The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Psychologists like Sigmund Freud considered the unconscious to be a solely personal aspect of the psyche. The personal unconscious is the space in the psyche where repressed memories, desires, and experiences are stored. However, Jung argues that there is a deeper layer to the unconscious—a collective unconscious—where universal concepts live in all individuals. 

While the personal unconscious emphasizes feelings related to memories, the collective unconscious deals in archetypes, which are images, symbols, and patterns of thought that manifest across cultures and time periods. Jung points to repeated imagery in both religious iconography and the mythology of Indigenous cultures as examples of the pervasive nature of archetypes. These examples show that myths do not arise from individual creativity; rather, they find their root in the soul or the deepest level of the collective psyche. In this way, the collective unconscious serves as the source for many of humanity’s stories.

Christian myths—like an immortal God—serve as another example of how the iconography of archetypes transcends culture. However, Jung says that the prevalence of the Christian faith has halted the exploration of the unconscious by manifesting the psychic experience and providing an oversimplified explanation of it. He writes: “Why have we not long since discovered the unconscious and raised up its treasure-house of eternal images? Simply because we had a religious formula for everything psychic—and one that is far more beautiful and comprehensive than immediate experience” (7).