Individuation
Recognition,
understanding, and according with:
ANIMA/ANIMUS
`Just
as, for the purpose of
individuation, or
self-realization, it is essential for a
man to distinguish between what he is and how he appears to himself and to
others, so it is also necessary for the same purpose that he should become
conscious of his invisible system of relations to the
unconscious, and
especially of the
anima, so as to be able to distinguish himself from her.'
One cannot of course distinguish oneself from something
unconscious.
In the matter of the
persona it is easy enough to make it clear to a man
that he and his office are two different things.
But it is very difficult for a man to distinguish himself from his
anima,
the more so because she is invisible.
THERE IS MORE GOOD STUFF WRITTEN RIGHT AFTER THIS!!!! PAGE 169
... for when a man
recognizes that his ideal
persona is responsible for his anything but ideal
anima, his ideals
are shattered, the world becomes ambiguous, he becomes ambiguous even to
himself. He is seized by doubts about goodness, and what is worse, he
doubts his own good intentions.
But if such a man makes himself
conscious of his
unconscious contents, as they appear firstly in the factual contents of his
personal unconscious, and then in the fantasies of the
collective unconscious,
he will get to the roots of his
complexes, and in this way rid himself of his
possession. With that the
anima phenomenon comes to a
stop.
Instead of seeking union with a woman
outside ourselves, we have to seek it within ourselves… by the
union of our male
and female nature in the process of
meditation’
The idea of the
anima as I define it is by no means a novelty but an
archetype
which we meet in the most diverse places. It was also known in
alchemy, as
the following scholium proves: (As the
shadow continually follows
the body of one who walks in the sun, so our
hermaphroditic
Adam, though he
appears in the form of a male, nevertheless always carries about with him
Eve,
or his wife, hidden in his body).
With
the anima and animus, however, things are by no means so simple (as the
shadow).
Firstly, there is no moral education in this respect, and secondly, most people
are content to be self-righteous and prefer mutual vilification (if nothing
worse!) to the recognition of their
projections.
Indeed, it seems a very natural state of affairs for men to have irrational
moods and women irrational opinions.
…
though the contents of anima and animus can be integrated they themselves
cannot, since they are
archetypes. As such they are the foundation stones of the psychic structure,
which in its totality exceeds the limits of
consciousness and therefore can
never become the object of direct cognition. Though the effects of
anima and
animus can be made conscious, they themselves are factors transcending
consciousness and beyond the reach of
perception and volition. Hence they remain
autonomous despite the integration of their contents, and for this reason they
should be borne constantly in mind. This is extremely important from the
therapeutic standpoint, because constant observation pays the
unconscious a
tribute that more or less guarantees its co-operation.
To
be able to detach from feelings is an essential part of a
man’s life, for he has to have a cold, scientific, objective standpoint.
But if he does not relate to the anima and try to deal with his
eros problems, then he cuts
his soul in two. That is why men, in general, have more
trouble in Jungian psychology than women. Because of our
insistence on the acceptance of the
unconscious, men have
to accept feeling and relatedness –
eros – and to a man that is
just disgusting; it is as if from now on he must nurse babies.
It feels like that to him – it is against nature. But
if men wish to develop further – just as women must now learn to share the man’s
world by becoming more objective and less personal – they have to make the
counter-gesture of taking their own feelings and their own eros problems more
seriously. It is an unavoidable part of human development
that we have to integrate the other side – the undeveloped side – and if we do
not, then it catches us against our
will.
Indeed, the more a man takes his
eros problems seriously, the less
effeminate he becomes, although it may look to him like the
opposite.
If he stiffens and does not take his feeling problems seriously, he will
involuntarily become effeminate. In general it can be said
that the puer
who has a tendency to become effeminate has a better chance if only he will take
his feeling seriously and not fall into the pitfall of statistical thinking – if
he does not suddenly think, “Oh Lord! Hundreds and thousands! – and me too!”
TPoPA 92
In
so far as the anima is equivalent to the soul, which as is well known represents
the life principle, the separation from the object of projection naturally
results in a loss of soul and life. As long as the anima is
so completely projected, the soul is also still externalized and for that
reason, the individual is endangered.
But
together with this more conscious relation, as we know from our understanding of
modern psychology, a discrimination between the real woman and the anima as the
archetypal soul-image must also be made; at the same time, insight into the
function of the anima as a guide to higher inner wholeness forces its way into
consciousness. TGL 180