WHERE'D I PUT MY GODDESS?

Anima (Latin, “soul”). The unconscious, feminine side of a man’s personality. She is personified in dreams by images of women ranging from prostitute and seductress to spiritual guide (Wisdom). She is the eros principle, hence a man’s anima development is reflected in how he relates to women. Identification with the anima  can appear as moodiness, effeminacy, and oversensitivity. Jung calls the anima the archetype of life itself.*

Animus (Latin, “spirit”). The unconscious, masculine side of a woman’s personality. He personifies the logos principle. Identification with the animus can cause a woman to become rigid, opinionated, and argumentative. More positively, he is the inner man who acts as a bridge between the woman’s ego and her own creative resources in the unconscious.*

Archetypes. Irrespresentable in themselves, but their effects appear in consciousness as the archetypal images and ideas. These are universal patterns or motifs which come from the collective unconscious and are the basic content of religions, mythologies, legends, and fairytales. They emerge in individuals through dreams and visions.*

Association. A spontaneous flow of interconnected thoughts and images around a specific idea, determined by unconscious connections.*

Complex. An emotionally charged group of ideas or images. At the “center” of a complex is an archetype or archetypal image.*

Constellate. Whenever there is a strong emotional reaction to a person or a situation, a complex has been constellated (activated).*

Ego. The central complex in the field of consciousness. A strong ego can relate objectively to activated contents of the unconscious (i.e., other complexes), rather than identifying with them, which appears as a state of possession.*

Feeling. One of the four psychic functions. It is a rational function which evaluates the worth of relationships and situations. Feeling must be distinguished from emotion, which is due to an activated complex.*

Individuation. The conscious realization of one’s unique psychological reality, including both strengths and limitations. It leads to the experience of the Self as the regulating center of the psyche.*

Inflation. A state in which one has an unrealistically high or low (negative inflation) sense of identity. It indicates a regression of consciousness into unconsciousness, which typically happens when the ego takes too many unconscious contents upon itself and loses the faculty of discrimination. *

Intuition. One of the four psychic functions. It is the irrational function which tells us the possibilities inherent in the present. In contrast to sensation (the function which perceives immediate reality through the physical senses) intuition perceives via the unconscious, e.g., flashes of insight of unknown origin.*

Participation mystique. A term derived from the anthropologist Levy-Bruhl, denoting a primitive, psychological connection with objects, or between persons, resulting in a strong unconscious bond.*

Persona (Latin, “actor’s mask”). One’s social role, derived from the expectations of society and early training. A strong ego relates to the outside world through a flexible persona; identification with a specific persona (doctor, scholar, artist, etc.) inhibits psychological development.*

Projection. The process whereby an unconscious quality or characteristic of one’s own is perceived and reacted to in an outer object or person. Projection of the anima or animus onto a real woman or man is experienced as falling in love. Frustrated expectations indicate the need to withdraw projections, in order to relate to the reality of other people.*

Puer Aeternus (Latin, “eternal youth”).  Indicates a certain type of man who remains too long in adolescent psychology, generally associated with a strong unconscious attachment to the mother (actual or symbolic). Positive traits are spontaneity and openness to change. His female counterpart is the puella, an “eternal girl” with a corresponding attachment to the father-world.*

Self. The archetype of wholeness and the regulating center of the personality. It is experienced as a transpersonal power which transcends the ego, e.g., God.

Senex (Latin, “old man”). Associated with attitudes that come with advancing age. Negatively, this can mean cynicism, rigidity and extreme conservatism; positive traits are responsibility, orderliness and self-discipline. A well balanced personality functions appropriately within the puer-senex polarity.*

Shadow. An unconscious part of the personality characterized by traits and attitudes, whether negative or positive, which the conscious ego tends to reject or ignore. It is personified in dreams by persons of the same sex as the dreamer. Consciously assimilating one’s shadow usually results in an increase of energy.*

Symbol. The best possible expression for something essentially unknown. Symbolic thinking is non-linear, right-brain oriented; it is complementary to logical, linear, left-brain thinking.*

Transcendent Function. The reconciling “third” which emerges from the unconscious (in the form of a symbol or new attitude) after the conflicting opposites have been consciously differentiated, and the tension between them held.*

Transference and Countertransference. Particular cases of projection, commonly used to describe the unconscious, emotional bonds that arise between two persons in an analytic or therapeutic relationship.*

Uroboros. The mythical snake or dragon that eats its own tail. It is a symbol both for individuation as a self-contained, circular process, and for narcissistic self-absorption.*

* Sylvia Brinton Perera The Scapegoat Complex, Inner City Books, Toronto 1986