What are Jungian Archetypes?

In “The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious” Carl Gustav Jung writes: “The concept of the archetype, which is an indispensable correlate of the idea of the collective unconscious, indicates the existence of definite forms in the psyche which seem to be present always and everywhere.” In layman’s terms, that means that these forms within the human psyche have consistent patterns and shapes among all people.  These forms are energies which influence our behavior unconsciously.  For example, many of us have an instinctual idea of a “hero”—someone brave who faces challenges to protect others. This “hero” image is a common pattern, or archetype, that we all recognize and that influences how we see certain people or stories as inspiring.

The feminine aspects of the psyche are made up of four primary archetypes:  Queen, Amazon, Wise Woman, and Lover. 

The masculine aspects of the psyche are made up of four primary archetypes:  King, Warrior, Wise Man, and Lover. 

How were these primary archetypes identified?

Toni Wolff, at first Jung’s patient, then mistress and protégé, outlined in “Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche” the feminine archetypes as Mother and Hetaira (heh-tie-ruh), as “personally related”, and Amazon and Medial Woman as “impersonally related.” She also claimed that these four archetypes corresponded with the male anima.

However, upon closer inspection, it appears that Wolff may have projected a structured psyche onto her understanding of these archetypes, implying that each core archetype can potentially embody both personal and impersonal dynamics. What she most likely means by “personally related” is that the expression is internally-focused, whereas the impersonal "collective" expression is more externally-focused.

This is made more clear by looking at her axes. Her mother archetype (which is represented by the thinking function) is a personal function, yet it is on an axis with her Hetaira function (which is represented by the intuitive function).

In typology, thinking is a rational function (or judging function), and intuition is an irrational function (or perceiving function). The Myers-Briggs team updated that nomenclature to be more clear and accessible because “irrational” could be misinterpreted as lacking reason or logic.

However, thinking is on an axis with feeling, not intuition.

Likewise, for her impersonally related archetypes, the Medial Woman (represented by feeling) is a judging function and the Amazon (represented by sensation) is a perceiving function.

What she has mapped out is a structure of a specific psyche (quite possibly her own), not a universal archetypal model for the feminine psyche, as indicated by the developmental path she identified in "Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche":

"as a rule, one form is the predominant one, and may be joined by another, while the third and fourth are at first unconscious and can be made conscious and integrated only with difficulty and during the later part of life." she also said, "Similar to the four basic psychological functions, all the four structural forms are inherent to every woman. If possible she will realize the one which is the most consistent with her nature. By and by, a second form will assert itself from within. This process, too, runs parallel to the gradual differentiation of the four basic functions...Consequently, for the mother for instance, this second form will be the Amazon or the medial woman; the personal relationship is thus joined by an impersonal one or, vice versa, by a personal one in the case of an initially impersonally related woman."

John Beebe, M.D., psychiatrist and Jungian analyst, corroborates this developmental understanding. In his book, Energies and Patterns in Pyschological Type, he writes:

"Jung found that "[f]or all the types met with in practice, the rule holds good that besides the conscious, primary function there is a relatively unconscious, auxiliary function which is in every respect different from the nature of the primary function" (Jung, 1921/1971, 1669). Since he also believed that "naturally only these functions can appear as auxiliary whose nature is not opposed to the dominant function" (the emphasis is mine), feeling, for instance, "can never act as the second function alongside thinking" (1667) nor sensation alongside intuition. Rather, if with respect to differentiation someone's first, or superior, function is on the rational axis (i.e. is either thinking or feeling) then that individual's auxiliary function will have to come from the irrational axis (be either sensation or intuition)."

Years later, Robert L. Moore, co-author of “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” substantiated Wolff’s claim through his research and life’s work on understanding masculine psychology. Moore claimed in his lecture tapes that the masculine and feminine contain four royal couples: King and Queen, Male and Female Warriors, Male and Female Magicians, and the Lovers as exemplified by his contrasexual models below:

He also claimed that the Father is a part of the King archetype.  Logically, this means that the Mother is part of the Queen archetype.

In regard to Wolff’s model, Mother corresponds to Moore’s Queen, Amazon corresponds to Moore’s Female Warrior, Medial Woman corresponds to Moore’s Female Magician, and Hetaira corresponds to Moore’s Lover.

I have updated the nomenclature of the archetypes to be more easily understandable in today’s language and reconciled both Toni Wolff’s model as well as Robert L. Moore’s theory into an updated form of the model found in Toni Wolff’s work. Thus, the primary archetypes of the human psyche were revealed.