ABSTRACT
The implications of masculinity and feminity need special consideration with regard to pastoral ministry as compared to priestly and prophetic ministries. In the male, the anima exists in the psychic unconscious and personifies the contrasexual elements which express certain so-called feminine qualities. In a female, the animus exists in the psychic unconscious and personifies the contrasexual elements which express certain so-called masculine qualities—'capacity to penetrate, separate, initiate, create, stand firmly over and against, to articulate and express meaning'. A woman with a clear female ego-identity will bring a richness to her pastoral ministry if her animus is brought into connection with her conscious ego; then she will have both her femininity and her masculinity to bring into the presence of the other person. The function of the anima is to mediate the contents of the objective psyche to the man’s conscious ego—that is, to put the man in touch with his capacity to focus upon and express his feminine qualities.
