Seba.Health

Concept · Seba Knowledge Graph

Animus Possession

Animus Possession

Animus possession is carl-jung‘s name for the state in which the ego has become identified with the animus rather than differentiated from him. Its characteristic symptom is opinion mistaken for judgment — the speaking of inherited certainties in the voice of the personal I.

Jung’s description in jung-aion: “Whereas the cloud of ‘animosity’ surrounding the man is composed chiefly of sentimentality and resentment, in woman it expresses itself in the form of opinionated views, interpretations, insinuations, and misconstructions, which all have the purpose (sometimes attained) of severing the relation between two human beings. The woman… as the daughter who alone understands her father (that is, is eternally right in everything), she is translated to the land of sheep, where she is put to graze by the shepherd of her soul, the animus” (Jung 1951, §32).

In jung-two-essays-analytical the mechanism is described more precisely: the animus speaks in “sayings and opinions scraped together more or less unconsciously from childhood on, and compressed into a canon of average truth, justice, and reasonableness, a compendium of preconceptions which, whenever a conscious and competent judgment is lacking… instantly obliges with an opinion” (Jung 1953). The animus-possessed woman is not wrong in the ordinary sense — her statements may be common sense, even “true” — but she has not arrived at them herself. The judgment is rehearsed rather than lived.

esther-harding renders the phenomenology: “To those who come in contact with a woman in this phase of development, she seems extremely dogmatic. It is useless to argue with her, although she often delights in argument, for always with her the conclusion is already reached before the argument begins. As a matter of fact, she never argues in order to reach the truth, but only in order to convince her opponent of her view of the matter. For her the ego, the sense of a personal I, has become identified with the promptings which come from the animus” (Harding 1970, p. 72).

The integration of the animus requires the woman to distinguish between what she actually judges and what an internalized father, teacher, or cultural voice judges through her. marion-woodman extends the analysis into conscious femininity: the patriarchal animus is dissolved not by rebellion but by the woman’s grounded embodiment, which restores to her the authority the animus had usurped.

Relationships

Primary sources