Consciousness

Consciousness in the Jungian tradition is not the metaphysical general question — what is it to be aware — but the technical term for the psychic field illuminated by ego-awareness, set against the larger field of the unconscious out of which it crystallizes and into which it perpetually threatens to dissolve.

The depth-psychological thesis is that consciousness is not a native fact of the psyche but a developmental achievement: a historical achievement across the species (traced by Neumann in [[neumann-origins-history-consciousness|The Origins and History of Consciousness]] and by Snell in [[snell-discovery-of-the-mind|The Discovery of the Mind]]) and a biographical achievement across the individual life. What consciousness differentiates out of — uroboric origin, plural Homeric self, matriarchal awareness — is not inferior to it but prior to it, and the fully realized adult consciousness is one that has integrated rather than repressed its own origins. See ego-consciousness for the specific form consciousness takes in the ego’s self-awareness.

Relationships

• ego-consciousness
• unconscious
• neumann-origins-history-consciousness