Anima & Animus

[Vivian42]

I have recently stumbled across what Carl Jung has written about Anima & Animus. Although right now I don’t know a lot about the ideas ( I haven’t really got in their depths) , it’s extremely interesting and it overlaps with some of my previous ideas (even if they were quite underdeveloped). What do you think ? I know that some of you insist on the idea that masculinity and femininity are separated and that people must act accordingly. How does this fit in? Are minds truly fully feminine or masculine?

I’ll appreciate if you guys keep the conversation to a medium level, at least, because there is obviously a lot of information that I don’t know about and maybe I can’t understand everything in English. It’s, after all, psychology. Complex

 

[Gliggle]

I have read some Jung, I think the best approach to his ideas is that they provide a starting framework for understanding human behaviour, however, their accuracy is still questionable. I find Catholic theology provides a much better framework for understanding human behaviour. Having said that, I feel Catholicisms’ ideas about Masculinity and feminity are limited, and not yet fully revealed to us by God. We do know that masculinity and femininity are deeply significant, which is why the Church so strongly protects our idea of marriage.

Personally, in regards to anima and animus, I find it interesting if you look at choice in GPS navigator… men will often choose the woman, and women will often choose the man… is this because it aligns more closely with inner voice???

Maybe Its so hard to know if there is any truth to this stuff…

I have heard conjecture in sci fi stories that the Anima and animus voices are the voices of our Guardian angels… but it’s just fun conjecture who knows…

 

[GEddie]

I’d say that the mind’s gender if any, is that of the body, if only because of living life within that body.

Which doesn’t mean that anybody couldn’t pick up mind attributes more consistent with the opposite gender.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Nyx]

Personally I think every human being has psychological traits that belongs to either the stereotypical " feminine" or “masculine” category. The second point is that when we say about someone that he/she is self-confident (a stereotypical masculine trait) what we usually mean is that he/she is self-confident more often than not, not that he/she is self-confident every time, no matter what the situation is. The same thing goes for being passive (a stereotypical feminine trait), etc.

The problem is that when a society has a strong and inflexible idea about what it means to be “feminine” and “masculine” it will 1) teach people this model about what it means to be a man and a woman is the only natural one 2) it will teach children to develop exactly the same traits that fit these model (think at how different is the education for men and women in certain cultures today, or how it was in Europe 300-400 years ago for example- which by the way creates a never-ending cycle- for example, women are taught that it is normal to be submissive to their husbands and parents, when the model itself is contested, some people will say “of course women are naturally submissive, just look around you”. When you teach people that there is only one natural way to be, than there is no surprise people will feel “abnormal” if they feel they are different- and try to hide it.A lot of problems can be caused by this.

Even in the much-more “open” societies (as in the Western world), while rigid gender-roles and gender-stereotypes might no longer be the rule, many families and institutions still do raise children differently based on gender-stereotypes. For example, certain degree of aggression is tolerated and expected in boys’s play but not if the child is a girl- in which case cooperation is encouraged (which basically teach competition versus cooperation).

As for whatever there is a tendency (not influenced by social learning) for a larger number of women to develop traits that are associated with “femininity” than men and vice versa, a tendency that was observed and than pretty much generalized or if there is no such tendency and the entire idea of " feminine" and “masculine” traits was a result of social learning- it is still debatable.

 

[Vivian42]

Personally I think every human being has psychological traits that belongs to either the stereotypical " feminine" or “masculine” category. The second point is that when we say about someone that he/she is self-confident (a stereotypical masculine trait) what we usually mean is that he/she is self-confident more often than not, not that he/she is self-confident every time, no matter what the situation is. The same thing goes for being passive (a stereotypical feminine trait), etc.

The problem is that when a society has a strong and inflexible idea about what it means to be “feminine” and “masculine” it will 1) teach people this model about what it means to be a man and a woman is the only natural one 2) it will teach children to develop exactly the same traits that fit these model (think at how different is the education for men and women in certain cultures today, or how it was in Europe 300-400 years ago for example- which by the way creates a never-ending cycle- for example, women are taught that it is normal to be submissive to their husbands and parents, when the model itself is contested, some people will say “of course women are naturally submissive, just look around you”. When you teach people that there is only one natural way to be, than there is no surprise people will feel “abnormal” if they feel they are different- and try to hide it.A lot of problems can be caused by this.

Even in the much-more “open” societies (as in the Western world), while rigid gender-roles and gender-stereotypes might no longer be the rule, many families and institutions still do raise children differently based on gender-stereotypes. For example, certain degree of aggression is tolerated and expected in boys’s play but not if the child is a girl- in which case cooperation is encouraged (which basically teach competition versus cooperation).

As for whatever there is a tendency (not influenced by social learning) for a larger number of women to develop traits that are associated with “femininity” than men and vice versa, a tendency that was observed and than pretty much generalized or if there is no such tendency and the entire idea of " feminine" and “masculine” traits was a result of social learning- it is still debatable.

I certainly agree with you. There are many factors that come into play, but after all the base of the mind is unique, right? So no matter how much a person is influenced and forced towards a certain type of behavior, -they- will be the same… or not? For example I’ve always had a dominant type of personality and I didn’t let myself be easily influenced. But I have an annoying tendency to influence others. That’s actually quite funny. But I never picked on any stereotypical feminine behavior, even though my mom is very feminine and I’m also a girl. Maybe my animus is very well developed.

Even if we destroy the stereotypes we’ll observe a general divergence . There are always opposite forces . Everything is dual. So even if we switch them or rearrange those certain traits …they’ll still remain in opposition. Maybe the anima/animus just acts in opposition to the conscious mind? To keep everything in a certain balance and open the general mind to more possibilities? It’s not uncommon to have random dreams in which you appear to have taken a different stance in certain situations. Or said something differently .

I guess there needs to be done intensive search in order to reach a reliable conclusion…

 

[Vivian42]

I have read some Jung, I think the best approach to his ideas is that they provide a starting framework for understanding human behaviour, however, their accuracy is still questionable. I find Catholic theology provides a much better framework for understanding human behaviour. Having said that, I feel Catholicisms’ ideas about Masculinity and feminity are limited, and not yet fully revealed to us by God. We do know that masculinity and femininity are deeply significant, which is why the Church so strongly protects our idea of marriage.

Personally, in regards to anima and animus, I find it interesting if you look at choice in GPS navigator… men will often choose the woman, and women will often choose the man… is this because it aligns more closely with inner voice???

Maybe Its so hard to know if there is any truth to this stuff…

I have heard conjecture in sci fi stories that the Anima and animus voices are the voices of our Guardian angels… but it’s just fun conjecture who knows…

I don’t know about the GPS navigator thing. I’ve always been attracted to feminine voices. They are soothing and very nice to listen to. Even easier to understand. However, the voices of certain males are incredibly nice too, probably those have something special that I can’t identify and they trick me . I guess the mind is generally weird and complex .

This post wasn’t really about the problem of marriage, but I guess it can be interpreted that way. However, I kindly disagree. Catholicism doesn’t explain human behavior in its depths. And if it does, the explanation is usually biased and not based on exact examples. That’s what I have observed , maybe I’m wrong .And it most certainly refuses to explore the masculinity/femininity part. Furthermore , I’m still confused about why God (who is neither male nor female) is called Father. Unwillingly when you call God “Father” it’ll be interpreted as “Oh! God is male! I knew men were superior or closer to God”. Believe me, there are many sociopaths who think that way. It’s rather foolish for the Church to back off and leave things unexplained properly. After all, even you said that the information given on this topic is limited. I wonder … why?
I’ve also observed that people are generally mixes of femininity and masculinity, no matter how much you try to put them in boxes of “feminine” and “masculine”. I think this anima/animus thing has something to do with it . Especially nowadays when people have lessened their influence upon children when it comes to stereotypes.

As for guardian angels…I hope that they exist and influence us in their own mysterious ways. But I’m not sure if they would reflect our personality. Anyway, as you said ,they are just stories.

Btw, I hope I don’t offend anybody on this thread, as this can be a very controversial topic.

 

[Vivian42]

I’d say that the mind’s gender if any, is that of the body, if only because of living life within that body.

Which doesn’t mean that anybody couldn’t pick up mind attributes more consistent with the opposite gender.

ICXC NIKA

How about females that exhibit general masculine mind traits? That can happen with males too (for them femininity). I don’t think the mind has any gender. It can be shaped at our will. That, however, doesn’t change the physical reality. Mind and body aren’t to be confused.

 

[GEddie]

Angels don’t reflect our personality, as each has their own personality.

I don’t sympathize with gender politics (in fact I rather antipathize with it, because of the extent to which feminists and alternately-sexualized persons use it as a weapon); but God the Father shouldn’t be problematic to anybody IMNAAHO.

God wants human life to be seen as His children. But God as Mother is theologically problematic because the child is born bodily from the mother. This might have led to earlier cultures conflating God with Nature or the earth (a mind frame that is still with us anyway).

And how would we understand God as Mother begetting the human LORD by Mary? (He needed a human mom for His human self.) Two moms? Can you imagine the fun our modern alternate-sexuality crowd would have with that??

In the absence of a concept for a non-gendered person, “God the Father” just works.

IMNAAHO.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Vivian42]

Angels don’t reflect our personality, as each has their own personality.

I don’t sympathize with gender politics (in fact I rather antipathize with it, because of the extent to which feminists and alternately-sexualized persons use it as a weapon); but God the Father shouldn’t be problematic to anybody IMNAAHO.

God wants human life to be seen as His children. But God as Mother is theologically problematic because the child is born bodily from the mother. This might have led to earlier cultures conflating God with Nature or the earth (a mind frame that is still with us anyway).

And how would we understand God as Mother begetting the human LORD by Mary? (He needed a human mom for His human self.) Two moms? Can you imagine the fun our modern alternate-sexuality crowd would have with that??

In the absence of a concept for a non-gendered person, “God the Father” just works.

IMNAAHO.

ICXC NIKA

But God can be called only God. And that’s it. No problems, no confusion. God can do everything and such could start pregnancy for Mary. God didn’t have to fill in any sort of father figure simply because there was no need to. Mary and Joseph represented the dual family . Not God & Mary. That implies something else.

We don’t need to call God neither mom nor dad. Just God. It just brings confusion and maybe gives the wrong message.

As for angels, I said that I don’t think their reflect our personalities. Not that they do.

 

[Nyx]

I certainly agree with you. There are many factors that come into play, but after all the base of the mind is unique, right? So no matter how much a person is influenced and forced towards a certain type of behavior, -they- will be the same… or not? For example I’ve always had a dominant type of personality and I didn’t let myself be easily influenced. But I have an annoying tendency to influence others. That’s actually quite funny. But I never picked on any stereotypical feminine behavior, even though my mom is very feminine and I’m also a girl. Maybe my animus is very well developed.

Even if we destroy the stereotypes we’ll observe a general divergence . There are always opposite forces . Everything is dual. So even if we switch them or rearrange those certain traits …they’ll still remain in opposition. Maybe the anima/animus just acts in opposition to the conscious mind? To keep everything in a certain balance and open the general mind to more possibilities? It’s not uncommon to have random dreams in which you appear to have taken a different stance in certain situations. Or said something differently .

I guess there needs to be done intensive search in order to reach a reliable conclusion…

I’ve heard some theories. One of them is that if we destroy stereotypes, as in “feminine” versus “masculine” personality traits (but not only those), people would be more free to develop their personalities, and we would perceive these traits on a continuum rather than in a dual model. As in results on a self-esteem scale (for example)- a few people get very high scores and a few people get very low scores. The majority will get scores around the mean and so on. Instead of talking about high self-esteem and low self-esteem and seeing them as opposites and somewhat separate, you start seeing them on a continuum, everyone being somewhere on that scale.
The idea is that you will no longer have a belief about what a man/woman should be (in terms of personality) or how he/she should behave and while there would be differences in personality between humans, you would see them more in terms of " having a higher dominance than the majority of people" rather than being dominant. The idea being that this way people will no longer see a certain personality trait as being “masculine” or “feminine” or even “good” or “bad” but just as a normal difference between individuals.

But as long as we don’t have that society, I doubt we can know how or if all this will work in reality.

 

[Vivian42]

I’ve heard some theories. One of them is that if we destroy stereotypes, as in “feminine” versus “masculine” personality traits (but not only those), people would be more free to develop their personalities, and we would perceive these traits on a continuum rather than in a dual model. As in results on a self-esteem scale (for example)- a few people get very high scores and a few people get very low scores. The majority will get scores around the mean and so on. Instead of talking about high self-esteem and low self-esteem and seeing them as opposites and somewhat separate, you start seeing them on a continuum, everyone being somewhere on that scale.
The idea is that you will no longer have a belief about what a man/woman should be (in terms of personality) or how he/she should behave and while there would be differences in personality between humans, you would see them more in terms of " having a higher dominance than the majority of people" rather than being dominant. The idea being that this way people will no longer see a certain personality trait as being “masculine” or “feminine” or even “good” or “bad” but just as a normal difference between individuals.

But as long as we don’t have that society, I doubt we can know how or if all this will work in reality.

That’s very interesting. Maybe there wouldn’t be the conscious realization of divergence, but you can think of a white to black scale to imagine things. There are obviously certain things not in direct contradiction , but just in contrariety. Again, I’m not sure if there would be a conscious division, but certainly there would be observed a difference, as you have said. In such scenario good and bad can be switched around freely. However, this happens in our reality too. I said this in other posts, but I truly believe everything to be relative.

Anyway, how about Anima/Animus? How does this fit in? There’s no doubt that our unconscious mind is much more complex and holds more information than the conscious one. Which one is us? Which one truly represents the person? Can Anima/Animus be there only to complete an incomplete frame of mind?

 

[GEddie]

How about females that exhibit general masculine mind traits? That can happen with males too (for them femininity). I don’t think the mind has any gender. It can be shaped at our will. That, however, doesn’t change the physical reality. Mind and body aren’t to be confused.

Most of the mind is subconscious or unconscious. And the mind is the mind of the body.

It can be shaped, but not altogether at will. The will, IMNAAHO, is overvalued in Christendom (and the body correspondingly undervalued).

Mind may not have a gender per se, but it’s the body that makes you **somebody, **and its propensities work in the mind far more deeply than anything society can achieve.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Nyx]

Anyway, how about Anima/Animus? How does this fit in? There’s no doubt that our unconscious mind is much more complex and holds more information than the conscious one. Which one is us? Which one truly represents the person? Can Anima/Animus be there only to complete an incomplete frame of mind?

I believe both our conscious and unconscious mind is us. Obviously, people “work” with their conscious mind when they are awake (except in some special situations as in some mental illnesses)- but the unconscious influences the conscious mind. So, I don’t think you can say one or the other represents the person- both of them (or three- Superego if you believe Freud) makes us who we are.

And I believe that would be the role of Anima/Animus (but you have to take into consideration that I take a more…social position than a philosophical one or a Jungian interpretation and so on). It represents those psychological traits, desires, actions, etc that we repress as we perceive them to belong to the opposite gender. Yes, we are “incomplete” as long as we reject a quite important “part” of who we are- but I think at least some societies today are on the way to make it much easier for people to accept and integrate these elements. Put it this way- societies with rigid gender roles make it almost unavoidable for people to repress those psychological qualities that do not conform to the gender role…in theory, in a society with no gender roles or stereotypes that would be unnecessary.

 

[Vivian42]

Most of the mind is subconscious or unconscious. And the mind is the mind of the body.

It can be shaped, but not altogether at will. The will, IMNAAHO, is overvalued in Christendom (and the body correspondingly undervalued).

Mind may not have a gender per se, but it’s the body that makes you **somebody, **and its propensities work in the mind far more deeply than anything society can achieve.

ICXC NIKA

Oh, I understand now what you were referring to. I think that those primal and deeply ingrained traits of the mind , even if they can strongly manifest in some, in others they can be repressed. I’m not sure if total annihilation is good or even possible.

I’m thinking of how females are usually more manipulative and cooperative, depending on the situation. We rarely fight, even if we have the will and power to do so. I believe it has to do with the fact that women are to be protected (and such they should be able to consciously try to do so themselves) and it would be more than retarded to fight in any situation when you’re not generally too physically strong and you’re important for the perpetuating of your species (the whole childbearing stuff…).

However, this is an example of common sense though. These “unchangeable” traits of the mind are most likely there to keep individuals in certain biological limits. Just like when you unconsciously hesitate to jump off a cliff or something in belief that you’ll fly. But there are some that are just neutral and are strictly related to the individual’s personality (now if we were to go deeper…what makes the personality, the individual…?). For instance being friendly or compassionate can’t be restricted only to a female individual. Being intuitive or more in touch with one’s emotions or nature , being more modest and so on aren’t only for women. Just as how women can be aggressive , imposing and extremely rational and insensitive.

What do you think?

 

[Vivian42]

I believe both our conscious and unconscious mind is us. Obviously, people “work” with their conscious mind when they are awake (except in some special situations as in some mental illnesses)- but the unconscious influences the conscious mind. So, I don’t think you can say one or the other represents the person- both of them (or three- Superego if you believe Freud) makes us who we are.

And I believe that would be the role of Anima/Animus (but you have to take into consideration that I take a more…social position than a philosophical one or a Jungian interpretation and so on). It represents those psychological traits, desires, actions, etc that we repress as we perceive them to belong to the opposite gender. Yes, we are “incomplete” as long as we reject a quite important “part” of who we are- but I think at least some societies today are on the way to make it much easier for people to accept and integrate these elements. Put it this way- societies with rigid gender roles make it almost unavoidable for people to repress those psychological qualities that do not conform to the gender role…in theory, in a society with no gender roles or stereotypes that would be unnecessary.

I read a little bit of Freud. Right now I have the book “The interpretation of dreams”. I haven’t got the time to read it though…and it’s quite big too.
I tend to believe that the reality of our minds is somewhere in between of different theories. But I have to acquire more information to reach that conclusion.

I see, I understand your point of view. I think you put it very well into words and I agree with what you’ve written. Sometimes I wonder how we would be as society if we were to remove all unnecessary and pressuring limitations. I think we would live in a much more healthy environment and we would evolve much faster. I’ve thought many times : what would our current technological /artistic development be if genius women were actually respected? And their help accepted.

But history is what it is and it can’t be changed, sadly. However , it must certainly not be repeated (that rarely happens).

Anyway, about our unconscious minds… yes, “we” work with all the pieces put together. But we identify ourselves as being us when conscious. Where do we “go” when we’re asleep, for instance? That’s what I was getting at. Or do we only have the special ability to recognize ourselves when conscious and that’s it? Like there’s only the ability itself, nothing else. “That is me”. Maybe we need to get rid of mirrors to answer that question. How would we know that we -are- without a constant confirmation ?

It’s very interesting . Our unconscious is definitely superior to the conscious. For example when we momentarily forget a word and suddenly we remember…that is our conscious borrowing more information from the data base- the unconscious. I wonder… how much are we really capable of? If we could use ALL of the information acquired. And why was the division even needed in the first place?

I realize these are difficult (and unusual?) questions, but I like to discuss those kind of things. I hope you don’t mind .

 

[Nyx]

Yes, I think the self-identity of the individual belongs to his/her conscious mind. Dreams would actually be the most direct way someone mentally healthy can find to his/her unconscious mind (as the conscious mind represents everything we are aware of while we awake, sleeping- well, better said dreaming would be a “jump” into our unconscious mind. Problems is that the “material” from our unconscious mind is often expressed in a symbolic way, so not very easy to understand).

Now the unconscious mind includes much more information than the conscious mind (forgotten memories, repressed material, impulses, etc). The conscious mind on the other hand help us live in the society, live around others, respect rules, plan for the future, etc. Freud (as he is the person most of us think when we hear about unconscious) thought there is a very good reason for which the conscious mind reminds somewhat divided (although permanently influenced) from the unconscious mind. In his opinion, the unconscious mind is pretty " wild"- you have sexual impulses, aggressive impulses, repressed memories or feelings (either because they are too painful or unacceptable to our conscious mind)- and our unconscious doesn’t work on a rational basis (that would be the conscious mind), doesn’t care about rules or laws of the society, works on a pleasure principle and needs the conscious mind to…well, in a way, decide when the “demands” of our unconscious mind can be realized without making life in society impossible or putting us in prison for a long time.

The main problem with the unconscious mind is that…well, you can’t see or study it. If you accept its existence, you still have only theories about what the unconscious is and what it contains. And no scientific way to verify these theories.

 

[GEddie]

I think we have to assume something corresponding to the un- or subconscious does exist in our head. There’s too much there to fit into normal consciousness.

Now whether “unconscious” and “subconscious” as mind areas are the same or not is a fair matter for conjecture.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Vivian42]

Sorry guys for not answering. I had some things to do lately.

So…basically we’ve reached a dead end? The subconscious/unconscious mind can’t be studied yet and dreams remain a mysterious passage that allows us to peek into the deepest parts of our minds. And we’ve concluded what Anima/Animus really is.

Well, I hope that’ll find more information on the topic. It’s very intriguing.

 

[Nyx]

Well, dreams, free association technique, hypnosis, etc were/are considered tools you can use to reach the unconscious mind. You couldn’t exactly " study" your unconscious mind, but it was supposed that you could bring certain unconscious " material" , conflicts, repressed memories and so on to the surface. Now the only problem is that all this tools are pretty much subjective themselves and can’t be studied in a scientific way- they are based on your or someone else interpretation and this interpretations are far from being universally true (the image of an wolf can represent one thing to be and something entirely different to my friend).

So, yes, you have theories that you can’t prove or disprove (as no one can " see" in any way the unconscious mind), and some “tools” that are basically highly subjective and were always open to debate. This is one of the main reasons many other psychologists/psychiatrists even if they did believed in the existence of the unconscious mind, tried to put the accent in their practices and theories on our conscious mind.

 

[GEddie]

I’d conjecture that while we can tour our subconscious during dreaming, the unconscious, if distinct, is buried so far down that it would appear only under drugs or near death.

There could also be less there than meets the mind; the unconscious may consist mostly of body-control commands, which have no name because there is no need to communicate or think through them.

ICXC NIKA