Chapter 4 Jung: Analytical Psychology 111Personal Unconscious
The personal unconscious embraces all repressed, forgotten, or subliminally per-
ceived experiences of one particular individual. It contains repressed infantile
memories and impulses, forgotten events, and experiences originally perceived
below the threshold of our consciousness. Our personal unconscious is formed by
our individual experiences and is therefore unique to each of us. Some images in
the personal unconscious can be recalled easily, some remembered with difficulty,
and still others are beyond the reach of consciousness. Jung’s concept of the per-
sonal unconscious differs little from Freud’s view of the unconscious and precon-
scious combined (Jung, 1931/1960b).
Contents of the personal unconscious are called complexes. A complex is an
emotionally toned conglomeration of associated ideas. For example, a person’s
experiences with Mother may become grouped around an emotional core so that
the person’s mother, or even the word “mother,” sparks an emotional response that
blocks the smooth flow of thought. Complexes are largely personal, but they may
also be partly derived from humanity’s collective experience. In our example, the
mother complex comes not only from one’s personal relationship with mother but
also from the entire species’ experiences with mother. In addition, the mother
complex is partly formed by a person’s conscious image of mother. Thus, com-
plexes may be partly conscious and may stem from both the personal and the
collective unconscious (Jung, 1928/1960).
Collective Unconscious
In contrast to the personal unconscious, which results from individual experiences,
the collective unconscious has roots in the ancestral past of the entire species. It
represents Jung’s most controversial, and perhaps his most distinctive, concept.
The physical contents of the collective unconscious are inherited and pass from
one generation to the next as psychic potential. Distant ancestors’ experiences with
universal concepts such as God, mother, water, earth, and so forth have been
transmitted through the generations so that people in every clime and time have
been influenced by their primitive ancestors’ primordial experiences (Jung,
1937/1959). Therefore, the contents of the collective unconscious are more or less
the same for people in all cultures (Jung, 1934/1959).
The contents of the collective unconscious do not lie dormant but are active
and influence a person’s thoughts, emotions, and actions. The collective uncon-
scious is responsible for people’s many myths, legends, and religious beliefs. It also
produces “big dreams,” that is, dreams with meaning beyond the individual dreamer
and that are filled with significance for people of every time and place (Jung,
1948/1960b).
The collective unconscious does not refer to inherited ideas but rather to
humans’ innate tendency to react in a particular way whenever their experiences
stimulate a biologically inherited response tendency. For example, a young mother
may unexpectedly react with love and tenderness to her newborn infant, even
though she previously had negative or neutral feelings toward the fetus. The ten-
dency to respond was part of the woman’s innate potential or inherited blueprint,