ABSTRACT
C. G. Jung described the archetypes as hypothetical structures, invisible in themselves, and capable of being experienced only through their manifestation. The Jungian writers Polly Young-Eisendrath and James Hall have further expanded Jung’s concepts by taking a constructivist approach to his theory of archetypes. This chapter provides a brief theoretical outline of the object-relations complexion of Jungian thinking. The equivalent of the psychoanalytic concept of the “whole object” can be found in Jung’s assertion that an archetype does not exist in itself, but always in relation to a part-object. The characteristic of the archetypal self is affective relational patterns that are the ubiquitous features of human relationships arising from the interdependence of persons in the process of growing selves. Jung placed great emphasis on the importance of the mother archetype in his formulation of the creation of consciousness out of the unconscious matrix.
