Demystifying Jung's "Archetypes" with Embodied Cognition.

Since he first proposed it, Carl Jung's "archetype" theory has faced resistance from a pervasive but seldom examined set of underlying Cartesian assumptions embedded in mainstream psychology. This paradigm assumed a physical universe (and hence body) free of psyche that coincided with an essentially disembodied mind largely concerned with abstract symbol manipulation. This situation led archetype theory to remain largely within insulated psychoanalytic circles for decades.

The innate story code.

Code biology reveals a great many codes beyond the genetic code as integral to biological functioning. Recent scholars have linked the growing field of code biology to analytical psychology, confirming that the encoded information inherited by the human organism is indeed massive and capable of great sophistication. In this discussion, I will expand on this project by showing how developments in embodied cognition reveal a code that links the world of universal emotional responses to common experiences to the world of embodied visuospatial narratives--i.

The Human Body is the Collective Unconscious: Archetypal Images as Innate Embodied Metaphors.

For a significant part of its history, archetype theory has been undermined by criticisms containing unexamined Cartesian assumptions. Such assumptions treat all cognition as disembodied, consisting of mere manipulation of abstract, inherently meaningless signs mimicked from verbal instruction or cultural learning. Since the 1980s, due to the results of many independent disciplines, however, this view is being replaced with one of embodied cognition.

Understanding Spontaneous Symbolism in Psychotherapy Using Embodied Thought.

Spontaneous, unwilled subjective imagery and symbols (including dreams) often emerge in psychotherapy that can appear baffling and confound interpretation. Early psychoanalytic theories seemed to diverge as often as they agreed on the meaning of such content. Nevertheless, after reviewing key findings in the empirical science of spontaneous thought as well as insights gleaned from neuroscience and especially embodied cognition, it is now possible to construct a more coherent theory of interpretation that is clinically useful.

Phenotypic plasticity and archetype: a response to common objections to the biological theory of archetype and instinct.

Since Jung's death in 1961, scholars have attempted to integrate growing biological science data into Jungian concepts such as the collective unconscious, instincts and the archetypes. This enterprise has been challenging due to persistent false dichotomies of gene and environment occasionally arising. Recent works by Roesler (2022a, 2022b) for example, have raised objections to the biological theory of archetypes, but the objections are plagued by such dichotomies.

Archetypes and clinical application: how the genome responds to experience.

The continuing dialogue within analytical psychology regarding the relationship to Jung's "collective unconscious" and biological research calls for a more sophisticated treatment of terminology that is consilient with modern neurogenetics. This essay explores how fully understanding the way genome and environment interact can help us parse out clinical material, enabling us to judge what expressions are repeats of early experiences vs. what are innately driven re-organizations of experience.

Archetypes and the 'Impoverished Genome' argument: updates from evolutionary genetics.

Throughout his career, Jung felt the psyche had 'ancestral layers' that contained elements of an individual's species history, and clinical experience has shown that this idea can be an aid to psychological healing and emotional well-being. Thus, some later thinkers have attempted to link such theoretical constructs to the genome, as Jung had little knowledge of genetics in his day. But in the early 2000s, genome studies suggested that the genome might contain too little content to be capable of encoding symbolic information.

Teaching Dream Interpretation to Psychiatric Residents.

Though the clinical and experimental literature suggests that discussing dreams with therapy patients can be beneficial in a variety of important ways, there appears to be a gap in educational opportunities for psychiatric residents regarding this process. To address this educational need at the authors' residency program, a class in psychodynamically oriented dream analysis was implemented, and data was collected in the form of learner surveys both before and after they took the course. The survey found that the level of importance placed on dream work, the comfort level in discussing dreams with patients, and the frequency with which dreams were discussed in sessions were all increased after taking the course.

Comments on the 2018 IAAP Conference on Archetype Theory: defending a non-reductive biological approach.

During the course of the 2018 IAAP conference, a criticism of Jung's idea of the archetype as inherited predisposition was raised that involved examining a number of dreams and visions and assessing them through developments in genetics and neuroscience. From this comparison it was argued that archetypes cannot be inherited and could more reasonably be argued to derive from early experiences. In this essay, the author responds by showing how this conclusion is flawed due to being based on reductive errors.

Rediscovering the ritual technology of the placebo effect in analytical psychology.

Technology, viewed more generally, is a collection of skills and methods that are used to accomplish an objective of some kind. Modernity has produced many kinds of ever-expanding new technologies, but it is also evident that technologies can be lost or fall out of use. A cross-cultural survey of ritual reveals a rather startling observation: that while developed nations often exceed other cultures in terms of material technology, they often pale by comparison in their use of ritual technology.

Recurrent motifs as resonant attractor states in the narrative field: a testable model of archetype.

At the most basic level, archetypes represented Jung's attempt to explain the phenomenon of recurrent myths and folktale motifs (Jung 1956, 1959, para. 99). But the archetype remains controversial as an explanation of recurrent motifs, as the existence of recurrent motifs does not prove that archetypes exist.

A Jungian approach to dreams reported by soldiers in a modern combat zone.

Treating combat deployed soldiers is becoming more prevalent and needed in psychiatry. Modern combat produces unique psychological challenges, including those without criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This article will attempt to share the primary author's experience with psychotherapy in a combat zone, along with understanding the general themes of dreams the author encountered while being deployed.

Approaching archetypes: reconsidering innateness.

The question of innateness has hounded Jungian psychology since Jung originally postulated the archetype as an a priori structure within the psyche. During his life and after his death he was continually accused of Lamarckianism and criticized for his theory that the archetypes existed as prior structures. More recently, with the advent of genetic research and the human genome project, the idea that psychological structures can be innate has come under even harsher criticism even within Jungian thought.

Increased cell density decreases cysteine proteinase inhibitor activity and increases invasive ability of two prostate tumor cell lines.

The ability of a cancer cell to metastasis to a distant site is partly dependent on the secretion of matrix degrading enzymes. The lysosomal cysteine proteinases, cathepsins B and L, have been shown to be secreted by a number of cancer cells and have been implicated in metastasis. Cathepsins B and L are regulated by a class of inhibitors known as the cystatins; aberrant cystatin activity has also been shown in a number of cancer cells.