A Simple Statement about the Concept of Archetypes Stimulated by Warren Colman’s Paper ‘Are Archetypes Essential?’

In Warren Colman’s paper, referenced below, he argues that the concept of archetypes is not essential. Many years ago, I was speaking to Dr. Fred Plaut (personal communication) who argued that trainee analysts should be thrown in the deep-end. By this he meant that concepts should not be explained in simple terms but should be discussed with their full complexity. I disagreed with this because I have found, both for myself and my students, it is easier to start, as it were, in the shallow end. That is to say simple explanations are easier to grasp and the complexities of analytic concepts can be slowly learned as one develops.

With this in mind I wish to make the simple statement that I see the concept of archetypes as arising from ‘unconscious innate potentials’ possibly in the genes, that are activated by the internal and external environments; activated and in this way realised. Thus for me, archetypes are evidence of earlier potentials in the collective unconscious. Archetypal images are images of what were earlier potentials. It is the environments that can either modify or reinforce the primitive nature of these potentials of the psyche. It is the gradual realisation of our potentials, or the way a potential makes itself felt, that result in the experience of the numinous, i.e., the potential that has not yet been fully realised but is drawing us towards a potential that is, as yet, unknown. An example of this is a male patient who had a powerful dream of an aggressive bear. The bear just presented itself, which gave my patient what he called an ‘orgasmic experience’. In telling me about the dream my patient could see the bear represented a part of himself that had been crushed by his very aggressive father. This numinous experience gave birth to the patient’s potential of aggressive power before which he had been weak and compliant.

For me, the realisation of our potentials (which the archetypes represent) is part of the process of our individuation. Warren Col