Animus and Anima

Carl Gustav Jung has developed the model of animus and anima almost a hundred years ago to better understand the male and the female and their relationship. The idea is that every man has hidden female aspects (anima) and every woman a hidden animus. We choose our partner for relationship who expresses our own unconscious parts so that we want to become whole in the relationship. But this way is bound to fail as soon as it becomes clear that the relationship partner cannot fulfill our expectations. On the one hand these projections are loaded with wounds and irritations we experienced as children, on the other hand we are confronted with archetypes which we tend to mistake for real persons. 

Anima

Anima is the female side in the unconscious realm of the male, the archetype of the female. It is seen as intuitive, receptive, empathic, and moody.

The anima can confuse a relationship when the man expects the woman to be like the archetypical image inside himself which no real woman will ever manage. Rather it is the task of the man to develop these aspects by himself; otherwise he would go astray and acquire a narcissistic personality disorder. Furthermore it has to be taken into account that the anima archetype is superposed by the archetype of the mother. So the first step is to clear the anima from the mother projections which opens the way for the man to configure his own female pole. The positive side of the anima for the male is the guidance towards the inner world, towards opening up for sensations, feelings and fantasies. In this way, the male can develop the receptive principle.

Animus

Animus represents the male aspects in the subconscious of the woman, the male archetype. It is described as rational, decisive and dominant. Similar to the male, the archetypically modeled role expectations of the woman put pressure on the relationship. They are loaded by the inner images of the father and the imprints from other male members of the family. It is important for the woman to develop the qualities, which are provided by her animus. According to Jung, they consist of entrepreneurial spirit, courage, as well as the soul guidance to inner transformation.

The wholesome benefits

C.G. Jung‘s intention in describing these archetypes was to help people towards wholeness. As depth psychologist he focused on the rise of unconscious material to consciousness. So he wanted to help men and women to find themselves, to become complete and thus to be able to resolve their relationship problems. As soon as a projection onto the partner is discovered, a new inner space for a loving relationship is created. Additionally, everyone feels better with oneself when all the parts of the psyche get their place in one’s consciousness and identity.

Putting it into mechanical terms, this model could be misunderstood in a way as if every man would have to come as close to the archetype in order to be a “genuine man”, and vice versa for the woman. This would mean that every man would find the same anima inside of himself, and every woman a generally obligatory animus.

Yet the archetype is not an ideal but according to Jung a figure from the collective unconsciousness. It symbolizes central human experiences which exist in all cultures, as, in our case, the encounter of man and woman. There is a whole range of phenomena so it is easily misguiding to link it to certain specific characteristics. Any description of an archetype with regard to the contents is flawed.

So dealing with animus and anima can only have a healing effect when we start from a respective individualized formation of the archetypes as they appear symbolically masked in dreams or fantasies. In this search, the archetype helps more as a guideline than a goal to reach. The goal is inner wholeness, coming to oneself in the particular form of the individual and not fitting into a predefined patter.

Even a gestalt from a dream as impressive as it might be, is not to be copied. Rather, one’s own form which is hidden in that dream experience, its individually conceivable meaning and the symbolic contents discovered and interpreted by oneself are the guideline of exploration and the guarantee for an integrative adoption.

Role models

Critics claim that Jung uses role models coined by a traditional society. Of course you can find women who act rationally and like to dominate, and who could benefit from more softness. Or there are as well men who are compliable and sensitive, and who could need more assertiveness. At the days of Jung, role models were still clearly defined and frozen. But a lot has changed since then. Still, it is an objective of education, to bring up males as men and females as women. Even though each age designs and spreads its specific models for men and women, there is an overall trend to more ambiguity and multifold meanings. So it becomes more and more uncertain and unclear as to what kind of men and women the children should be educated.

This shows that every person has his /her genuine mixture of anima and animus. Some have more of this, some more of that. There are more masculine women than some men and vice versa. There is an idea directed towards the future that men as well as women leave all predefined role models behind and freely create their own form of animus and anima. Then these two poles serve as archetypes which can be interpreted from everyone in a genuine and unique way.

Archetypes and the Individual

We are talking about archetypes, central basic ideas of the collective unconsciousness. In reality, we see men and women in great diversity and infinite variety in mixing male and female aspects which are not opposed as poles but rather melt into a continuum. When forming a certain animus-anima-personality, genetically and epigenetically transferred predispositions contribute as well as embryonic experiences (gender wish of the parent, meeting a later vanished twin, interactive experiences of the mother during pregnancy etc.) and role models which are provided by upbringing and the cultural environment. 

Typically male – typically female, the ones coming from the mars, the other from the venus – these stereotypes come from multifold sources of the formation of identity, from hormones to the icons of the world of advertisement. The choice of male and female roles and models is constantly increasing and forming new contradictions. So it becomes more and more confusing for men and women as well to find their gender identity and to gain clarity in wich direction to go.

It was easier for Jung at his days as the classical attributions of roles (the rational man and the emotional woman) could be found in reality to a high extend. Society has changed and differentiated rapidly since then. Men who feel like women and women who feel like men get less and less excluded and discriminated. From prenatal psychology we know that that the male sexual organs start developing after the forming of female sexual organs has been inhibited. Brain research has taught us that male and female brain mainly differ by the average amount of testosterone and that the formation of manliness and femininity is strongly determined by the hormonal embryonic development. We hear from sociology that gender models are being constructed and deconstructed constantly. And we experience the diverse offers from the entertainment industry which show as how any archetype can be connected to any stereotype.

Would you like to be as male as Leonardo di Caprio or Silvio Berlusconi, or rather as Johnny Depp (in which movie please?) – no, become a real man finally! Would you like your femininity according to Mrs. Zeta-Jones or Mrs. Merkel or from a dreative mixture of both? Are you emancipated enough and do you know how to get your dream sex in any city? How would you like to live your relationship: following Allan & Barbara Pease (Why Men Don't Listen & Women Can't Read Maps), John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus) or even more Cordelia Fine (Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences)?

Beyond the clichés

On the systemic level of consciousness we have to give up all rigid attributions of roles. There is a counter model to every model, an antitype to any type, and a lot of variations in between. Everybody is a deviation of some concept.  In the 21st century, do we still need a dualistic idea or is it rather in the way when we want to better understand the other gender and find better ways of living together?

Each model has been used as a weapon somewhere on the battle fields of gender fights to back up one’s own point of view and devaluate the other person. I am like I am because I come from the Mars. You have to change because you have suppressed your anima …
We can use any model to rate and judge the other person instead of meeting him/her. By concepts, we will never improve our understanding not coming closer to our partner.

Meeting of Beings

What we need instead, is an attitude from which we meet humans, not only of different gender but primarily and mainly of different being. First we have to recognize and honor this uniqueness, and the particular gender is of secondary importance. So we have to get rid of all clichés around gender roles and models and look behind all these imprints which have been left by tradition and culture. And then we can meet as special beings by accepting us mutually in the way we are, in our very specific blend of animus- and anima-aspects, and that we move on in our inner enquiry to unravel even more of this uniqueness. 

We could use the animus anima-model as a guideline for this inner search and liberate it from all the images which have been pasted on this complex canvas. Eventually, we begin to realize our own specific collaboration of what once was part of the male archetype and of its former female counterpart and accompany its inner growth in an observing manner.

Thus we enter into a spiral of the cleansing of images, expectations and models about ourselves and of those we form about other people. The more we can accept our friends and colleagues in their depth and individuality the more we will succeed in doing so in relationship to ourselves. This spiral brings us closer and closer to what we are actually looking for in communication and encounter – the recognition from person to person.

The 6. Austrian Breathwork Days from February 22 – 24, 2013 have the topic "Yin and Yang in Man and Woman" with interesting workshops around this issue. Information at Verein ATMAN.

"Growing in relationship" - Seminar in Corfu (Greece) from June 30 -  July 6, 2013. Trainers: Wilfried and Madya Ehrmann
Information at www.wilfried-ehrmann.com