Archetypes.

The collective unconscious contains an almost unlimited number of images, or thoughtforms, but jung focused on several that contain a particularly great amount of emotion. These archetypes (original models on which other, similar things are patterned) are, like all primordial images, forms without content, representing merely the possibility of a certain type of perception and action (jung, 1936 p. 48) Yet they have great strength, carrying as they do the weight of thousand of years of human experience. It is archetype that join with a persons early experiences to form the center of a complex and that gives the complex the power to attract other experiences to it. Consider the archetype of power, for example. Throughout their existence, human beings have been exposed to innumerable examples of great natural forces swift-flowing rivers, waterfalls, floods, thunder, lighting, hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes, and so on. An archetype of energy, or power, has evolved out of these experiences a predisposition to perceive and to be fascinated by power and a desire to create and control power. The childs fascination with electronic toys, the young persons preoccupation with cars, the adults obsession with releasing the hidden energies of atoms have their roots in this archetype of energy. Jung identified and described many archetypes birth, rebirth, death, power, magic, unity, the hero, the child, God, the demon, the wise old man, the earth mother, and the animal, to name just a few. We will describe the archetypes that most important in shaping personality behavior: the persona, the anima, and the animus, the shadow, the self. The self archetype is particularly crucial to the development and functioning of the personality. It was, jung said, the most important result of his studies of the collective unconscious. The ultimate, unifying system of the personality, the self powers the important processes of individuation and transcendence by which the person strives for self-realization.