the persona
The
persona is a complicated system of relations between individual consciousness
and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand
to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal
the true nature of the individual.
"The
Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious" (1928). In CW 7: Two Essays
on Analytical Psychology. P.305
Whoever
looks into the mirror of the water will see first of all his own face.
Whoever goes to himself risks a confrontation with himself. The mirror
does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it; namely, the
face we never show to the world because we cover it with the persona, the
mask of the actor. But the mirror lies behind the mask and shows the true
face.
"Archetypes
of the Collective Unconscious" (1935). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes
and the Collective Unconscious. P.43
Every
calling or profession has its own characteristic persona. It is easy to
study these things nowadays, when the photographs of public personalities
so frequently appear in the press. A certain kind of behaviour is forced
on them by the world, and professional people endeavour to come up to these
expectations. Only, the danger is that they become identical with their
personas-the professor with his text-book, the tenor with his voice. Then
the damage is done; henceforth he lives exclusively against the background
of his own biography. . . . The garment of Deianeira has grown fast to
his skin, and a desperate decision like that of Heracles is needed if he
is to tear this Nessus shirt from his body and step into the consuming
fire of the flame of immortality, in order to transform himself into what
he really is. One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona
is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others
think one is.
"Concerning
Rebirth" (1940). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.
P.221
I
once made the acquaintance of a very venerable personage - in fact, one
might easily call him a saint. I stalked round him for three whole days,
but never a mortal failing did I find in him. My feeling of inferiority
grew ominous, and I was beginning to think seriously of how I might better
myself. Then, on the fourth day, his wife came to consult me.... Well,
nothing of the sort has ever happened to me since. But this I did learn:
that any man who becomes one with his persona can cheerfully let all disturbances
manifest themselves through his wife without her noticing it, though she
pays for her self-sacrifice with a bad neurosis.
"The
Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious" (1928). In CW 7: Two Essays
on Analytical Psychology. P.306
Since
the differentiated consciousness of civilized man has been granted an effective
instrument for the practical realization of its contents through the dynamics
of his will, there is all the more danger, the more he trains his will,
of his getting lost in one-sidedness and deviating further and further
from the laws and roots of his being.
"The
Psychology of the Child Archetype" (1940) In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes
and the Collective Unconscious. P.276
When
there is a marked change in the individual's state of consciousness, the
unconscious contents which are thereby constellated will also change. And
the further the conscious situation moves away from a certain point of
equilibrium, the more forceful and accordingly the more dangerous become
the unconscious contents that are struggling to restore the balance. This
leads ultimately to a dissociation: on the one hand, ego-consciousness
makes convulsive efforts to shake off an invisible opponent (if it does
not suspect its next-door neighbour of being the devil!), while on the
other hand it increasingly falls victim to the tyrannical will of an internal
"Government opposition" which displays all the characteristics of a daemonic
subman and superman combined. When a few million people get into this state,
it produces the sort of situation which has afforded us such an edifying
object-lesson every day for the last ten years.* These contemporary events
betray their psychological background by their very singularity. The insensate
destruction and devastation are a reaction against the deflection of consciousness
from the point of equilibrium. For an equilibrium does in fact exist between
the psychic ego and non-ego, and that equilibrium is a religion a "careful
consideration" of ever-present unconscious forces which we neglect at our
peril.
"The
Psychology of Transference" (1946). In CW 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy.
P.394
*The
years 1935-1945
Nothing
is so apt to challenge our self-awareness and alertness as being at war
with oneself. One can hardly think of any other or more effective means
of waking humanity out of the irresponsible and innocent half-sleep of
the primitive mentality and bringing it to a state of conscious responsibility.
"Psychological
Typology" (1936). In CW 6: Psychological Types. P. 964
Hidden
in the neurosis is a bit of still undeveloped personality, a precious fragment
of the psyche lacking which a man is condemned to resignation, bitterness,
and everything else that is hostile to life. A psychology of neurosis that
sees only the negative elements empties out the baby with the bath-water,
since it neglects the positive meaning and value of these "infantile' i.e.,
creative-fantasies.
"The
State of Psychotherapy Today" (1934). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition.
P.355
We
yield too much to the ridiculous fear that we are at bottom quite impossible
beings, that if everyone were to appear as he really is a frightful social
catastrophe would ensue. Many people today take "man as he really is" to
mean merely the eternally discontented, anarchic, rapacious element in
human beings, quite forgetting that these same human beings have also erected
those firmly established forms of civilization which possess greater strength
and stability than all the anarchic undercurrents. The strengthening of
his social personality is one of the essential conditions for man's existence.
Were it not so, humanity would cease to be. The selfishness and rebelliousness
we meet in the neurotic's psychology are not "man as he really is" but
an infantile distortion. In reality the normal man is "civic minded and
moral"; he created his laws and observes them, not because they are imposed
on him from without-that is a childish delusion-but because he loves law
and order more than he loves disorder and lawlessness.
"Archetypes
and the Collective Unconscious" (1935). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes
and the Collective Unconscious. P.442
The
true genius nearly always intrudes and disturbs. He speaks to a temporal
world out of a world eternal. He says the wrong things at the right time.
Eternal truths are never true at any given moment in history. The process
of transformation has to make a halt in order to digest and assimilate
the utterly impractical things that the genius has produced from the storehouse
of eternity. Yet the genius is the healer of his time, because anything
he reveals of eternal truth is healing.
"What
India Can Teach Us" (1939). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P. 1004
The
genius will come through despite everything, for there is something absolute
and indomitable in his nature. The so-called "misunderstood genius" is
rather a doubtful phenomenon. Generally he turns out to be a good-for-nothing
who is forever seeking a soothing explanation of himself.
"The
Gifted Child" (1943). In CW 17: The Development of Personality. P. 248
Whoever
speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthrals
and overpowers, while at the same time he lifts the idea he is seeking
to express out of the occasional and the transitory into the realm of the
ever enduring. He transmutes our personal destiny into the destiny of mankind,
and evokes in us all those beneficent forces that ever and anon have enabled
humanity to find a refuge from every peril and to outlive the longest night.
"On
the Relation of Analytical Psychology of Poetry" (1922). In CW 15: The
Spirit in Man, Art and Literature. P.129
To
be "normal" is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful, for all those who are
still below the general level of adaptation. But for people of more than
average ability, people who never found it difficult to gain successes
and to accomplish their share of the world's work-for them the moral compulsion
to be nothing but normal signifies the bed of Procrustes-deadly and insupportable
boredom, a hell of sterility and hopelessness.
"Problems
of Modern Psychotherapy" (1929). In CW 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy.
P. 161
Nothing
in us ever remains quite uncontradicted, and consciousness can take up
no position which will not call up, somewhere in the dark corners of the
psyche, a negation or a compensatory effect, approval or resentment. This
process of coming to terms with the Other in us is well worth while, because
in this way we get to know aspects of our nature which we would not allow
anybody else to show us and which we ourselves would never have admitted.
Mysterium
Coniunctionis (1955) CW 14: P. 706
The
"other" in us always seems alien and unacceptable; but if we let ourselves
be aggrieved the feeling sinks in, and we are the richer for this little
bit of self-knowledge.
"Psychological
Aspects of the Kore" (1941). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes of the Collective
Unconscious. P. 918
If
we do not fashion for ourselves a picture of the world, we do not see ourselves
either, who are the faithful reflections of that world. Only when mirrored
in our picture of the world can we see ourselves in the round. Only in
our creative acts do we step forth into the light and see ourselves whole
and complete. Never shall we put any face on the world other than our own,
and we have to do this precisely in order to find ourselves. For higher
than science or art as an end in itself stands man, the creator of his
instruments.
"Analytical
Psychology and Weltanschauung" (1928). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics
of the Psyche. P.737