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The collective unconscious consists of the sum of the instincts and their correlates, the archetypes. Just as everybody possesses instincts, so he also possesses a stock of archetypal images.
Carl Jung
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The collective unconscious is a shared part of the psyche filled with instinctual and archetypal images that influence human behavior.

Carl Jung's quote emphasizes the concept of the collective unconscious, which he argues is a universal aspect of the human psyche. This collective aspect contains innate instincts and archetypes, or symbolic images, that shape how individuals experience the world, suggesting that all people share certain psychological patterns that affect their thoughts and behaviors, transcending personal experiences.

Themes

Collective UnconsciousArchetypesInstinctsPsychologyCarl Jung

In practice

Example use cases

In a psychology lecture, when discussing human behavior and shared experiences.

More from Carl Jung

Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed a bridge: on the one hand into the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious.
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The majority of my patients consisted not of believers but of those who had lost their faith.
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Complexes are psychic contents which are outside the control of the conscious mind. They have been split off from consciousness and lead a separate existence in the unconscious, being at all times ready to hinder or to reinforce the conscious intentions.
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We are in a far better position to observe instincts in animals or in primitives than in ourselves. This is due to the fact that we have grown accustomed to scrutinizing our own actions and to seeking rational explanations for them.
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From the viewpoint of analytic psychology, the theatre, aside from any aesthetic value, may be considered as an institution for the treatment of the mass complex.
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I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.
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