Archetype

What Distinguishes an Archetype from an Archetypal Image?

Jung drew a sharp line between the archetype an sich, the unknowable nucleus, and the archetypal image that appears in consciousness. As Samuels clarifies, the archetype itself is “an essentially unconscious entity” that functions as “a purely formal, skeletal concept, which is then fleshed out with imagery, ideas, motifs” (Samuels, 1985). The representations are not inherited; only the forms are. Jung made this explicit:

“The archetype in itself is empty and purely formal, nothing but a facultas praeformandi, a possibility of representation which is given a priori. The representations themselves are not inherited, only the forms, and in that respect they correspond in every way to the instincts, which are also determined in form only.” — C.G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (CW 9i)

What enters awareness, the mother image, the hero motif, the mandala, is always an archetypal image, never the archetype itself. Stein describes this as a spectrum: instinct at one end, archetype at the other, with psychic experience occurring in the middle where the two contaminate each other (Stein, 1998).

Why Does the Distinction Matter Clinically?

Archetypal images carry tremendous affective charge. Samuels notes that when archetypal layers activate, they “produce images and situations which have a tremendous impact on the individual, gripping him and holding him in a grip” (Samuels, 1985). The therapeutic task is not to interpret the archetype intellectually but to divest the image of its autonomous power through personal integration — what Samuels calls “a changing of names” that renders the numinous intelligible on the personal level.

How Did Hillman Revise the Concept?

Hillman moved the center of gravity from the hidden structure to the visible image. In his formulation, “archetypal” functions as a valuative adjective rather than a pointer to a metaphysical entity: any image becomes archetypal when it resonates with “collective, trans-empirical importance” (Hillman, 1983). This freed archetypal psychology from speculation about irrepresentable forms and anchored it in the phenomenal life of images themselves.

Sources Cited

1. Hillman, James (1983). Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account. Spring Publications.
2. Jung, C.G. (1969). The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (CW 9i). Princeton University Press.
3. Jung, C.G. (1960). The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche (CW 8). Princeton University Press.
4. Samuels, Andrew (1985). Jung and the Post-Jungians. Routledge.
5. Stein, Murray (1998). Jung’s Map of the Soul. Open Court.