Novelty

No probs hamster

The Big Five
The Big Five are the Persona, the Ego, the Shadow, the Anima/Animus, and the Self . Each has a specific role or quality which is why I prefer to think of them as functions.


The Persona

The Persona is that which we present to the outside world. It isn't really our selves, though there is a danger we can identify too much with it and believe it to be so. It is a mask. It's not a bad thing to have, in fact it's necessary for getting along with others. Jung seems to talk about it in the singular, but I suspect that a well adjusted person has several masks and is adept at juggling them and knowing which one is appropriate when and just how opaque it needs to be. In any event, singular or plural, it's a fact of life. Ask a doctor what he does and he won't say, "I do medicine", he's unlikely even to say, "I practice medicine". What you'll likely hear is "I'm a doctor". Occupation isn't the only shelf where masks are pulled from. Religion, sexual orientation, politics, the social sciences....

The Ego

The ego is the centre of consciousness. It is identity. It is 'I'. But it is not the totality of the psyche. Being the king of consciousness amounts to dominion over a small but important land surrounded by a wide world of terra incognita. The more aware the King is of lands beyond his domain the more secure he will be on his throne, but he must not be tempted to open the borders to it all. In Jungian theory the unconscious is far too vast to ever be made fully conscious, poking about in it is not without danger, yet ignoring it is also a mistake since it leads to a brittle fixedness which at best impedes growth, at worst can break when under the pressure of the 'threat' of change.

The Shadow

I was a couple of sentences in on Anima/Animus, before I noticed that I had forgotten the Shadow. That is the nature of this archetype, it is the receptacle for all of that which we have for one reason or another disowned. There seems to be a movement on to 'redeem' the Shadow, as evidenced by such books as Your Golden Shadow, but in truth there's a great deal that's very, very unpleasant here, since we have good reason for wanting to disown our darker natures. The avenue for an attempted redemption of the Shadow lies in the belief that everything disowned winds up here. A person who grew up in a family where level headedness prevailed and such things as art making were not given much value may discover some artistic aptitude hiding out in their shadow. There are treasures here, but they are buried in stinking muck.

The Anima/Animus

The Anima is the female soul image of a man, the Animus the male soul image of a woman. That is the most simple definition, and one which many struggle with, since Jung seems quite absolute in defining a person's soul image as gender opposite.

"Soul image" sounds very pretty, but the Anima/Animus is not without a negative pole as well. Jung's anima whispered to him that what he was doing was "art". He rejected this and pushed ahead as a 'scientist' which was much better in a society which regards science as 'serious' and art as less so.

If one is on good terms with one's Anima/Animus he/she can prove a valuable messenger between the unconscious and the conscious, a connecting link - a veritable Hermes.

The Self

The Self is simply the centre and the totality of the entire psyche. It is the archetype which contains all the other archetypes and around which they orbit. It's something of a paradox, and extremely difficult for the conscious ego to accept.