Podcast Review: Betts on Jungian Psychology #4

The featured podcast is the 4th in the excellent series by John Betts on Jungian Psychology. Betts begins this episode with a recap on the subject matter covered in previous podcasts in the series before discussing the focus for this episode – the three archetypes of the shadow, anima and animus. Before discussing these in more detail he mentions the defence mechanism of projection and explains how our internal attitudes and beliefs are projected onto others under certain circumstances in much the same way as a film projector will project onto a film screen. (As I was listening to this it occurred to me that an interaction may occur with age, whereby as more material is accumulated through life which can be projected so it may be more likely to occur). Jung contrasted introjection with projection.

Betts focuses then on the Shadow as that part of the unconsciousness that is unacceptable to the consciousness and which is further divided into three parts. Thus the personal shadow develops through childhood when for instance the child is encouraged to avoid certain behaviours which subsequently get incorporated into the personal shadow. The cultural shadow occurs in a similar way with a community whilst the shadow archetype has a universal connotation.

Betts then discusses the Anima and Animus. The Anima is the female archetype in men while the Animus is the male archetype in women cautioning the reader against believing that both exist in the same person. He gives examples of anima/animus archetypes including Helen of Troy, Apollo, Herculus and Alexander the Great and also notes that these can be visualised by considering the properties of an idealised partner.

There are many other interesting points (including a point about Jung’s analytic psychology as opposed to Freud’s Psychoanalysis) made in this Podcast as the series builds up to a more complete model of Jungian Psychology.

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