One’s sexual identity occurs as one becomes aware of desire (anima/animus). Syzygy (pair of gods) Is not just the anima/animus alone but always in tandem with the hermaphrodite consciousness. The Anima is the soul, and the animus is the spirit and Ego. We live in the state of the unconscious in the darkness of Cupid’s palace, with the psyche attempting to become conscious of Cupid`s ascent to Olympus. The anima/animus is the bridge between the unconscious/conscious of the self, linking the ego to the self (non-directed) world. The anima in retreat requests death and disguise, allowed to be in a relationship with the unconscious demands of the ego. The ego must settle on the bridge and cross over to the self, where the anima links the two. The spirited anima set securely creates a life invested in loyalty and responsibility to children against guilty sexual fire and spiritual aliveness m, which comes with feelings of unbiased and ungendered.
The wounded feminine
The healthy feminine supports the growth and development of the child in a holding, containing environment. The unloved, unnurtured part develops as an “orphan” wound, where you must give up the mother or love the part of your soul by leaving. In the gap between the ego and the self, we must learn how to mourn and grieve the illusions and imaginary mother ideal, where we can fall apart and rebirth. Within the gap and the shadow, we can access the dark impulses of desire, sexual expression, and satisfaction. Transformation is through the father, the masculine, as the anima pushes the shadow aspects under the ego’s nose (albedo stage in alchemy). The reduction of fear and aggression frees up energy for other activities with the ability to hold the “empty space”. The ego and shadow become more integrated, with fewer projections and a more masculine world, bringing the crossed bridge to reality in social and relational form. The untamed and unintegrated anima sees women as fantasy sexual objects, wasting life and opportunities with no ability to be grateful. Unable to know the self in isolation needs to be shared and constellated via group participation and gathering persons.
Anima in analysis
The process of dissolving to one’s resistance to the anima integration, the life-bringing energy, without breakdown, breakthrough can’t happen. Being able to live one’s life without the need to be liked. The concept of holding onto oneself in a hostile environment and being at the mercy of the inner world, consecration with one`s inner serpent. The images of the devouring mother are constellated with receptivity and psychic pregnancy (new birth). If we are longing for happiness, meaning, and self-activation, freedom will be given to us. We develop masculine ideals of separation and autonomy as we slay the inner serpent with linear thinking, rules orientated with an objective viewpoint. If we are anima possessed, we are at the mercy of our emotions and illusions, where two blind men come together to find reason and order. A lack of anima in men and animus in women develops as a growing frustration manifesting as anger and aggression, inward or outward. Both the psyche and anima need to wake up and grow up at the suffering of the burning Eros and the conscious pursuit of Eros. Life is unsatisfactory without any initiation and psychological trials as we continue to delude ourselves via illusions and materialism. The human flesh remains vulnerable to the flooding of effect and unconscious emotions, caught in the world of unconscious images and urges.
The anima contains imagery of the female, what it means to be feminine, containing both the idolised and feared “power”. The ego owns sexual passion with a need to project their desires and fears onto the woman, their appearances, and their bodies.
- Sex– anatomical structure, definite and inflexible gender identity due to cultural constraints
- Archetype– A coherent image in an emotionally aroused state, visually enveloped. The set of stimuli may trigger the image related to a situation consecrated with complex trauma.
With the development of object constancy, one has a subjective organised psyche, with the ability to keep in mind the image of self or other, continuous and differentiated, and ambivalent(good and bad images ). Unity is achieved via conscious dialectics, with awareness, insight, and self-reflexivity or through the accumulation of transcendental experiences and moving beyond the limits of the ego. Instead of reflections, the ego consists of opinions based on subjective truths, unable to hake or move the person if they are riddled with a negative anima/animus. Self-conscious emotions are envy, shame, pride, embarrassment, and guilt. Envy manifests as a malignant form of aggression, with the desire to destroy what is good in the other rather than possess it for oneself. If one could self-soothe the emptiness, they would be no need to be hateful or jealous.
Five stages of anima development
- The anima is perceived as an alien outsider, contained in the self as a maternal wound, mistrust, fear, and rage.
- Animas, the patriarchal father (the king, god), sacrificed via shame, envy, and pride.
- Anima as a youth (Hero, lover) and the surrender of the self, initiation with love
- Animas as the partner within, the recovery of the self with anger, aggression, gratitude, and self-interest
- Animas as androgynous (full range of human polarities) integrated into the self, primary emotions of gratitude, satisfaction, and meaning, where everything is available.
A powerful idealised or devalued mother complex highly charged and dangerously focused on abandonment, depression, fear, envy, and separation anxiety, with a desire for merger and reunion with the uroboric womb. The mother must provide good enough nurturing and mirroring to enable differentiation between the imagined and true world. To be able to assimilate some reality of life and the world by relating to her healthily. If the patriarchal complex does not link the good and bad aspects of the other, one remains empty, divided with an underlying enraged mother complex. The continuous struggle between good and bad, opposites and intrapsychic conflicts need to be defused in therapy. Unable to distinguish between the appearance of self and others, consumed as extensions of themselves. They need to develop personal responsibility, their own objective reality, full emotional life, and be decisive with their own expectations brought into their experience. The therapist can offer hope without gratifying, patronising, and idealising without becoming inflated.
The therapist may be seen as a dominant father figure, who is demanding and self-serving, where the client may react with criticism, distancing, and resistance.
The lover and hero archetype desire to know the other, idealise, relate, and love. They fear reliving the abandonment of love from the idealised mother, embracing and acknowledging the limitations of their sexual identity. They need to confront the mother complex and integrate their rage, grief, and loss freeing themselves from the devouring other. With the anima as a partner, all emotions are engaged, experienced, and integrated with archetypes constellated and reflected in one’s consciousness, behaviour, and attitudes. Three levels of relationships are necessary for transformation.
- Real relationship and kinship libido
- Transference relationship
- Therapeutic relationship
They create the first five stages of the development continuum
- Silence
- Received knowledge
- Subjective knowledge
- Procedural knowledge
- Constructional knowledge
Schwartz-Salant, N., 1992. Gender And Soul In Psychotherapy. 1st ed. Wilmette, Ill.: Chiron Publ.
