Jung's personality structure

One of the basic ideas of the concept of the Swiss psychiatrist K.G. Jung is the concept of "personality archetypes", which turned the idea of ​​the structure of the human personality in the public mind.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an outstanding Swiss psychologist, psychotherapist and psychiatrist lived and worked Carl Gustav Jung(1875-1961). As a student and follower of Z. Freud, Jung later stood apart and became the founder of his own, different from classical psychoanalysis, direction in psychology - analytical psychology.

Disagreements between K. Jung and Z. Freud arose on the basis of understanding the content of libido. Freud defined it as sexual energy, the sexual instinct that determines the desire for life, in contrast to the mortido (the second main instinct), which determines the desire for destruction and death.

K. Jung defined libido not only as sexual energy, but also as creative life force manifested in different areas, including culture, religion, power.

Z. Freud attached great importance to the unconscious (It, Id), the instinctive part of the personality, in which repressed drives and impulses are stored. Jung did not agree that the unconscious has boundaries, so he developed the doctrine of collective unconscious. At the same time, he did not exclude personal consciousness (Ego) and personal unconscious from the structure of personality.

Thus, in personality structure according to K. Jung there is:

1. Ego- the center of consciousness and self-consciousness. These are sensations, feelings, thoughts, memories stored in memory that allow a person to perceive himself as a relatively permanent "I", evaluate himself, make plans and perform conscious activities.
2. Personal unconscious. Suppressed conflicts, memories, fears, complexes are stored here. The content of the personal unconscious can be consciously and, one way or another, affects the personality.
3. collective unconscious- a universal and universal "spiritual repository", it contains all the knowledge and experience of mankind and is inherited by every new person, regardless of what time and in what society he was born.

The universal human primary mental images that are in the collective unconscious and determine the models and motives of behavior are what Jung called archetypes.

Archetypes are innate and inherited mental structures that often manifest themselves in images, symbols, dreams, dreams, myths and fairy tales. Unconsciously, through these images, a person perceives the world and acts, starting from them.

Archetypes are the forms that different parts of the human soul take, developed over the centuries in the collective unconscious of people.

In total, about thirty archetypes are distinguished today, but Jung himself designated only four of them as the main archetypes of personality.

Self

The most important, central archetype that forms the personality. This is the core of the personality, which combines both consciousness and the unconscious. Self- this is a harmonious, mature "I" of a person.

The archetype of the Self is not realized until a person integrates all aspects of his individuality, accepts himself completely, becomes a harmoniously developed, balanced personality. To achieve this is extremely difficult and possible only in adulthood.

The self requires wisdom, constancy, perseverance, purposefulness, a high level of awareness, life experience in order to open up.

Jung himself depicted the Self in the form of a circle or mandala (a sacred schematic representation of the model of the universe).

A person

A person- this is a set of social roles, "masks" ("persona" - Latin "mask") that a person puts on in front of other people, fulfilling the requirements of society and at the same time trying to either impress or hide his true "I".

This archetype is a necessary protective model of behavior in society, allowing you to adapt and adapt to it. The archetype can become dangerous if the "mask" does not just protect the Ego, but replaces it with itself.

Shadow

Shadow- the opposite of Persona, this is the "dark side" of the personality, personifying savagery and chaos. Everything immoral, instinctive, animal, aggressive, passionate, sexual, repressed is the Shadow.

But the Shadow is not an unambiguously negative side of the personality, but also a source of vitality and creativity. The desires and impulses of the Shadow are aimed at satisfying the needs of the individual, in order to achieve personal well-being and happiness. But not always the actions to which the Shadow provokes a person are moral and acceptable. The regulation of the instinctive energy of the Shadow and the satisfaction of needs in a socially acceptable way is handled by the Ego.

Anima or Animus

"Anima" and "Animus" translated from Latin - " soul" (in the feminine and masculine). Anima- the archetype of the Woman in the unconscious of the man, animus- the archetype of Man in woman.

In every man there is an inner image of a Woman, his unconscious female side, his feminine soul, in every woman there is a Man who is part of her personality.

Such a feature of the human soul, which can be called psychological androgyny, suggests that for the harmonious development of the personality, a man should not suppress those qualities that are considered feminine in society (sensitivity, caring, and so on), and a woman, those that are considered masculine (aggression, adherence to principles, etc.).

Without the manifestation of all aspects of the soul, there is no harmonious development of the personality and its self-realization. But it is bad when the Anima takes over the man, making him too feminine, and the Animus controls the woman, making her excessively masculine.

To refer to the Anima-Animus pair, Jung used the term " syzygy". Syzygy is harmony, integrity, completeness, embodied in a pair of a man - a woman. Therefore, a man and a woman, when choosing a sexual partner for themselves, unconsciously project the Anima and Animus onto the men and women they meet, respectively. A man is looking for his “soul mate”, and a woman is looking for hers.