Response to Anita von Raffay's paper, ‘Why it is difficult to see the anima as a helpful object’

Sooner or later every Jungian analyst wonders about the theory of archetypes, wonders whether it is not an attempt to evade the burden of relations with human objects. Usually in dealing with colleagues one keeps one's doubt to oneself, or acts them out by seeking consultation or therapy with non-Jungians. It is refreshing, therefore, to have a colleague develop her doubts in earshot, as it were, in the forums provided by Analytische Psychologie and, now, The Journal of Analytical Psychology. In a relatively brief space, moreover, she does a good job of showing how a privileging of the theory of archetypes can be used to support attitudes toward human relations that are impersonal, general, and grandiose, to the point of being contemptuous toward the particularities of human relationships. Such an attitude can well look down upon the humility, loyalty, and devotion that are required to achieve mutual understanding in any marriage or psychotherapy. But it is really toward the dangers in the notion of the anima that Anita von Raffay in this paper addresses her animus (and here I use the word in its dual dictionary senses of intention and antagonism, rather than in the Jungian sense of unconscious, unintentional, and impersonal hostility). The essence of her argument is that the anima cannot be understood as supporting relationship because as an archetype the relationships it represents must be, categorically, impersonal. She proceeds to show how in fact some Jungian analysts interpret symbolism that to them suggests the anima in such a way as to lead their analysands away from personal issues that have developed in the transference/countertransference, and she makes clear that she does not find this very helpful. She is particularly troubled by the fact that the anima concept can be used to skip past issues that continue to trouble patients in their earliest relationships to their mothers. She adduces biographical evidence to argue that the very theoretical moves that