ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the existing literature to lay the foundations for the “instinctual psychological processes”, and shows how these instinctive workings hold the key to understanding recurrent universal symbols. Carl Jung posited a strong evolutionary basis for behavior, frequently referring to anthropology and “primitive” psychology, as well as comparative animal behavior in his works. Emotions are linked with universal evolutionary psychology. The famous “triune brain” model originally developed by MacLean argues that evolution is visible in the brain anatomy. This model, based on extensive examinations of comparative neuroanatomy across a large variety of vertebrate species, proposes that the human brain has anatomical structure showing it to be the end product of a long evolutionary process of several “layers”. The chapter also introduces the concept of consciousness as a property of certain brain regions. Unconscious systems should not be thought of as mindless reflex circuits; rather, research shows them to be quite sophisticated in their own right.
