Thinker

  In Carl Jung’s model of the psyche, humans have both an inner world and an outer world. The persona (discussed in a previous blog post) is the social mask that we put on represents the outer world and the shadow represents the inner world where the real self of humans begins. The Anima/ Animus is another aspect of the inner world. All these inner world aspects represent the light or dark sides that humans emphasize.  According to Jung, our opposite gender's characteristics are nested inside the shadow. The archetype known as the anima expresses the minority of feminine traits found in men, while the animus represents the masculine traits found in women. There is a woman in every man and a man in every woman, or more accurately, there is the idealized version of each, which is typically shaped in part by our mother's or father's experiences as well as by the influences of culture and heritage. The archetypes of the anima/animus have their own autonomy and are separate from...