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The Concept of The Collective Unconscious

The document discusses Jung's concepts of the personal unconscious and collective unconscious. The personal unconscious consists of forgotten or repressed memories and experiences from one's life. In contrast, the collective unconscious contains archetypes and complexes that are inherited and have never been conscious. Jung believed that complexes strongly influence behavior and can take control if the ego is weakened. The collective unconscious shapes human behavior through archetypes transmitted across generations.

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Kia Pomoy
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161 views3 pages

The Concept of The Collective Unconscious

The document discusses Jung's concepts of the personal unconscious and collective unconscious. The personal unconscious consists of forgotten or repressed memories and experiences from one's life. In contrast, the collective unconscious contains archetypes and complexes that are inherited and have never been conscious. Jung believed that complexes strongly influence behavior and can take control if the ego is weakened. The collective unconscious shapes human behavior through archetypes transmitted across generations.

Uploaded by

Kia Pomoy
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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THE CONCEPT OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS & PERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS

The collective unconscious is a part of the psyche which can be


negatively distinguished from a personal unconscious by the fact that
it does not, like the latter, owe its existence to personal
experience and consequently is not a personal acquisition. While the
personal unconscious is made up essentially of contents which have at
one time been conscious but which have disappeared from consciousness
through having been forgotten or repressed, the contents of the
collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and
therefore have never been individually acquired, but owe their
existence exclusively to heredity. Whereas the personal unconscious
consists for the most part of complexes, the content of the
collective unconscious is made up essentially of archetypes.

Jung, C. G. (1936). The concept of the collective unconscious.


Collected works, 9(1), 99-104.

The personal unconscious arises from the interaction between the


collective unconscious and one’s personal growth, and was defined by
Jung as follows:

“Everything of which I know, but of which I am not at the moment


thinking; everything of which I was once conscious but have now
forgotten; everything perceived by my senses, but not noted by my
conscious mind; everything which, involuntarily and without paying
attention to it, I feel, think, remember, want, and do; all the
future things which are taking shape in me and will sometime come to
consciousness; all this is the content of the unconscious… Besides
these we must include all more or less intentional repressions of
painful thought and feelings. I call the sum of these contents the
‘personal unconscious’.”

Unlike Freud, Jung saw repression as just one element of the


unconscious, rather than the whole of it. Jung also saw the
unconscious as the house of potential future development, the place
where as yet undeveloped elements coalesced into conscious form.

Complexes

Complexes, in the Jungian sense, are themed organizations in the


unconscious mind centering around patterns of memories, emotions,
perceptions, and wishes, patterns that are formed by experience and
by an individual’s reactions to that experience. Unlike Freud, Jung
believed complexes could be very diverse, rather than individuals
simply having a core sexual complex.

Complexes often behave in a rather automatic manner, which can lead


to a person feeling like the behaviour that arises from them is out
of his or her control. People who are mentally ill or mislabeled as
“possessed” often have complexes that take over regularly and
markedly.

Complexes are strongly influenced by the collective unconscious, and


as such, tend to have archetypal elements. In a healthy individual,
complexes are seldom a problem, and indeed are likely key to
balancing the rather one-sided views of the ego so that development
can occur. If the person is mentally unwell, however, and unable to
regulate his or herself (as seen in those experiencing dissociation
between these states), complexes may become overt and more of an
issue. In these cases, the ego is damaged, and is therefore not
strong enough to make use of the complexes via sound reflection,
granting them a full and unruly life of their own.

To treat such people, Jung looked more toward future development than
simply dealing with their pasts; he tried to find what the symptoms
meant and hoped to achieve, and work with them from that angle.

The collective unconscious

The theory of the collective unconscious is one of Jung’s more


unique theories; Jung believed, unlike many of his contemporaries,
that all the elements of an individual’s nature are present from
birth, and that the environment of the person brings them out (rather
than the environment creating them). Jung felt that people are born
with a “blueprint” already in them that will determine the course
of their lives, something which, while controversial at the time, is
fairly widely supported to today owing to the amount of evidence
there is in the animal kingdom for various species being born with a
repertoire of behaviours uniquely adapted to their environments. It
has been observed that these behaviours in animals are activated by
environmental stimuli in the same manner that Jung felt human
behaviours are brought to the fore. According to Jung, “the term
archetype is not meant to denote 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, a
certain kind of wasp stings the motor ganglion of the caterpillar,
and eels find their way to the Bermudas. In other words, it is a
‘pattern of behaviour’. This aspect of the archetype, the purely
biological one, is the proper concern of scientific psychology.”

Jung believed that these blueprints are influenced strongly by


various archetypes in our lives, such as our parents and other
relatives, major events (births, deaths, etc.), and archetypes
originating in nature and in our cultures (common symbols and
elements like the moon, the sun, water, fire, etc.). All of these
things come together to find expression in the psyche, and are
frequently reflected in our stories and myths.
The human psyche is the whole mind, including the conscious and the
unconscious. Jung's theory states that each person's psyche is
comprised of three components:

1. Ego

The hub of consciousness that forms all unrepressed perceptions,


thoughts, feelings and memories. When Donna walks into a room, her
ego perceives the color of the walls, the people in the room and what
they're doing and the song playing in the background. But, the ego
can only hold a select amount of information and the remaining data
sinks into the unconscious.

2. Personal unconscious

The experiences and memories unique to the individual that are not
currently in, but are readily available to, the conscious mind. For
example, maybe Donna feels uncomfortable in the room where she just
walked. She doesn't like it, but she's not sure why. It just gives
her a bad feeling. Perhaps it's because the walls are the same color
as the hospital room where her grandmother died. She doesn't
consciously associate the room with her grandmother dying, but she
has bad feelings because her personal unconscious is at work.

3. Collective unconscious

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