What Are Archetypes?

Archetypes Are Everywhere

Archetypes are the hidden forces behind human behaviour. We encounter them to varying degrees in the way we move through the world, behave in relationships, make decisions, and construct meaning. Whether we realise it or not, these universal structures are at work in the background of our lives, creating inner patterns that mirror collective human stories.

Plato referred to archetypes as Forms: ideal templates or blueprints that exist beyond the physical world. Carl Jung called them primordial images: fundamental structures within the collective psyche that express timeless truths about the human condition.

These dynamic patterns of behaviour, images, and instincts arise, according to Jung, from the collective unconscious, a shared substrate of the psyche beneath the individual experience. Whilst the personal unconscious is the private storage place for our specific repressed memories, emotional templates and bodily functions, the collective unconscious can be thought of as a psychic repository for all the memories, images and symbols of humanity’s past reaching back to the dawn of time. It is a universal field that connects us, and is accessible to all. Learn more about Jung’s model of the psyche on this page about the shadow, here.

One everyday example of this can be seen when someone has a sudden flash of inspiration, perhaps an idea for a creative project, offering or piece of art that feels deeply original, only to later discover someone else has brough the same idea into form. It’s as if the idea was in the air, part of the cultural zeitgeist. Jung referred to this phenomenon as participation mystique: when we unconsciously tap into the same psychic material. The concept may feel personal, and the way we bring it to life through our own heart, hands, or body will be, but the idea is emerging from the collective field, which moves through many of us at once.

Jung wrote:

“Archetypes are the living system of reactions and aptitudes that determine the individual’s life in invisible ways.”

— C.G. Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche

Almost all responses we give to our environment, our desires, defences, longings, and fears, hold the energy of an archetype. As Jung’s protégé Marie-Louise von Franz described:

“The archetypes are inherited dispositions, which cause us to react in a typical way to basic human problems, inner or outer.”

— Marie Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche

Archetypes influence us at such a profound and at times subliminal level that it is difficult to articulate. By observing an archetypal energy within us, we begin to differentiate ourselves from it, and thus are less likely to enact it in ways that limit us or cause harm. The degree to which we become conscious of these forces is a major marker of psychological development. Working with archetypes requires care and discernment: they hold immense power, and when left unexamined, can distort perception or inflate the ego. But when approached with respect and inner honesty, they become portals to greater range, shadow integration and deeper wholeness.

Jungian Archetypes and Their Psychological Meaning

“It is no use at all to learn a list of archetypes by heart.  Archetypes are complexes of experiences that come upon us like fate, and their effects are felt in our most personal life.”

— C.G. Jung, Letters Volume 1

Jung was clear that archetypes are endless. It is a common misconception that he produced a finite list. He cautioned that archetypes are not there to be catalogued, they are meant to be experienced, lived, and understood symbolically. Each of us will encounter and express a unique representation of an archetype though our own psychological lens, shaped by personal history, cultural context, and the specific complexes we carry.

He did however identify and write extensively about a number of archetypes that appear frequently in myth, dream, fantasy, and everyday life. Each archetype holds a range of possible expressions: light and shadow, mature and immature, personal and transpersonal.

Below are some of the most commonly referenced archetypes in Jung’s work, along with brief descriptions:

The Self is the central organising principle of the psyche, representing the totality of conscious and unconscious elements. It is the archetype of wholeness, symbolising the human being's drive toward integration. The Self often appears in dreams as a mandala, circle, wise figure, divine child, or unifying symbol that holds opposites together.
The Shadow includes all the parts of the personality that are rejected, repressed, or remain unconscious. These may be traits judged as negative, such as rage, envy, or selfishness, or positive qualities like creativity, sensuality, or power that have been disowned. The Shadow is often projected onto others or encountered in dreams as dark, grotesque or threatening figures.
The Anima (inner feminine) and Animus (inner masculine) are archetypes that mediate between the ego and the unconscious. For Jung, the Anima appears in men as moods, intuitions, or symbolic women in dreams, while the Animus appears in women as inner authority, opinionated voices, or symbolic male figures. These archetypes can evolve through stages, from superficial or seductive to wise and integrated.
The Hero archetype represents the striving part of the psyche that seeks to overcome adversity and achieve individuation. It often appears in stories as the one who answers the call to adventure, undergoes trials, and returns transformed. Psychologically, it is the part of us that seeks to face inner conflict, confront the shadow, and grow in maturity.
These archetypes symbolise both the nurturing and the destructive aspects of parental energy. The Mother may be experienced as life-giving and protective, or engulfing and possessive. The Father may appear as structure, order, and guidance, or as authoritarian control. These inner figures are often shaped by early childhood experiences and may be revisited in adult relationships and dreams.
The archetypal Child represents potential, renewal, and the unfolding of the true self. It may appear as the vulnerable inner child, the divine child, or the wounded child, each expressing aspects of innocence, creativity, and dependency. In dreams, the Child can point toward new psychological beginnings or unresolved early needs.
The Maiden expresses themes of innocence, beauty, dependency, and receptivity. Often idealised in culture and projected onto women, the Maiden archetype may also appear in dreams as a symbol of renewal, creative possibility, or vulnerability. When undeveloped, she may remain naive or overly compliant; when integrated, she can become a bridge to deeper inner knowing, sensuality, and the keeper of feminine intuition.
The Persona is the mask we wear in social roles: our public image, identity, or way of presenting to others. While necessary for functioning in society, the Persona can become over-identified with, leading us to forget or suppress more authentic parts of ourselves. Jungian work often involves distinguishing the true self from the adapted self, and gently exploring what has been hidden behind the mask.
These figures represent inner wisdom, guidance, and access to deeper knowledge. They may appear in times of confusion or transition, often offering symbolic tools or insight. Jung saw these figures as personifications of the Self or as mentors who aid the Hero on the journey of individuation.
The Trickster disrupts order, mocks convention, and reveals hidden truths through reversal. This archetype can be experienced as chaotic, subversive, or freeing, often surfacing in moments of transition or when the psyche needs to break free from rigid structures.

These are not static roles to be inhabited but evolving patterns that constellate in the psyche during different life stages, crises, and inner journeys. Jung emphasised that the goal is not to become an archetype, but to become conscious of the archetypal energies shaping us. When these forces remain unconscious, we tend to either project them onto others, hold very one-sided views of them or become inflated by them, mistaking the archetype for our identity. Jung warned against this, suggesting that when we over-identify with archetypes, we risk being “possessed” by them. Psychological growth involves learning to recognise these patterns within, relate to them symbolically, and integrate their energy by paying attention to what is needed within us to bring balance, acting flexibly, in a situation specific way, almost like a dance.

Archetypes in Fairy Tales, Myths, and Dreams

Fairy tales, myths, and dreams are among the richest sources of archetypal imagery. In Jungian thought, they are not simply stories or random creations of the mind, but symbolic expressions of psychological truth and developmental experience.

Dreams emerge from the personal unconscious. Their characters and motifs often represent different parts of the dreamer: disowned traits, inner conflicts, potential strengths, or developing aspects of the self. When approached symbolically, a dream can be read like a map: an invitation from the psyche to bring something into consciousness and begin working with it in coaching or group work.

Fairy tales, by contrast, are ancient medicine from the collective unconscious. Their plots are universal, tracing archetypal journeys that many humans have walked. A fairy tale offers a symbolic path through common painful human experiences such as abandonment, betrayal, rejection, or sacrifice. It can guide us, through vivid imagery and metaphor, to retrieve split off and unlived parts of ourselves, and values that were judged or disregarded in our early years.

The Hero’s Journey, a narrative structure found across cultures, and popularised by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, features archetypes at every turn: the Hero called to adventure, the Mentor who offers guidance, the Threshold Guardian, the Shadow adversary, and the final Return bearing wisdom. In fairy tales, we meet the Wicked Stepmother, Lost Child, Wise Crone, Fool, Witch, King, and many more. Each figure expresses a psychic truth, sometimes one we are living out or being impacted by without realising it.

Engaging with a story in this way can be relieving. We are allowed to let the characters carry the emotional energy for a while. The maiden locked in a tower, the shapeshifting trickster, the slumbering princess or the wounded animal, each becomes a container for something we may be living out unconsciously. By watching the events unfold, we begin to recognise what we are being asked to face, integrate, or develop. With diligence, we can then begin to re-write our own story.

This is how humans have always learned. Long before psychology, wisdom was passed through stories. These tales gave people a language for inner life, a shared code for transformation, and a sense of company in the most difficult passages.

Archetypes Are Also Symbols, Experiences and Thresholds

Archetypes are pervasive throughout history across ancient religions, myths, legends, and throughout the arts, media and even pop culture. They are not only found in the characters of the books we read, films we watch, and performances we attend. Jung showed us that concepts and events like birth, death, marriage, loss, sacrifice, betrayal, aging and initiation are also archetypal. These are symbolic thresholds through which we all pass, consciously or unconsciously.

I’ve found archetypal coaching to be particularly supportive for clients navigating these kinds of transitions. By exploring what may be in shadow, such as fear of change, unspoken truths, hidden desire, or an unclaimed part of self that may be generative or fortifying for the challenge ahead, we begin to engage with life events not just as unwanted circumstances, but as initiatory experiences.

At these threshold moments, we are often closer to the unconscious. Our dreams become more vivid. Symbols appear. The psyche invites us to meet ourselves more fully.

Due to their universal nature, archetypes appear across a wide range of ancient and contemporary systems. The Enneagram, for instance, is a psycho-spiritual personality system with ancient roots, refined in modern times by teachers like Riso and Hudson. It maps nine core personality types, each with a distinct archetypal energy, motivation, core fear and path of development: The Reformer, Helper, Achiever, Individualist, Investigator, Loyalist, Enthusiast, Challenger and Peacemaker.

Archetypes in Ancient and Modern Systems

While it may begin as a typology, showing us where we focus our attention as we move through the world, The Enneagram has a deeper purpose, as a map for integration. It illuminates that there is a lot that we don’t see (our blindspots), as well as showing us how we move under stress (disintegration) and where our individual path to growth (integration) lies. This is another way of looking at our ego, and the shadow cast by our ego, and it is particularly good at pinpointing our ego defences, which have developed to hold our shadow expertly in place.

When we are stuck, it is often because our self-protective persona keeps us so focused on its needs, that it prevents us from meeting the deeper emotions underneath which need to be processed, in order to loosen the shadow and reveal what’s possible for us through a much wider lens. Until we confront the ego, we are unable to know ourselves fully as we are, and we remain trapped in fear of who we think we are or longing of who we wish we were.

I often draw on this body of work during long-term coaching to support self-understanding and the reintegration of disowned traits.

In contemporary branding and media psychology, archetypes appear in systems such as the twelve brand archetypes, including the Sage, Explorer, Jester, or Ruler. Caroline Myss works with over 70 archetypes in intuitive healing, and the field of narrative coaching draws on archetypal figures to help people revise limiting personal stories and reinhabit their personal authority.

In the group Shadow Work retreats and one day immersions I offer, we work with four foundational archetypes, the Sovereign, Warrior, Magician, and Lover, as originally delineated in the book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette. These four energies offer a powerful doorway into shadow integration, emotional balance, and the reclamation of exiled traits. You can read more about them here.

I also draw on the work of Marion Woodman, who explored the conscious feminine through archetypes such as the Virgin, the Mother, the Crone, the Queen, and the Temptress, revealing how feminine energy is distorted or buried when the inner masculine is inflated, rigid, or absent. Building on Jung’s pioneering insight, she significantly expanded the field by challenging the deep cultural split between mind and body, spirit and soma, that has shaped Western thought for centuries.

Long before somatic psychology became widely recognised, Woodman was already showing that the painstaking work of integrating the shadow cannot be done through insight alone, it must be grounded in the body. She brought archetypal psychology into relationship with breath, sensation, movement, menstrual cycles, and the seasons of a woman’s life. Her work with embodied feminine archetypes, addiction, and the longing for the sacred animates much of how I support women in coming home to themselves, not only through awareness, but through lived, felt experience in the body and soul.

In Jungian depth coaching and one-to-one mentorships, we work with whichever archetypes arise organically through projections, metaphors, transitions, dreams and the body. Some are well-known and we might draw on myths and fairy tales to help illuminate the journey. Other times they emerge uniquely through image, sensation or intuition. The goal is not to impose a model, but to honour the soul’s own language.

Archetypes Are Universal, But Always Expressed Uniquely

While archetypes are shared human patterns, each individual expresses them in their own distinct way. The way you embody the Warrior or relate to the Lover will depend on your personal temperament, life experiences, values, ancestry, and cultural context. I created this wheel to offer a glimpse into just a few of the different ways in which people might find themselves in the four core archetypes we work with during retreats. Simply click on the image to expand it.

This is one of the paradoxes of archetypes: they are impersonal, universal forces, yet they shape our most intimate and personal stories. They connect us to something beyond ourselves, while illuminating what is most uniquely ours.

A single archetype may look entirely different in two people, just as the same role in a story might be played by very different actors. To work with archetypes skilfully is to honour both the pattern and the person, to recognise the archetypal energy at play while also respecting the complex human being who is living it.