Anima and Animus

 

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 our conscious mind, just like the shadow. An anima causes a man to feel a strange familiarity with a female as if he has known her forever; in some cases, the energy between the two is intoxicating to the point where one might say he has experienced "love at first sight." Actually, he has fallen in love with a lie—the image he has imposed on another woman. Men appear to reconnect with a divine power in their inner world that must have always been there but had to be revealed to them by the feminine, by the guiding spirit, once the projection is removed.

According to Carl Jung, you don't consciously choose the things that shape who you are. He thought that other forces control life instead. Anima and Animus- The inner feminine and masculine are two examples of these. This recognition can aid in our comprehension of the subtleties and complexity of the human condition. According to Jung, our memories, thoughts, and feelings are all stored in our unconscious mind, which is much more potent than the conscious mind. Our lives are guided by this area of our minds' interactions with the outside world, sometimes without our awareness. For Jung, knowing the unconscious mind was crucial to knowing both the self and others.