Animus – The Archetype of Meaning

16.12.24

The main basis for this exploration is the book The Animus – The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women by Barbara Hannah and the book The Animus and Anima by Emma Jung.

Firstly, let’s remember that there’s a tendency in women to be consciously identified with the Eros principle, which will generate an unconscious Logos.

As Jung says, the conscious mind of a woman has a lunar character, that’s why it’s a common error to equate the moon with the unconscious, this can only be true for men. In a woman, the qualities of the Sun are unconscious. Moreover, we know that the nature of the unconscious is to be personified, so the masculine image found in their unconscious is denominated animus, and it will behave like an autonomous complex with its own “personality”.

Barbara Hannah explains that the term animus “[…] Is the masculine spirit or unconscious mind of woman. Emma Jung pointed out recently that one should differentiate very carefully here between the anima and the animus. The anima, as is well known, is Jung’s term for the feminine soul of man. But it is really a contradiction in terms to speak of the animus as the masculine soul in woman. (This error was made in the early days of Jungian psychology and is still often done today.) In latin the word animus means intellect, memory, consciousness, character, and spirit. It is often equated with “mind” and is also used to mean courage, vivacity, bravery, and will. In Jungian psychology it is used primarily to denote the phenomenon of “spirit” in women, and the contrast between the feminine soul (anima) and the masculine spirit (ani­mus) gives us a valuable hint as to the difference between these two figures” (Barbara Hannah – The Animus, p. 2).

In general, a conscious Eros is always more interested in personal relationships and the emotional atmosphere, rather than objective and impersonal facts. Eros gives women immense sensibility which allows them to perceive nuances in relationships that frequently escape men entirely. Naturally, everything that has to do with Logos will remain an unconscious blind spot.

In that sense, Jung says the animus works mainly as an opinionating substitute. Simply put, the animus infiltrates a woman’s train of thought and falsifies her reality with opinions that tend to be overly critical, harsh, demeaning, and one-sided, and they appear to be the absolute truth and based on objective reality, when they seldom are.

When the animus is operating, the woman simply assumes their opinions are right, when in reality, she never consciously thought about it, it’s something ready-made. The animus works with very impersonal and collective opinions about how people should be and act and how a relationship should work. It’s like a rigid formula that if it isn’t followed everything is wrong.

Due to this impersonal nature, Emma Jung says that the animus is frequently symbolized in myths and dreams as a council of condemnatory judges, and less often as a single tyrannical figure. In that sense, the animus voice has mainly two ways of functioning, first it judges and criticizes absolutely everything a woman does, and second, it issues commands and prohibitions.

We can see the animus operating with comments like “Every man is like this” or “Every man treats women in such and such way”. Or comments like why they can’t have any female friends because “Every female is judgmental and they’re never truthful”, oh the irony.

The animus will also issue rules about how the perfect mother should be, or how a wife should behave. Everything that starts with “should” is usually related to the works of this vitriolic complex. Regarding the inner monologue, there’ll be demeaning thoughts about their appearance, their capabilities, and about what they truly want is wrong or unattainable.

These impersonal rules and opinions will prevent a woman from connecting with others on an individual level, because if every man or woman is in a determined way, for instance, how will she know them as individuals? Everything will be filtered through these assumptions.

Moreover, Jung says that when the animus interferes in a woman’s daily life, it’s usually in a place where she hasn’t given the matter her fullest conscious consideration and particularly where she fails in the realm of feeling.

But the Eros isn’t limited to relationships, so everything that has to do with the body, the five senses, and pleasure will also suffer, as everything will be perceived as sinful or unimportant, generating compulsions and addictions as a compensation.

Animus Identification

However, the animus also has a paradoxical nature and contains all the qualities that can balance the conscious Eros. The problem is that most women resist the task of developing their spiritual and intellectual capacities, and the psychic energy intended for this purpose falls into the unconscious and gives free rein for a negative animus, which can dominate the whole personality.

In that sense, Emma Jung says that when there’s an identification with the animus, the woman either didn’t pay attention to her spiritual side or developed it in the wrong way. She points out that many women over-identify with their masculine side and externally it might seem like a positive animus, but unfortunately, this always comes to the detriment of feminine values, and especially their relationships. The results are always a general dissatisfaction with life and depression.

To simplify, the animus identification has two main expressions. In the first case, the woman feels victimized, hopeless, and powerless. She believes what she truly wants in life is wrong and unattainable, and chooses to conform to other people’s expectations.

In the second case, she adopts traditionally masculine traits but expresses them in a very toxic manner. In both cases, their relationships suffer, and there isn’t a healthy expression of their femininity. Of course, this is a spectrum and there isn’t a recipe about how a man or woman should be, this isn’t about conforming to gender stereotypes, as this is an individual pursuit.

However, there’s a common misunderstanding that developing the animus is about engaging in traditionally masculine things, but it’s something much deeper. It’s about finding your own sense of meaning and direction in life.

It’s about crafting your own cosmovision and feeling fulfilled. It’s about deeply knowing what you want, what’s valuable to you, and going after it. It doesn’t matter if you want to become an engineer or a dancer, what matters is if that’s an authentic expression of your personality.

Nowadays, we see many women trying to get their power back and this is amazing, however, many end up adopting the worst facet of toxic masculinity. They become destructive, not only to themselves but to everyone around them. This isn’t developing the animus, this is becoming possessed by it, since they’re in a blind pursuit for power.

Moreover, this animus identification generates an inflation, and women put themselves on a high horse dictating how everyone should be and act, they believe they own the truth and they become the tyrants they once despised. That’s why Marie Von Franz says that one way of escaping animus possession is by taking a humble attitude and dealing with your own shadow.

In that sense, the main work is to challenge these thoughts and come up with your own values and beliefs. The relationship with the Eros principle has to be personal and individual, what matters to the woman has to be the most important thing, instead of giving in to collective rules, standards, and assumptions.

Animus Integration

At this point, you might be asking yourself, “So how to deal with these intrusive thoughts, opinions, and assumptions?”. Well, since the animus is a complex, Barbara Hannah suggests that women have to personify the animus.

This is actually a good idea to deal with any complex, because when we’re able to personify it, we create a separation between us, the conscious Ego, and this part, and this allows us to have a more objective perspective. Fun fact, I recently discovered that Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist’s Way, calls her inner critic Nigel and this helped her deal with the harsh criticism of her animus.

Now, Barbara Hannah says “One of the techniques that Jung recommends for getting acquainted with our animus is to keep a sharp lookout on our speech, in particular our thoughts, and to constantly question them as they pass through our minds: “Did I think that?” “Where did that thought come from?” “Who thought that?” […] if we can force ourselves to practice it and to write down the outcome – for we forget such thoughts almost before we think them – the results can be exceedingly instructive” (Barbara Hannah – The Animus, p.17).

Whenever you have an automatic thought, you have to ask yourself who inside you is thinking this and what is the part of yourself having these thoughts. This will help you detach from this automatism as everything that becomes conscious loses its charge.

The first part is always to understand the origins of these opinions, for instance, if you have a fixed thought about how women should dress or the kind of work they can do. You can ask yourself where this comes from, a lot of the time you’ll discover that this is exactly how your mother or father viewed women, and you just absorbed it and never questioned it.

As we’ve seen in the last chapter, in women, the mother complex serves as a basis for the persona and the father complex serves as a basis for the animus. But often, the negative animus of the mother is what shapes the sense of identity of the daughter, so pay special attention to that.

A lot of this work will be focused on separating yourself from the parental figures, their values, and beliefs, so as to create your own cosmovision. Obviously, not everything comes from the parents, so you have to question these thoughts and see if you can connect with any experiences you’ve had since a negative animus also promotes a constant pondering about the past. It highlights all your mistakes and all the things you should’ve done differently. A bunch of “what ifs”. But you have to realize that this isn’t thinking, this is simply indulging in fantasies to avoid dealing with reality.

Regarding relationships, the animus and anima are also a system of expectations about the ideal partner. We’ll usually seek someone who can match our fantasies and through this projection, we expect them to fulfill all of our unconscious qualities.

In that sense, men usually expect women “to be” their Eros and women expect men “to be” their Logos. But this is much deeper, as there’s usually the expectation of the partner giving you meaning and a sense of purpose in life. As you can see, these expectations are childish and often conditioned by the parental complex since few people consciously choose to develop their animus and anima.

Under this light, we’ll project and replicate our toxic inner dynamics on the external, by choosing someone who resembles our negative animus or anima, and by adopting behaviors that evoke this pattern in our relationships. A common occurrence is to replicate childhood patterns and look for a substitute mother or father which will always create toxic relationships and severe validation seeking dynamics.

That’s why one of the best things you can do for your relationships is to deal with your own animus or anima, because if you resist this task, you’ll forever remain childish, and most likely be identified with the Puer and Puella Aeternus. As Marie Von Franz says, people often stay in toxic relationships to avoid facing that the enemy lives within, since while something is projected it exempts us from the responsibility of dealing with it.

Finally, the gift of the animus is to make a woman independent, confident, creative, and uncover her true personality. As the archetype of meaning, it’s crucial to dedicate time to consciously develop its spiritual function, craft your own perception of life, your sense of identity, and ideas about relationships, since many women feel guilty for wanting to pursue a career and have activities independent from their families and kids.

Moreover, don’t forget that the animus will acquire the qualities of your inferior function, that’s why it’s so important to understand your typology as this will give you immense insight into how to integrate it. We can also count on Carl Jung’s therapeutic method, dream interpretation, and active imagination technique.

Barbara Hannah also highlights how writing is especially important when dealing with the animus since the word is the primary vehicle for the Logos. Lastly, reconnecting with your body and having artistic outlets, like music or dancing, can be a great ally to de-potentiate the animus and unlock your creativity, since this is the realm of the Eros and there, the animus can’t touch you.

Rafael Krüger – Live an Audacious Life

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