Archetypal Characters Are “Action Patterns” for Your Life Story
All of us are archetypal characters in the stories we tell ourselves and others about our lives. Hogenson (2009) says simply that archetypes are “action patterns” (p. 325). This gets to the heart of the therapeutic uses of archetypes. This month, Archetypes of the Month will discuss these therapeutic uses. To close a year of Archetypes of the Month, December will reflect on the recuperation of the crone archetype as a positive template for living for older women. It also will contemplate the role of croning rituals in this process.
What Character Do You Play in Your Life Story?
Life would be chaos if we did not organize our diverse and diffuse sensory experiences in some way.Archetypal characters are one way that we create order out of our cognitive impressions. We draw on the abundant characterizations found in the mass media representations around us. These, in turn, plumb the depths of human experience as it has been handed down in myths and perhaps in our very genes. Knox (2004) reflects on research that compares archetypes to cognitive image schemas, or patterns for organizing our experience.
Making Everything Explicit Brings Wholeness
Knox writes, “I think that the term archetype, used in the sense of the archetypal image, beautifully captures the sense of the accumulating and inter-weaving metaphorical extensions of the core gestalt” (p. 10). It is this core gestalt that provides a stable definition of self-concept throughout our lives. Writing from the perspective of an analyst, Knox suggests that the most important work with the client is bringing unconscious archetypal characters and stories into awareness. He writes, “[S]o often we struggle for months or years with implicit awareness about a patient and then suddenly find the words to describe what we, and often the patient, already know. An implicit narrative can gradually become explicit” (p. 10). Knox posits “that the full flowering of reflective function is the pinnacle of human psychic development" (p. 12).
As Socrates Famously Said: The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living
It is through reflection that we become aware of all that we have lived -- experiences, feelings, hopes and fears, disappointments and triumphs.Only through conscious self-awareness of these facets of our lives can we become whole and all that we can be. Knox explains that therapists teach patients to tell themselves new narratives: “A successful analytic narrative is one that can become meaningful to our patients so that they can take it over, use it for themselves and adapt it to establish their own sense of psychic causality, of the link between intra-psychic experiences and the external world” (p. 14). The archetypal characters that are the foundation of one’s self-concept are the foundation for what Knox calls “narrative competence, the ability to connect past and present experiencestogether into a meaningful story” (p. 15).
Nurse Uses Archetypal Characters for
Healing Stories
Patrice Rancour (2008), an oncology nurse, finds that the stories patients tell themselves have utmost importance in the healing process.She writes, “Jungian metaphors and archetypes also can be used to evoke powerful images that help survivors find depth of meaning in their suffering and enhance healing” (p. 939). Nurses, she believes, can help patients recognize “'shadow' emotional experiences stemming from the recovery process” and to embrace a wild roller coaster ride of emotions that they may feel, develop compassion for others, and “to imagine newly emerging life purposes that far exceed their identification as survivors” (p. 935). Survivors may experience a sense of abandonment by health-care professionals who played such an important role during an intense crisis in their lives. They also may start to question the meaning of the illness for who they have become and are now. They need a new story of their lives and new archetypal characters to frame their self-concept. Rancour fuses archetype theory with transitions theory. The latter posits that transitions are characterized by endings (letting go of old relationships and circumstances), a neutral zone, and new beginnings. Stories also bear witness to the survivor’s experience.
Small Rituals and Autobiography Are Other Paths To Personal Meaning
The journey includes allow oneself to feel and acknowledge the pain. Small rituals may help create meaningful experiences from within life's chaos.Rancour observes, “For example, one survivor was helped by the suggestion to light a candle every time she was confronted with something new that overwhelmed her ability to cope” (p. 939). All of us can use the templates of archetypal characters to create the autobiography of our lives. The latter part of life is when we are most likely to have time to take stock and a wealth of experience from which to draw. Jungian analyst Barbara Hannah once commented that Jung believed the first 40 years of life were for having experiences and the second 40 were for making sense of them. Roesler (2006) finds archetypes are useful for writing one’s autobiography. He explains, “Identity is the construct which provides the person with a sense of continuity of being over time, which creates a sense of coherence so that the divergent experiences form an interconnected whole, and which gives meaning to one’s experiences and to life as a whole. All these aspects of identity: continuity, coherence and meaning, are created by putting one’s experiences in life into a life story, a narrative” (p. 575). Like Rancour, he also finds that archetypal characters and stories bring meaning to the lives of the disabled and chronically ill.
On Becoming a Crone
In summary, we often hear a person say while telling a person anecdote that life was “like a movie.” Movies, however, draw on archetypal characters and mythic narratives to update these ancient themes.It is not our life that is like the movie or book. It is the movie or book that has tapped some wellspring of human consciousness to create a semblance of transcendent reality. Recognizing the archetypal characters who populate the story of your Self is a fundamental step toward creating meaning, even mythic meaning, and coherence of everyday experiences. Older women do not have many attractive or meaningful templates on which to base our experiences. As we reach into the past to learn about the goddess tradition, we have time to decide how to embody the third face of the triple goddess, maiden-mother-crone. SourcesHogeson, G. B. (2009). Archetypes as action patterns. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 54, 325-337. Knox, J. (2004). From archetypes to reflective function. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 49, 1-15. Rancour, P. (2008).Using archetypes and transitions theory to help patients move from active treatment to survivorship. Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing, 12, 935-940. Roesler, C. (2006). A narratological methodology for identifying archetypal story patterns in autobiographical narratives. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 51, 574–586.
A Guide to Archetypes of the Month
Jungian Archetypes – A Guide to the Archetype of the MonthFashion After 50 celebrates the creative, spiritual, and inner life of older women. Archetype of the Month explores the symbolic patterns of life as they relate to aging and women. Feature uses photographs, poems, references to myth, literature, and popular culture [Read more] Croning Ritual Celebrates Third Trimester of Life -- December 2010 Third article in crone series shows how to use croning ritual as healing celebration. [Read more] Maiden-Mother-Crone & Reinvigoration of Wise Woman – October 2010 Postmodern women are reinvigorating their role as society’s wise women. [Read more] The Between, Liminal Space, & Fall Equinox – September 2010 The between is a luminal space filled with the potential for magic and alchemical processes for transformation. The autumnal equinox, when day is as long as night, marks the season between summer and winter [Read more] The Truth-Seeker – August 2010 The great quest of the truth seeker in late life is to find meaning. This often requires discovery of the uncompleted parts of the self. [Read more] The Storyteller – July 2010 The value-of-storytelling is embodied in the archetype of the Griot or Storyteller. This character archetype transcends months and seasons. [Read more] Feminine Makeovers and Alchemical Transmutation – June 2010 The popularity of feminine-makeovers has its roots in the ancient, perhaps even prehistoric, search for alchemical transmutation. [Read more] Mother Dance and Symbols of Spring – May 2010 Signified by the maypole dance of the merry month of May, Mother Dance unites in her archetype the sacred and profane, the erotic and unearthly, the visceral and the transcendental. [Read more] Mother Rain – April 2010 The April feminine symbol is Mother Rain. Her persona embodies the two faces of Nature – the all nurturing, birth-giving potential and the unrelenting strength of annihilation of world drought. [Read more] Hope Symbols – March 2010 Hope symbols and hope quotations are embodied in ancient myths as the goddesses Elpis and Spes. [Read more] Mother Light -- February 2010 The archetype of Mother Light has been celebrated in seemingly every corner of the globe since ancient times. Diwali in India [Read more]
The Winter Mother – January 2010 The faces of the Winter Mother are the Snow Queen and Mary swaddling the infant Jesus. [Read more]
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