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All references to patients and their material, unless otherwise noted, are taken from my practice as a psychotherapist.
By “self archetype” Jung means the following: “The central archetype; the archetypes of order; the totality of the personality. Symbolized by circle, square, quaternity, child, mandala, etc.” Jung, C. G.,Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Aniela Jaffe, ed.; Richard and Clara Winston, trans. New York, Pantheon, 1961, p. 386. “The self is not only the centre but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious; it is the centre of the totality, just as the ego is the centre of the conscious mind.” JungPsychology and Alchemy, Collected Works, XII, 1967, p. 41. (Note:The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, translated by R.F.C. Hull, are published by the Bollingen Foundation [Bollingen Series XX], in the United States by the Princeton University Press and in England by Routledge & Kegan Paul. TheCollected Works will hereafter be referred to asCW). Jung also writes that the self-archetype, is “... The total personality which, though present, cannot be fully known.... The ego is, by definition, subordinate to the self and is related to it like a part to a whole.” Jung,Aion, CW, IX, Part 2, 1959, p. 5. “...the self acts upon the ego like anobjective occurrence which free will can do very little to alter.”Ibid., p. 6. The self “... is completely outside the personal sphere, and appears, if at all, only as a religious mythologem, and its symbols range from the highest to the lowest.”Ibid., p. 30. “As an archetypal concept, the self designates the whole range of psychic phenomena in man. It expresses the unity of the personality as a whole. But in so far as the total personality, on account of its unconscious component, can be only in part conscious, the concept of the self is, in part, onlypotentially empirical and is to that extent apostulate... it encompasses both the experienceable and the inexperienceable (or the not yet experienced).... In so far as psychic totality, consisting of both conscious and unconscious contents is a postulate, it is atranscendental concept, for it presupposes the existence of unconscious factors on empirical grounds and thus characterizes an entity that can be described only in part but, for the other part, remains at present unknowable and illimitable.” JungPsychological Types (CW, VI, 1971), p. 460. “From the intellectual point of view it is only a working hypothesis. Its empirical symbols, on the other hand, very often possess a distinctnuminosity, i.e., anapriori emotional value, as in the case of the mandala, ‘Deus est circulus...’ It thus proves to be an archetypal idea... which differs from other ideas of the kind in that it occupies a central position befiting the significance of its content and its numinosity.”Ibid., p. 461.
Jung,Psychology and Religion: East and West (CW XI, 1958), p. 334. See also Jung,Memories, Dreams, Reflections, op. cit., Aniela Jaffe, ed.; Richard and Clara Winston, trans New York, Pantheon, 1961 p. 340, Jung writes there: “Meaninglessness inhibits fullness of life and is therefore equivalent to illness... it is not that ‘God’ is a myth, but that myth is the revelation of a divine life in man. It is not we who invent myth rather it speaks to us as a Word of God. The Word of God comes to us, and we have no way of distinguishing whether and to what extent it is different from God.”
Jung writes, “...the psychic phenomenon cannot be grasped in its totality by the intellect, for it consists not only of meaning but also of value, and this depends on the intensity of the accompanying feeling tones. “...the feeling-value is a very important criterion which psychology cannot do without, because it determines in large measure the role the content will play in the psychic economy... the affective value gives the measure of the intensity of an idea, and the intensity in its turn expresses that idea's energic tension, its effective potential.” Jung, —op. cit., pp. 27–28.
Ibid., p. 29.
Jung,Memories, Dreams, Reflections, op. cit. p. 383.
Ibid., p. 350. Jung also writes: “I add to the many symbolical amplifications of the Christ-figure yet another, the psychological one.”Aion, p.x.
Jung writes: “Intellectually the self is no more than a psychological concept, a construct that serves to express an unknowable essence which we cannot grasp as such, since by definition it transcends our powers of comprehension. It might equally well be called the ‘God within us.’ The beginnings of our whole psychic life seem to be inextricably rooted in this point, and all our highest and ultimate purposes seem to be striving towards it.”Psychology and Religion, op. cit. East and West (CW, XI, 1958), p. 334. Jung also writes: “...a term derived from the Church Fathers ... theimago Dei is imprinted on the human soul. When such an image is spontaneously produced in dreams, fantary, visions, etc., it is from a psychological point of view, a symbol of the self, of psychic wholeness.” Jung,Memories, Dreams, Reflections, op. cit. Aniela Jaffe, ed.; Richard and Clara Winston, trans New York, Pantheon, 1961 p. 382.
Von Franz, Marie Louise,The Interpretation of Fairy Tales (New York, Spring Publications, 1970), lecture VI, p. 6.
See Ulanov, A. B.,The Feminine, Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1971, pp. 128–132.
Franzop. cit., lecture I, p. 2.
See, St. John of the Cross,The Dark Night of the Soul, trans. E. A. Peers. New York, Doubleday Image Books, 1959, p. 37.
Ibid., p. 36.
Ibid., p. 46.
Jung,Psychological Types, op. cit., (CW, VI, 1971), pp. 457–458.
Jung, —op. cit.,, p. 3.
Jung,Psychological Types,op. cit. (CW, XI 1958), p. 457.
Jung,Psychology and Religion, —op. cit. East and West (CW,, p. 87.
Jung writes: “The idea of God is an absolutely necessary psychological function of an irrational nature, which has nothing whatever to do with the question of God's existence ... There is in the psyche some superior power, and if it is not consciously a god, it is the ‘belly’ at least, in St. Paul's words. I therefore consider it wiser to acknowledge the idea of God consciously; for, if we do not, something else is made God, usually something quite inappropriate and stupid such as only an ‘enlightened’ intellect could hatch forth.” Jung,Two Essays in Analytical Psychology, CW, VII, 1953, p. 71.
Jung's own way of reconnecting to the Christian myth, I would suggest, is his further development of it in his concept of individuation. He writes: “Our myth has become mute, and gives no answers. The fault lies not in it as it is set down in the Scriptures, but solely in us, who have not developed it further, who rather, have suppressed any such attempts.” Jung,Memories, Dreams, Reflections, op. cit. p. 383. Jung continues: “In the experience of the self it is no longer the opposites ‘God’ and ‘man’ that are reconciled, as it was before, but rather the opposites within the God-image itself. That is the meaning of divine service, of the service which man can render to God, that light may emerge from the darkness, that the Creator may become conscious of His creation, and man conscious of himself. “That is the goal, or one goal, which fits meaningfully into the scheme of creation, and at the same time confers meaning upon it. It is an explanatory myth which has slowly taken shape within me in the course of the decades. It is a goal I can acknowledge and esteem, and which therefore satisfies me.”Ibid., p. 338.
Jung,Psychology and Alchemy,—op. cit. CW, p. 13.
Quoted from Jung in White, V.,God and the Unconscious, Cleveland, World Publishing, 1961, p. 257.
Jung,The Undiscovered Self. R. F. C. Hull, trans. Boston, Little, Brown, 1957, p. 22.
—Memories, Dreams, Reflections, —op. cit., p. 325.
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Program of Psychiatry and Religion at Union Theological Seminary and a psychotherapist in private practice.
Her book,The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and in Christian Theology, was published in 1971.
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Ulanov, A.B. The self as other. J Relig Health 12, 140–168 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01532468
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01532468