118 Part II Psychodynamic Theories
arrow in his only vulnerable spot—his heel. Similarly, Macbeth was a heroic fig-
ure with a single tragic flaw—ambition. This ambition was also the source of his
greatness, but it contributed to his fate and his downfall. Heroic deeds can be
performed only by someone who is vulnerable, such as Achilles or the comic book
character Superman, whose only weakness was the chemical element kryptonite.
An immortal person with no weakness cannot be a hero.
The image of the hero touches an archetype within us, as demonstrated by
our fascination with the heroes of movies, novels, plays, and television programs.
When the hero conquers the villain, he or she frees us from feelings of impotence
and misery, at the same time serving as our model for the ideal personality (Jung,
1934/1954a).
The origin of the hero motif goes back to earliest human history—to the dawn
of consciousness. In conquering the villain, the hero is symbolically overcoming the
darkness of prehuman unconsciousness. The achievement of consciousness was one
of our ancestors’ greatest accomplishments, and the image of the archetypal con-
quering hero represents victory over the forces of darkness (Jung, 1951/1959b).Self
Jung believed that each person possesses an inherited tendency to move toward
growth, perfection, and completion, and he called this innate disposition the self.
The most comprehensive of all archetypes, the self is the archetype of archetypes
because it pulls together the other archetypes and unites them in the process of
self-realization. Like the other archetypes, it possesses conscious and personal
unconscious components, but it is mostly formed by collective unconscious images.
As an archetype, the self is symbolized by a person’s ideas of perfection,
completion, and wholeness, but its ultimate symbol is the mandala, which is
depicted as a circle within a square, a square within a circle, or any other con-
centric figure. It represents the strivings of the collective unconscious for unity,
balance, and wholeness.
The self includes both personal and collective unconscious images and thus
should not be confused with the ego, which represents consciousness only. In
Figure 4.1, consciousness (the ego) is represented by the outer circle and is only
a small part of total personality; the personal unconscious is depicted by the
middle circle; the collective unconscious is represented by the inner circle; and
totality of all three circles symbolizes the self. Only four archetypes—persona,
shadow, animus, and anima—have been drawn in this mandala, and each has been
idealistically depicted as being the same size. For most people the persona is more
conscious than the shadow, and the shadow may be more accessible to conscious-
ness than either the anima or the animus. As shown in Figure 4.1, each archetype
is partly conscious, partly personal unconscious, and partly collective unconscious.
The balance shown in Figure 4.1 between consciousness and the total self is
also somewhat idealistic. Many people have an overabundance of consciousness
and thus lack the “soul spark” of personality; that is, they fail to realize the rich-
ness and vitality of their personal unconscious and especially of their collective
unconscious. On the other hand, people who are overpowered by their unconscious
are often pathological, with one-sided personalities (Jung, 1951/1959a).