were participating in a coniunctio, a drawing together of opposites with their interaction producing substantial change. In alchemical terms, when two chemical substances combine, both are altered.

The transference relationship between male analyst and female patient also resembled that between the alchemist and his soror mystica, his mystic sister or anima. Jung mapped out the psychodynamics taking place within the analytic relationship - specifically the pull from male to female and visa versa. The following could also be applied in real life relationships and marriages:¹⁵

• The uncomplicated, direct conscious personal relationship.

• The relationship between the man and his anima and the woman and her animus.

• The unconscious relationship between his anima and her animus.

• The relationship between the woman's animus and the man and between the man's anima and the woman.

The unconscious activities of the animus and anima are crucial. They contribute to the formation of the bond and ensure it possesses a powerful charge of feeling and libido. The work of analysis is to make oneself conscious of contents that have hitherto been projected. This leads to knowledge of one's partner and to self-realisation, and so to the distinction between what one really is and what is projected into one, or what one imagines oneself to be. By making therapeutic use of projection, analysis channels and strengthens the drive to individuate.

In later life, Jung was more interested in seeing personality from an alchemical perspective. In his alchemical model of personality, he took the four basic alchemical substances (Sulphur, Mercury, Salt, and Lead) as metaphors of the way personality 'operates' in life¹⁶ (i.e. individuates). Knowledge of these substances, as qualities we all resonate with, gets to the 'being' of who we are.

Each of us has a manic, extravert, compulsive side (i.e. sulphur); a bitterly wise, introvert, inhibitory side (i.e. salt); a dense, depressive side (i.e. lead); and a volatile, evasive, reflective side (i.e. mercury). The work of individuation, of differentiation of the Self, is therefore to enact a long series of operations on these substances (of personality), as if doing alchemy on ourselves.

Other Jungian Concepts

Synchronicity: Jung defined this term as a meaningful coincidence of a psychic and a physical state or event which have no causal relationship to one another. Such synchronistic phenomena occur, for instance, when an inwardly perceived event (dream, vision, premonition, etc.) is seen to have a correspondence in external reality; that is, the two (or more) events are connected by meaning and in time, but not by causal relation, and where the inner image of premonition has 'come true.'

It seemed to Jung as though time, far from being an abstraction, is a concrete continuum which contains qualities or basic conditions that manifest themselves simultaneously in different places through parallelisms that cannot be explained causally, as, for instance, in cases of the simultaneous occurence of identical thoughts, symbols, or psychic states.

Psychic Energy: Freud's use of the term libido as 'sexual energy' was extended by Jung to mean psychic energy in general. Rather than lumping all instincts (as expressions of psychic energy) under the concept of sexuality, Jung instead viewed sexuality as but one form in which psychic energy can be channelled

Psychic energy can flow in a number of channels - biological, psychological, spiritual, and moral - changing direction and flow into another channel if blocked. A shift in the flow of energy has purpose and functions to maintain a balance in the psyche as a whole.

Psychic Reality: This is a major Jungian concept. Jung's ontological position for understanding the psyche is based upon esse in anima (Being-in-Soul), which refers primarily to the continually creative act of fantasy; that is, the psyche creates reality every day.

Jung states that our psychic substance consists of images, and that all consciousness and experience of the inner-outer world depends on 'fantasy-images' of the psyche.

It is imagination that creates our images of nature; that creates our worlds and shapes our material realities. Everything is in image before it is in body or mind, and what we see around us is already constructed through the images (guiding fictions) that we carry of it.
Paradoxically, these images are both in us and we live in the midstof them. As in dreams, the psychic world is experienced empirically as inside us and yet it encompasses us with images.

Since our psychic reality consists solely of images, which, in turn, are structured by archetypes, image-making is recognised as a royal road to soul-making. For Jung, to be in soul is to experience the fantasy in all realities and the basic reality of fantasy. So Christ, for example, is a collective image of the Self and has a real psychic force, quite independent of the historical question of Jesus.

Postscript

Modern psychology (clinical, experimental, behavioural, etc.) do not generally accept Jung's ideas mainly on the grounds that his work is (a) too inaccessible, and, (b) too introspective, mystical and unscientific. That is, critics suggest Jung was too 'inner-directed' for life in the modern world, too little focused on the problems of relationship and social adjustment, with his ideas not fully equipping his followers to treat the problems of contemporary men and women. Add to this that Jungian analysis is considered elitist and suitable for only the leisured, cultivated and the rich (and thus without universal application)- and the list of his detractors begins to mount up.

However, Jung did attempt to apply empirical methods in his psychology, driven by a need to affirm the objective value of his personal, subjective experiences. He also valued the human individual above statistical norms, and his open-minded attitude allowed him to give serious attention (often in the face of ridicule) to the irrational, acausal elements of life that science generally disregards - the parapsychology, spiritualism, precognition, dreams, astrology, alchemy, life-after-death, synchronicity, UFOs, etc. His insatiable curiosity, his search for intellectual truth, made him question every orthodoxy, challenge conventional wisdom, often at the risk of being labelled a heretic. But his fascination with the unconscious and one's inner relationship to the Self, his mythic and religious orientation, and his love of the generally despised and marginalised aspects of life make his work most appealing to those dissatisfied with purely pragmatic scientific approaches to natural phenomena. Jung said 'science comes to a stop at the frontiers of logic, but nature does not - she thrives on ground as yet untrodden by theory.'¹⁷

In summary, many of Jung's ideas and theories may, in retrospect, seem rather crude and outmoded. Nevertheless, like William Blake, he was an introverted visionary who lived in complementary relationship to his Age, a pioneering spirit who laid the foundation for subsequent 'more enlightened' discoveries of the mind.