'A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.'
Carl Jung
A father of the collective unconscious theory, Carl Jung, assigns the energy of the archetypes, the balance between the ‘opposites’, the sinister nature of the ‘shadows’ as formative innate experiences through the process of individuation – the defining accomplishment of human’s development. The existential problem of ‘Who I am’ is, I agree, the most ambiguous and upsetting question that this process should define.
Functions of the correlations ‘body – consciousness –existence - identity’, implied in Jung’s, theories, are the main purpose of my investigations.
Jung’s main analytical paradigm constitutes the idea that the individual is formed by both his instincts and instrumental rationalism. In the civilizing process man, by rationality and control, has divided his consciousness from the instinctive layer of the psyche, which dominated the primitive man. The body and the psyche are not ‘separate entities’. Moral issues are often related to the controlled expression of mind and body. The sublimation in the service of social acceptance might be beneficial for individuals' development, however, it has inevitably deprived him of essential human qualities.
According to Jung, oppression of primeval urges, such as ‘sex drive, hunger, aggression’ results in disorders and might be specific for each individual. His long collaboration and fellowship with Freud went into dissonance when Freud, explaining his analyses with biological heteronomy, centered mainly on sexuality, disagreed with Jung’s unacceptable tendency to explain psychic phenomena with mystical events – his studies turned to alchemy, religion, and myth.
The suppressed part of the unconscious Jung identifies with ‘shadows’- the undesired self, the ‘dark’ parts of his mind the individual rejects.
The suppressed desires of the ‘confined’ ‘shadows’ cause disbalance in the individual and demand compensation, manifesting their disturbing calls in dreams and fantasies. Instincts reveal symbolic images that the collective unconscious translate into archetypal experiences - psychic events, personal characteristics, feelings, behaviour – and dream analysis is key to resolving mental conflicts. They thrive under the lost balance of the ‘opposites’ – the rebellion of suppressed instincts, presented by the ‘shadows’ and the archetypes of anima and animus. This balance is probably the culmination of human being’s progress, nevertheless, it only proves his existential identification – a complex value of both his virtues and his ‘evil’ manifestation.