ANIMA & ANIMUS: integrating the inner woman and man

[@leilahannah4806]

I don't think I could have asked to find a better podcast. Listen to them on every drive to work and am always utterly engrossed. And they always leave me wanting to research and learn more and more

[@thisjungianlife]

Thank you for your generous endorsement! ~ Joseph

[@harpforGod]

Thanks for continuing to share your insights. I thought this episode really showed how well the 3 of you work together in this podcast, even when you have different opinions on a topic

[@thisjungianlife]

The love we bear for each other carries us through.

[@Mataharifilms]

Around 40 mins Joseph makes his beautiful pitch for the potential evolution of the anima relationship as it draws down into a deep religious connection to Soul. All I can say from personal experience is that there are wonderful blessings from the experiences of projections, but in this climate such experiences are potentially so smothered in shame and guilt as to cancel out the potential nourishment. And if one does project the anima a number of times, handling the turbulence within a good marriage and - maybe even more - within one’s own psyche, is a massively testing project in self-awareness and sensitivity.

[@thisjungianlife]

Thank you for listening so deeply ~ Joseph

[@10000diamondeyes]

Gosh I'd love to hear more about what anima maturation and development looks like in a practical everyday way in the mans life - psychologically, emotionally, attitudinally, behaviorally, etc. What tools can help the process? Joseph mentioned having his clients tell themselves "I am a man AND a woman." Thank you Joseph, Deb, and Lisa.

[@CaroleMora22]

Thank you so much for sharing your stimulating discussions. I'm also reminded that the Anima can be thought of as "binding" and the Animus as "cutting", qualities that add to the sense of these figures as archetypal images. I agree that it is important to always allow the possible meanings to circulate in various ways, and not to be too fixated on the notion of gender, which can be reductionist.

[@risanaomi4958]

I was confused and disappointed with Debs views in this episode. The anima and animus theory is absolutely an accurate psychological process I can say from my own experience journeying deep into the animus and also working with my husband and his anima. I felt Deb came from a really reactive and not to-the-point place that was obviously emotionally reactive and filled with some of her own biases and misunderstandings, and she also straight up misquoted Jung completely in the beginning, pretty much setting up her attitude towards the theory as a strawman position in the first place. I found it quite surprising, and found relief as every time Joseph responded mirroring my exact thoughts... Basically Debs thoughts on the theory weren’t actually on the theory itself but her projections on it from a resistant place, at least that seemed to be the case to me. Maybe more would’ve been explored productively in the episode if this blind spot wasn’t intercepting with the basic elements so much.

[@10000diamondeyes]

Very well put. I agree.

[@crushinnihilism]

The man stayed calm and reasonable and the woman got emotional about the sexes being opposites...proving that they are.

[@nomadman5288]

@@crushinnihilism It was rather ironic.

[@LostSoulAscension]

Wow, I really think everyone needs to look at how strong the bias is here in the initial comment and the comments that resulted below. Look at how quick the comments are to put Deborah into a feminine box and allow their views to project onto Deborah the same way they're accusing her of, and yet miss the very real facts that this is all a debatable subject. There is no "absolutely accurate" way to depict these things. It's moreso, jists, hints and intuitive suggestions. Throughout this discussion, they've talked about how the individual basis is where all these variations of how we interpret the Anima and Animus exists, just goes to show how truly complex this subject is and it should be no question to respect Deborah's attempt to challenge our depictions and attempts to label so quickly someone's expressed personality as an obvious expression of Anima and Animus. If you really listen to Deborah carefully, it's actually not her lamenting or being an emotional woman as some here poorly suggested. Deborah is calling us to not jump so quick to label or identify the Anima and Animus, it's really as simple as that, and I think it's a fair approach on her part because any intellectual should make attempts to be aware of their own bias and to be impartial to our views when trying to make an attempt to understand someone else. We want to allow some space to breathe conceptually and intellectually, which allows us to really better understand someone psychoanalytically. I think the people in this comments section are not giving Deborah's attempts here enough credit, even Lisa is affirming here at 29:45 The contrasexual qualities can be subject to different imageries that aren't necessarily anima or animus, or some unconscious realm always, it can be much more straightforward and simple than that. And Deborah's really clarifying her view here at 30:35 It's quite deplorable to overlook someone with her experience. You all are here to learn from all 3 of them.

[@magdagordon5026]

@@LostSoulAscension but Anima and Animus are labels! and they are meant to be opposite, they are not open to interpretation

[@Gorboduc]

Nice division of labor here: Joseph to explain the concept and Deb to act as a case study.

[@mfjung31]

lol

[@guavacupcake]

Thanks, Joseph for sticking with it. The conversation really triggered the other two analysts. But, I think Joseph was right. Why is being feminine considered bad? Why is being masculine considered better? I hope you guys hold another podcast on this topic. The argument above was heavily ignored

[@lambchop6278]

I tend to agree.

[@FartingtoExtinction-gx8sm]

Masculine isnt thought of as better. It is the part of us that forces us to assert ourselves or have courage to explore new places/ thoughts/ ideas. The masculine qualities come from primitive experience living through the unconscious. Men usually would explore and face the danger.

[@byrongaist699]

"Unless the Mundus Imaginalis has really blossomed, and they can see the figures dancing within" - what a wonderful turn of phrase! Thank you, fantastic discussion of a topic which can seem elusive, fuzzy and nebulous at times.

[@don-eb3fj]

Dissappointing how quickly this devolved into gender-identity ideology, apparently Jung is only Jungian when he affirms a particular perspective. Jung's entire model is necessarily dependent on the expression of functions as archetypes as integral components of a holistic self, and dismissing the role of any archetype negates the entire system, regardless of whether or not Jung was correct. The fact that his model is distilled from the proto-psychology of our entire common history shouldn't be casually dismissed in favor of a position that validates a current very unhealthy set of values- no, this does not come from a fundamentalist position, I am a proud heretic who dismissed that particular mythology long ago in favor of reason and stand under no political banner but the black of mourning. Biology and healthy psychological development require specific conditions to be met, and when they are not chaos ensues, including rampant anima/animus possession expressed in a wide spectrum of unhealthy behaviors. It is not my purpose to demonize anyone, also not to normalize behaviors that stem from destructive cycles within our societies, but only to acknowledge the pain and confusion so widespread in our profoundly sick modern society. Jung gave us a tool to examine and potentially heal our early attachment traumas, and we would be better served not using it to validate a decidedly psychotic and Masculine Leninist political position that abuses all while wearing a Feminine disguise. I agree that the Feminine has been dishonored and denied, for thousands of years, and continues to be- She has resorted to unhealthy adaptations of Masculine qualities to survive and we suffer for the imbalance, and this needs to be addressed honestly, NOW! I did hear the entire presentation and give credit for some worthwhile insights, but I had hoped for a thorough discussion of Jungian concepts to help me with my process of exploring my own personal gnosis of my recently-introduced Anima- we need an honest do-over of this content, and the last several thousand years of unchecked Masculine energy in our societal evolution. I hope you three will give this another try.

[@AdrianCourage]

It was fascinating to hear a man and two women discuss this. For me, it is natural for the man to reject his anima (he is reluctant to embrace his emotional side as that means abandoning rationality) and the woman to reject her animus (she does not wish to compromise her right to be guided by emotion). This is why this is a difficult discussion to have with many women, because psychology (the science of the human psyche) is inherently rational by its nature. The feminist argument that gender roles are social constructs is therefore a rejection of the animus, a refusal to think rationally. Being upset about the concept of an anima and animus being present in all of us is an emotional reaction not founded in logic. But I would say that, because I'm a man...

[@thisjungianlife]

As it was in Jung's time, there is an inherent struggle to deeply experience that each of us is a man and a woman. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. ~ Joseph

[@AdrianCourage]

Thanks for your reply, I recently had a very profound experience of integrating my anima. I cried two or three times a day, a conversation or hearing a song would set me off. I wonder how common this is. I wonder what the equivalent process would look like for a woman, but I'm not really not sure.

[@thisjungianlife]

@@AdrianCourage A beautiful and perhaps alarming experience - waking the soul changes everything.

[@patrickkilly1990]

I remember watching this episode about a year ago and walking away more confused than I was beforehand and the Aion description didn't help much (the projection making factor?) but now I came back and took much away you guys are all masters in your own right.

[@THOMAS-DEMONS]

Hyperfocusing on a framework or and architypal designation such as man or woman exemplifies the concept of the anima/eros in and of itself. its a homeomorphic concept, an n-type manifold based on Euclidean geometry. attempting to explain a superimposable two dimensional concept such as this one from a three dimensional perspective is complex. chirality and mirror neurons, i recommend beginning your study there 'folie a deux' (a madness shared by two).

[@TeamFriendship]

I am so glad to find any dialogue on the animus and anima, and I was especially excited to see two women comment on it, since I find animus especially interesting. How disappointing to be met with this complete surface level dismissal of a topic people clearly asked for and wanted. More women go to therapy than men, and Jung is one of the most popular thinkers in psychology, you don’t think some women would have loved to hear an open minded woman who doesn’t have a chip on her shoulder about taking credit for her inner masculine’s characteristic and giving it to her…ego? I mean, you could sense when the host was really opening up about her animus dream, there was something special about it. I find when people discuss anima animus they often light up in a way, revealing how the unconscious is coming online. Compared to the shadow or other non human archetypes, it can be such a fascinating and moving image. My mom keeps an image of my dad on a horse shirtless, one time when I tried to take it she reacted incredibly strongly for her. Clearly it was part of an inner image that was very important to her, and she was the feminist to my dads more old school approach. So yeah what I heard on this is what I hear in LA all the time, “men should get in touch with their feminine, but every trait I have is feminine and good, and I don’t need to get in touch with anything, much less your stereotypes.” Then WHY do the video? These concepts are saving people’s lives, you almost sound like you think you know more than Jung and dismiss him and all male analysts of the time on not favoring female psychology initially, I find that to be such a strange stance for a Jungian podcast. Especially since psychology has favored women ever since. Like a Michael Jackson memorial where the back up singer said she wished he had talked more about Janet, such a strange take, and yea, seemingly suggestive of an animus possession where your opinions are full of fervor without any justification. Just “I don’t want to see this this or this.” If you completely deny your inner masculine, it takes over and you end up steamrolling a conversation, dismissing the validity of the topic itself, putting everyone else in the room on eggshells. All because you don’t want to give any characteristic the credit of being more masculine or feminine, as others have said, sure I’ll expect that in a 24 hour news show, but this is for people who want to learn about this life affirming and even gender bending and loving concept. Please stop commenting on things that you’re not interested in in an attempt to keep everything utterly inoffensive. I think the last straw for me, and something that is actually offensive, is when the Jungian advocate very politely, and I mean this guy is showing so much more grace and respect to the topic and his cohosts, when he simply asked if he could explain the anima, since it’s the topic, and none of you bothered to even acknowledge the validity of it as an idea, you both laugh out loud, as though you’re humoring him. And he’s the only one taking it seriously. Hey ladies, guys are half of the country! We commit suicide at many times the rate! Maybe don’t laugh at the concept that is saving their lives! I’ll be looking into older works from female analysts for animus information, you two should honestly be ashamed of yourselves for how you treated this subject and seemed abjectly anti-masculinity in your analysis. No wonder Jung had some distrust for the people who would practice in his name, or at least others have commented on it. At least revere the person who started your damn profession a little bit!

[@mikerizzyraw]

Jung stated loudly the negative and positive aspects of the anima and animus. Men don’t raise children and being unnaturally soft and nurturing will get them maimed and mangled by reptiles, physically and psychologically. He stated it very well in aion. I heard jungians say it’s very hard to understand the concepts of the anima and animus without proper shadow work. I hear a little feminism creeping in.

[@Mataharifilms]

mike rizzy Some men do raise kids

[@Mataharifilms]

jay I’m not sure we have the same understanding of Feminism. My perspective on Feminism comes from being brought up by a working single mum, from raising our daughters with my wife. If you’re talking about women who have rage against men, and I do not deny they exist, I would simply say: hate is no part of Feminism.

[@ryanw3874]

@@Mataharifilms Most ideologies can become a vehicle for people's bitterness and insecurity, but some more easily than others. Feminism can very naturally and easily lead to chauvinism. If you don't see that you aren't looking very closely.

[@risanaomi4958]

I also agree that an imbalanced feminist approach (which, ironically, seems to often stem from an animus problem!) took over Aden especially in this episode. I found it very disappointing and frustrating as it felt like half the episode was centred around just ignoring the basic outline of the theory itself. I found myself a little shocked that this was a trained analyst, honestly…

[@risanaomi4958]

@@ryanw3874 and following that, much of todays feminism has been overridden by the animus, which destroys femininity. Much of the modern feminists I know are deeply dissociated from their own nature and mentally polarised to such an intense degree and suffer greatly from animus projection. Their endless obsession with social critique of “patriarchy” seems to stem from their crying femininity that is really upset with their own negative animus running the show. In the long run this makes these women unable to relate with others - especially men - which again points to how far out of themselves they are, as true feminine wisdom is deeply intuitive and sensitive to relational intelligence.

[@saraangeli1641]

So interesting and so True. My animus now Is a Bruce Lee , a guru who Is phisically Exotic and spiritually wise, like a bridge to metaphisics.

[@LostSoulAscension]

15:57 I genuinely agree with Deborah here. I understand Joseph's explanation of the context and the times that the way to interpret things from such an imaginary place was once accepted, yet it doesn't reject that the possibility of Deborah's idea that this commanding energy she experiences is indeed not necessarily the Animus. We can see plainly that both Men and Women become Father's and Mother's. The mother isn't necessarily always this yielding figure, and even more so in the development of women, we see a change from the male partner as her focus of love to the child. There is a deeper commanding force here that the female takes when shifting her priorities from being a lover to a mother, and it's deeply feminine in a way. I think there's a lot to unpack here about this genderification of the inner self. But, nonetheless, it's a fair place to start with such depictions and move from there toward a more accurate articulation of the concepts. We might find variations that force us to question the nature of our precepts in this subject.

[@mfjung31]

I had Anima possesion myself, and I integrated it. Just because Jung refers to it as a soul doesn't mean it's not devistaing!

[@wildbodies8501]

What are the symptoms of being possessed by the anima and how did you manage to integrate it?

[@kirstinstrand6292]

@@wildbodies8501 I know you are not asking me, yet I think we integrate these qualities out of our Shadow. Acceptance of both good and "bad" qualities of who/what we carry unconsciously.

[@wildbodies8501]

@@kirstinstrand6292 the anima/animus are deeper than the shadow.

[@grapeypear4558]

Hello there! Thank you for all three of your perspectives. The episode was quite helpful in my understanding of the anima and animus, but it did sound like you all had more to say! Perhaps you could do a second part on this subject?

[@thisjungianlife]

Great idea!

[@anupama777]

I am totally with Deb on this. As a 45 year old woman in analysis for several years and reading Jung and training as analyst, I have been grappling with this. Personally for me the concept of anima animus has not been useful at all. In fact it led to me othering what is readily available to me from a very young age, which is a part of me, my self, my ego function - that which would be considered the positive pole of the animus. I completely agree that the problem here is the concretisation of a group of elements into a typically one of the 2 typically gendered term and giving it a sense of otherness from your biological gender…..and that is not really atleast how I have experienced myself at all. And the negative animus figure that shows up in my dreams, in fact after years of analysis I know has nothing to do with difficult male figures in my life. In fact all the male figures in my life have actually mostly for a lack of better word positive and yet I have dreams of what an Analyst might refer to as a negative animus. So, I guess what I am trying to say is this kind of concretisation of shadow otherness into a gendered other is not a concept I can fully get on board with, I hear you Deb!

[@harlequin.intuitive]

now im gonna have nightmares about unicorns

[@LowenKM]

Fascinating discussion, and yep, definitely begs a follow-up! IMHO Deb seems to echo a recurring theme in many feminist circles, which chafes at the very possibility of any sorta hard-wired psychological gender differences, to reflect the more obvious physical ones. But of course neurobiology is now showing that even much of our brain chemistry is 'gender-based'.

[@AP-th8ry]

Thank you for this podcast. I constantly struggle with my inner masculine dimension, it actually gives me severe headaches. My animus is nearly non-existing, I cannot manage my life from time to time. Cannot organize myself, make a decision or things of that nature.

[@clareryan3843]

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[@ryanw3874]

Well, I heard one Jungian in this podcast. The other two (particularly Deb) sound like far left ideologues. I'm sure their intentions are good, but to reject the gender binary seems like objecting to the very foundations of symbolic structure. Male and female is as fundamental to the universe as the law of polarity. This does not mean the masculine and feminine domains are sharply divided or that men and women fall into these categories neatly, but that the categories of Masc and Fem are legitimate and true. To destroy this conceptual binary is almost an act of nihilism, of destroying truth and meaning.

[@flyinggirl4478]

The women sound like "far left ideologues"?? Because they object to men and women being defined as opposites? Different yes, but opposites? That's a patriarchal definition of norm vs the other. Your inner patriarch is showing, so of course you see it in political terms, because it IS about the use of power in the world.

[@asdfgzxcvb7680]

Jung created this concept within a culture more patriarchal than now, so it’s fair to judge his work on the animus as being affected by this. The animus might have been symbolically empowering to women in his day but now the symbolism (taken literally here by many commenters as concrete gender roles) is outdated. There were many precolonial cultures that had assertive women because their gender identities were not mixed up in Abrahamic mythology which evolved to be dualistic and totalising. Not due to animus integration but because there are assertive, dominant, queen archetypes like Inanna. It isn’t nihilistic to critique the patriarchalism seeping out of this construct, which largely ignores non-cis people. Tbh if there was more analysis built around lgbtq+ and non-Western populations, maybe there wouldn’t be such a divisive reaction to the subject.

[@Jazzy_Boop]

I don’t think either perspectives are wrong. The masculine and feminine each have two polarities, an active and passive. For the masculine, the sadist and the weakling and for the feminine, the devouring mother and the virgin. The synthesis of the polarities creates a third more mature version. I think what we’re seeing is the synthesis of the masculine and feminine archetypes to create a third non binary archetype. This creates a more integrated whole. I’d be interested in them tackling this topic again.

[@crushinnihilism]

​@@flyinggirl4478every culture does this. We are opposites. Its basic biology

[@samhandwich3965]

Frankly I felt like I kind of wasted my time watching this. I was hoping for clarity and got confusion. Even in the final half of the podcast, the conversation was really dominated by women and their problems w/ theoretical model. I'm seeking access to the vine through eros, but you don't hear me bitching about not being able to do it through my ego. As somehow make me less of a man, because I might need a woman to show me the way. Not to mention the irony of my poorly integrated anima rearing its ugly head in this rant is not lost on me, but I did click on this because it's titled anima/animus integration, and I was hoping for a perspective from professionals. 😂 It was nice to have about 5 or 10 minutes to negative anima, which is clearly my problem. Thank you Joseph!

[@gwendolynmurphy9563]

Love Joseph's list of positive mother qualities! I'll start cultivating these!

[@jeromeelcham1447]

Debra, I think you are talking more about qualities of the self. Great conversation

[@adamswierczynski]

This is where I have to comment that coniunctio has to mean the combining of opposites in terms of self and other as well. Just like Deb says where a female analysand and strong female therapist could have had a dream representation of a strong woman instead of a strong man would have to acknowledge that transference can occur in immaterial ways. It may have been that because Jung's psychological space was preoccupied with these artful renditions of alchemical processes that his analysand's internal space moved to match. Therapy is a very parental process, and as such, the analysand in the child's position is forced to move closer to and adopt the perspectives of the therapist in the parent position through countertransference. If Jung was obsessed with Hieroglyphic mystical symbology, who is to say that his analysands' dreams would not also reflect specific symbols which would give Jung insight into their internal world through therapeutic transference?

[@LostSoulAscension]

35:55 Lisa hits the nail on the head here of how the coming together of the sexes is how we were created, and so it's no wonder why this archetypal image does resurface in many different forms throughout our lives. Very well put! My initial reaction to this is to also tie in the distinction between Freud and Jung. There might be a deeper layer here, if we were to follow the trend of Jung moving away from the literal sexualization of analyzing human psychology into a more symbolic layer, might there be another step beyond this that suggests the genderized images of the symbols of the psyche might not be a sexual nature. There's life/death which have gender-able aspects or depictions, but if we can look at the various other polarities without their genderifications, it might cause us to see them in a new light. The absence of, reveals the presence of in what could have potentially been unconscious when there was a pre-existing tendency to genderify our perspectives and analyses.

[@LostSoulAscension]

Also maybe, the step beyond the symbolic IS the literal, and I think Deborah mentioned something about the literal at 27:38 and 28:28 It might not be some Animus possessed woman, it's just their inner bitch. Just coming back to seeing it for what it is can be an important step to not get lost in the symbology of things that we lose the real tangible sense of how it's relating to the individual, or our ability to understand things. Which I think we are instinctually aware of on an intellectual level. A man in a woman's dream is not always the Animus, we should be able to manage that in our analysis without being so attached to this Anima/Animus concept. And to Joseph's point that the Animus can take on many forms, which further iterates Deborah's point to not jump to conclusions. 36:26 Lisa talks about the coming together of the sexes as being something of life. Yet, I got this from Jiddu Krishnamurti, there is something very dead about the conceptualization of things. Thoughts are based on memories which are always old, there's a deadness to thoughts, memories, concepts, and ideas.

[@LostSoulAscension]

33:20 Joseph brings up an interesting point about the underlying layers having archetypal cores that have a gender. But I think we can see here that dealing with those archetypal cores. If you remain archetypal, you are wrestling with the collective nature of that archetype, whereas if you see it for what it is, it shrinks it away from being "I hate all men because this is how men treated me." to "there were some specifically ill-developed men in my life that treated me this way." Alters the relationship with the archetypal image, shrinks it in a way that allows for a new archetypal formulation, and there is an arguably deeper reality that is so so human. If both women and men have these male and female archetypes and it boils down to this is all humans, you realize there is a deeper wisdom to seeing beyond the archetypal image in a more macro view. The buddha as the enlightened one recognizes the buddha in everyone, and sees everything is exactly where it's supposed to be as such. The nirvana world is the same as the regular world. The genderized world is the same as the non-genderized world. There's utility to what Deborah's saying and even more than that in what she's suggesting. In many ways, she needed to serve as the arbiter of resisting the tendency to genderify things for the sake of this discussion in order for all of us to have a more balanced discussion on this topic. 42:10 a big challenge I'd have here is how you can see this depiction in the light of both a man and a woman. The father and mother. And it's worth mentioning creativity is not necessarily a feminine anima-like thing for a man to do. Art has a nature of a desire to capture, which can be seen as very masculine. But I agree with Deborah here. 43:22 what about Josephs anecdotal account of the men client's development from a Monroe chasing to a different partner being different, how does that example have a genderification to it?

[@LostSoulAscension]

Ok, just to unpack Josephs example of the men client's partner preferences from being based solely on looks toward more mature partner traits. I'm going to assume he was suggesting the men's anima had matured from a young beautiful girl into a mother-like figure, and that's how the men's taste in women had developed. But, could it also be reframed as the men simply were getting older, they learned some real life lessons that just because a woman is beautiful doesn't mean she's good for him. Maybe realizing sex wasn't as good with a partner if there was no compatibility even if they were beautiful. Any number of practical reasons as to how the wisdom of a man develops this understanding that "looks" isn't everything. We can be fair-minded to say, there's likely some gender involvement, but that's not ALL there is to the developmental stirring that is occurring within someone. There's definitely aspects to an individuals growth beyond what I'm covering here that also have further gender implications but also simple and straight forward practical truths and life experiences. But again, I think all Deborah is trying to say is that it's ridiculous for us to try to jump to classifying a gender to all these developmental processes when it's not really necessarily needed. It's like you have a hammer as a tool and all you see are nails for hitting the hammer with. She's not rejecting the idea that Joseph is presenting, but I think the discussion has gone a little off the rails out of failure to recognize that Deborah simply made a highly valid point. The discussion didn't get lost, it was an intellectual achievement for all of you to get to the point of dynamism vs anima/animus. But we might need another podcast episode on this topic haha! I'd like to hear a more sterile episode on the subject for the sake of the concepts themselves, but yeah even saying a man is bitchy, why not childish or weak? We have weak men and weak women, which is different than a man who acts like a woman or a woman that is really truly weak as a woman.

[@LostSoulAscension]

We can even think of the image of a bitch as the female dog, but nonetheless, is not a male dog to bark just as much if not more?

[@LostSoulAscension]

The de-genderizing of certain aspects has a very anima-like quality if the masculine world we all grew up in was born from words, books, education, a world that women never knew til much later. This concept of the bitch, did it come from men? And if so, is it possible that the denouncing of this allows a macro-anima like concept to emerge? And from there, the dissolution of Anima/Animus, the reclaiming of this conceptual territory being the very end of itself, reseat's some unconscious aspects, but maybe that's what we're forced to wrestle with within in order to face something that the pre-existing concepts were covering and not allowing us to fully face, and that arguably is the limitation of any conceptualization of anything. This was a great talk, thanks for reading any of my comments, what a trip this was. I'll try to stop here. Thanks.

[@moons_mind]

It's unfortunate that much of the conversation revolved around "gender stereotypes"... Came across as more of personal insecurities rather than Jungian analysis. Joseph, do you have your own channel? Would love to hear more of your thoughts.

[@AdrianCourage]

I think Joseph should keep quiet on this one. 😃

[@thisjungianlife]

Jung supported everyone to bring the personal into each conversation, in fact he said any attempts to suppress it simply reinforced a strangling persona. . He abhorred the analyst as a blank slate or a talking head.

[@thisjungianlife]

@@AdrianCourage Keeping quiet is not my thing LOL

[@SusanaXpeace2u]

@@MrAhuraMazda so, can I ask you with your decades of insight, what would you make of a woman a single parent, dreaming she had a penis. She felt annoyed in the dream, like, oh no, another problem to sort out, but feeling that she had a horrible secret now too. In her real life she had a lot of responsibility. For children between 6 and 9 years old but also trying to establish a career and keep the house reasonably well stocked and keeping up with the laundry and being back in time to pick up children. The constant fear of not needing to be in two places at once was her biggest fear at the time of the dream.

[@moons_mind]

@@thisjungianlife What was the purpose of randomly hearting my comment a year later and deleting the original response?

[@nomadman5288]

To understand the masculine/feminine framework, you have to go back in time to earliest humans and the many thousands of years of observation of human behavior. You also have to start with the knowledge that this wasn't something we just invented or came up with on a whim, but rather it was something that was part of a distillation process and one of a psychological evolution, coinciding with the biological and social, as well as our intellectual evolution. There is, of course, going to be modes of being that are not exclusive to one gender/sex or the other because we are more alike than different, however the differences are quite striking and at the extremes they really become noticable. Think of how the male and female DNA is extremely similar, but for a relatively small number of code in various places. Likewise, our psyches, although more similar than different. However, those seeminly minute differences in code make for quite a large difference in form and function of the genders/sexes. From that perspective, it's not so hard to see why certain traits are seen as more masculine/feminine or "more male" and "more female" in nature. This distillation process I mentioned molded these ideas, ideals and the archetypal images of the masculine and feminine. We observed one type of person, the male, behaving one way and the other type, the female, behaving in another. I might quickly add that one is not necessarily better or worse than the other and like most things, each has the "light" and "dark" aspects. This sort of comparison is often where people have "certain" reactions to this idea, like that of one of the analysts had. How does this process happen? Simple. We observed the behaviors over time and recognized the patterns of both males and females and how they differed. Then the distillation came when we observed the traits of each gender separately and where they overlapped. Where they didn't overlap, we catagorized them as "male" or "masculine" and "female" or "feminine" traits. From there we noticed the advantageous vs the non-advantageous, or the strong vs the weak, the good vs the bad, and we eventually came to the "ideals" of each. There is no other way in which this could have taken place. This is part of our nature.

[@ivicahausm]

Can anybody answer clearly on my questions as follow? What is it exactly that makes man become possessed by anima rather then being able to project it out ? The same apply to animus possession in a woman as appose to projection of animus in other male person(s). I read that man can get possessed by negative aspect of anima . The same apply to animus for a woman. I do not understand what are condition that will make ego to be possessed by opposite archetype rather then projecting it out? And why need to be negative aspect of archetype?I get confused also with a statement that if negative aspect of anima/animus is suppressed to much then it become a part of a shadow. By becoming part of a shadow then it will be projected outside in other persons. But what about anima/animus, self. mother , father archetype. They all get projected outside to others. All archetype has to be projected and cannot be experienced directly. So why it is specifically mentioned that anima is projected if became part of a shadow? In my opinion it does not need to be part of a shadow to be projected. Also stages of anima/animus development is very confusing for me! To mention stadium Eve for anima for man for instance. Is this stadium means that man is only able to project this primitive initial anima quality that are related to biological erotic satisfaction. In other words does it mean that such man sees all women as abject of sexual gratification and nothing more because he is not able to project in them anything more then only this primitive form of anima that did not reach its full development? I would be grateful if somebody will be able to give me more clear answers to my questions

[@Liyah-encyclopedia333]

I can feel my inner evolution of animus in my projection in my dating history very clearly

[@kaislate]

I wish the hosts would state up front whether and what pstchedelic experiences they have had. It would bring a lot of clarity to the perspectives. Also, jung in the red book i was understanding that more and more he regarded these specters as being actually entities that existed outside of the physical body. I do know definitely that he did indeed regard the anima as a scintilla divina which in females was inate, but in males was not yet still existed. I think relating the two (anima/animus) are not comparable. They are different concepts. Women are themselves the "anima" via Sophia. Men are given an anima via Sophia. This idea of feminine and masculine is very physically modern and Jung was much more metaphysical especially at the end.

[@Nosfastus]

I don't think Jung assigned said the anima was the soul for the man and a troublesome aspect as the animus for the woman. I thought both were the soul for each sex but if they weren't individuated then they would possess and the negative traits of each inner gender would present?

[@Ang01-25]

I’m a little confused between the voice of my Deeper Inner Other who shows up in my dreams and has a male voice and the Animus.

[@Liyah-encyclopedia333]

Haha I can sense the tension between animus and anima in your conversation

[@nomadman5288]

These "spirits," if you will, are relating functions, not literally male or female and that's why they can be present in either. Ironically, it seems that the two women are getting caught up on this much more than the man is and this is, in my opinion, the "testing" or "challenging" part of the animus within women, particularly when it comes to interactions with men. Think of the "tests" that women use for men when selecting mates, mostly unconsciously, but that's their animus taking on the role of a sort of "archetypal father figure." In just the same way that fathers tend to stand in judgment and "test," or at least closely monitor the potential partner(usually male) for their worthiness, so too does the woman's animus. That's not to say it always takes on the father figure, but the male and female parental or guardian figures have different roles in the child's life and these are deep rooted, beyond just one's personal experience. This is why both the anima and animus have, usually, gender specific roles in the psyche and take on the appearance of it as well. There's a reason we make these associations and, ironically again, how we relate to these ideas also comes from those aspects of the psyche. This is our nature and you cannot change it, only observe and try to understand it.

[@JungMonterey]

Great episode!

[@yvonne.p]

talk about being triggered.

[@lauragiles5193]

I am pro-Joseph's opinion on keeping things sexed. Something being sexed DOES not imply inequality. I think that might be the deeper issue. We as a culture throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[@crushinnihilism]

And only in our modern technology time would we push back against this. Tribal peoples understand the opposition in the masculine and feminine.

[@JennySieck]

I think men discover this because they want a mother figure. Many women are very sovereign unto themselves in later life. I think this is a big difference in masculine and feminine psychology that must be considered.

[@robinriebsomer4607]

Thanks for affirming the LGBTQ community and differentiating the way animus/anima plays out in gay people as opposed to straight people. I love the way you laugh in the midst of disagreements around Jungian psychotherapy . I bet Susan B Anthony had integrated her animus as she stood for women's right to vote.. Androgynous people embrace both the traditional masculine and feminine qualities.

[@charlottechance]

So insightful, thank you

[@tatygmezzo]

Once it was said by M.L. von Franz that when a woman becomes argumentative she is possessed by animus, I saw it happening here clearly. By "winning" the argument your animus "wins", and in this case, with this "winning", you prevented us female listeners from knowing how is it that this inner man that women for sure inherited through evolution sees the world in the eyes of the actual men born as such represented by Joseph, maybe knowing that could be relevant to survival. I think we both women and men need each other, otherwise we would have been born hermaphrodites. This is still our reality, maybe later in this century we will finally come back to our primal whole state as One, like the primordial cells, that will happen only without us needing each other for reproduction. If children are conceived in laboratories or artificially regardless the gender of their progenitors then both genders will be free to incarnate both female and male characteristics in ourselves, maybe only then we will end with the notion of gender.

[@Liyah-encyclopedia333]

I agree with Joseph in that masculine energy and feminine energy have to be differentiated for analysis sake

[@Apep88]

Good one !

[@robroy6072]

@ 17:00 I agree, as it is BOTH/AND. I appreciate abolishing the gender binary, but in the context of the 19th C, for example, a woman raised and conditioned in a highly gendered society might not visualize something like we have now, which would have seemed completely bizarre and... "unimaginable", and the only way to seize all the opportunities of the day might just be to say I am woman, AND man (there are many historical examples, in all combinations of sex/gender). It is our task now to move past that binary in allowing all nuances.

[@thisjungianlife]

The transition to a new collective attitude usually takes many generations - but it certainly happens - thank goodness!

[@crushinnihilism]

The binary is biological. You cant move beyond that because its ideology inconvenient.

[@Ionlydategoodgirls]

These new "genders" are the consequences of a highly publicized unresolved anima/animus through media in order to disarm the population for the government to have an easier time enslaving us. It is a great way to cause disruption and disagreements

[@Watercolordragon]

So funny this episode!

[@stephencsejtey9627]

and yet when he growled about a unicorn you both just giggled

[@kirstinstrand6292]

He did not growl; I perceived that topic as being playful by the triad.

[@eliyabarzel9871]

לדעתי שירי אהבה מבוססים על אנימה ואנימוס

[@thisjungianlife]

Translation: In my opinion, love songs are based on anime and animus.

[@sterlgirlceline]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💛

[@abinraj640]

Dream 56:50

[@guavacupcake]

10:30 🦄 lol 16:30 not animus

[@spetsnaz4027]

Listen closely fellas there’s somepills here of a certain color 🩸