Comment on von Raffay: ‘Why it is difficult to see the anima as a helpful object’

Anita von Raffay's paper once again demonstrates for me the wide range of understanding among Jungians of the concepts of the archetype and of the anima. For that reason I shall first of all formulate my own theoretical position, from which I shall develop my argument.

I understand archetypes, or archetypal fields, as ordering or structuring principles, common to all human beings, which allow us to register information and emotion - usually in images - as having meaningful connections; they also promote meaningful and life-preserving behaviour and action in any given existential situation. I am not talking about a static order or structure, but about one which is continually renewing itself in the sense of a self-organization of the psyche. The archetypal images, and the stories that are linked to them, are very stable in their narrative core, but have a pronounced capacity for marginal variation. These archetypal images are mediated and coloured by our complexes (CW 8, para. 856), that is, our internalized patterns of relating, and are also influenced by the current social climate.

I would speak of anima and animus as archetypal images and archetypal experiences only when numinous female or male figures appear, for example in dreams; they are emotionally highly charged, and they produce an intense feeling that makes possible a sense of transcending everyday life. That would correspond with the definition of archetypal experience as Jung describes it. Anima and animus regulate relationship in the widest sense, relationships to a ‘thou’, above all love relationships, erotic and sexual, but also relations between the ego and the inner world. It is therefore not necessarily the case that valuing these concepts leads to an idealization of introversion. From the point of view of psychological development, anima and animus are to start with linked to the parent-complexes, and are obviously coloured by them. Through their confrontation with these complexes, the impulses conn