ABSTRACT
A replacement child who has made the experience of missing other, can be affected in its outer relationships and the connection with its soul. Its first experience of the presence of another person is one of absence: a sibling or other dear person is missing and the caretaker may be perceived as emotionally absent, since grieving. This informs the unconscious archetypal image of anima or animus, the image of feminine or masculine other within the psyche. As an adult, the replacement child will need to differentiate its self-image and image of inner and outer other from an unconscious image of a dead or absent other. Since choice of partner and friends is informed by projections of anima and animus images, a replacement child has every interest to render conscious unconscious images of missing other and to discover a living image of other within themselves. Feelings of extreme loneliness or dependency on other can indicate that a person is not being present to him- or herself. Jung had the fantasy that his soul had flown away from him and went in search of a living image of his anima to reconnect with his soul. As an adult, a replacement child can explore whether its images of soul and other are informed by the special circumstances of its coming into existence. When artist Caroline Mackenzie became conscious that she had carried an image of her animus in a coffin for much of her life, she sat it down and created a larger-than-life image of anima and animus meeting in a loving embrace: her statue Wisdom Leaping Down witnesses her new-found wholeness, as did Jung’s meeting with his soul in The Red Book.
