Archetypes at Work – notes for a book #1

I found my way to Jung through the contemporary writings of the Archetypal Psychologists. This interest began with the work of Thomas Moore who wrote ‘Care of the Soul’, a very strange book which mixed the concerns of today’s society with an intricate knowledge of the work of renaissance writers and a deep understanding of this concept of ‘soul’, as developed by James Hillman.

 This work was full of the material which I was seeking to fill the gaps in my approach as a manager. Namely, the issues which can’t be tackled using a force field analysis, and aren’t found in the business plan either. The human issues in organisations were not only difficult to find in the everyday work of managers – but worse than this, many ‘management fads’ were positively damaging the people on whom they were imposed.

In seeking sources for the work of Moore, Hillman and Sardello, I discovered that much of their work was based on the writings of Carl Jung. So I set out to explore the work of Jung. After dipping through wide ranging areas of his work I came up with three broad areas of work which I wanted to pursue further in an organisational context.

Archetype – primordial, structural elements of the human psyche. Archetypes are irrepresentable in themselves, but their effects are discernible in archetypal images and motifs. They draw on the Collective Unconscious, and are most commonly found in the universal mythological characters to be found in the mythological schemas throughout the world.

Individuation – the process of individuation, consciously pursued, leads to the realisation of the self as a psychic reality greater than the ego. The process which develops from the earlier stage of dividing brought about by the split between persona / ego and shadow.

And perhaps the most difficult to understand: –

Alchemy – a symbolic process of transformation, beginning with the finding of the prima materia – this is what the adept must first seek – the initial substance which contains the spirit of nature. When submitted to the transformation of alchemy, this substance falls into the blackness of death (nigredo). Cauda pavonis brings the first stages of resurrection of the prima materia and an activation of feeling. (I’m still working to try to understand this – through studying Jung’s “Mysterium Coniunctionis” CW Vol. 14)

So – if these definitions make some sense in the individual context (as witnessed by their use in the practice of Jungian analysis), what impact do they have in group context?

 There has been relatively little work done to put Jungian theories into a group context. This is perhaps not that surprising given Jung’s thoughts on groups. Jung was an introvert who felt most at ease when alone. He said of groups: –

“The bigger the group, the more the individuals composing it function as a collective entity, which is so powerful that it can reduce individual consciousness to the point of extinction, and it does this the more easily if the individual lacks spiritual possessions of his own with an individual stamp.”

This is not at odds with the approach I am pursuing. You will recall my observations about the way in which people are treated in organisations.

“Increasingly, Jung saw that the progressive extraversion and collectivism of modern society has proceeded to the detriment of the individual’s ability to seek his own individuation …. he conceives of himself less as a spiritually sentient being and more as an economic commodity.” 

(Anthony Stevens, Archetypes: a natural history of the self)

 The individual in the world of work will give according to the way in which he or she is treated. More than this, the individual is programmed with a task to work towards individuation, which Jung describes as

 “I use the term ‘individuation’ to denote the process by which a person becomes a psychological ‘in-dividual’, that is, a separate, indivisible unity or ‘whole’ “

(C G Jung, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious)

 Thus, we have a group of people all striving towards individuation – not because they have been studying psychology, or are in therapy! – but because this is a natural process which happens. Each of those in the group will be somewhere towards becoming individuated. But this is a journey and not a destination – so they will have within them a complex of archetypes.

This is the stuff which I am looking to unlock to help to understand the group dynamic, and to help understand what affects people’s actions.

 I have coined an expression – fractalising the ego – to describe the process of breaking down a case study through identifying archetypal forms. I am not talking about coy one-dimensional god figures as has been pursued by some writers (Handy for instance). Also, each person is a complex, and will therefore need to be represented by a multi-voiced interpretation of events.