creators_name: McDowell, Maxson J.
editors_name: Cambray, Joseph
editors_name: Knox, Jean
editors_name: Goldreich, Paul
type: journale
datestamp: 2001-10-22
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:48
metadata_visibility: show
title: The three gorillas: an archetype orders a dynamic system
ispublished: pub
subjects: clin-psy
full_text_status: public
keywords: complex dynamic system, self organization, emergent, cognitive science, a priori, heterochrony, Jungian analysis, personification, archetype, image, evolutionary psychology, dream analysis, mythology, ritual, spiritual, human genome, organizational principle.
abstract: The personality is a dynamic system. Like all other dynamic systems, it must be self-organized. In this paper I focus upon the archetype-as-such, that is, upon the essential core around which both an archetypal image and a complex are organized. I argue that an archetype-as-such is a pre-existing principle of organization. Within the personality that principle manifests itself as a psychological vortex (a complex) into which we are drawn. The vortex is impersonal. We mediate it through myths and rituals or through consciousness. In this paper I show that
Jung’s intuition about the archetype-as-such is supported by recent science. I evaluate other concepts of the
archetype. My concept allows each archetype-as-such to be defined precisely in mathematical terms. It also addresses our spiritual experience of an archetype.The human genome has only about 32,000 genes. How does human complexity arise from so few genes? Part of the answer must lie in the archetypes. Because of its familiarity with the archetypes, analytical psychology has a contribution to make here.  Because the archetypes-as-such are fundamental to the personality, the better we understand them the better we understand our patients. The paper is grounded with clinical examples. 
date: 2001-10
date_type: published
publication: Journal of Analytical Psychology: An International Quarterly of Jungian Practice and Theory
volume: 46
number: 4
publisher: Blackwell
refereed: TRUE
referencetext: Baltimore, D. (2001). ‘Our genome unveiled’. Nature, 409, 814-6.
Beebe, B. Lachman, F. M.  (1988). ‘The contribution of mother-infant mutual influence to the origins of self- and object representations’. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 5, 305-37.
Calow, P. (1976). Biological Machines: A Cybernetic Approach to Life. London: Edward Arnold.
Conforti, M. (1999). Field, Form, and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature, and Psyche. Woodstock, CT:               Spring.
Easterbrook, M. A., Kisilevsky, B. S., Muir, D. W. & Laplante, D. P. (1999). ‘Newborns discriminate 
schematic faces from scrambled faces’. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53, 3, 231-41.
Elman, J. L., Bates, E. A., Johnson, M. H., Karmiloff-Smith, A, Parisi, D. & Plunkett, K. (1998).               Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development. Cambridge: MIT Press. 
Hart, G. (1986). A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses. London: Routledge.
Hildebrandt, S. & Tromba, A. (1996). The Parsimonious Universe: Shape and Form in the Natural 
World. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Hogenson, G. B. (1998). ‘Response to Pietikainen and Stevens’. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 43, 3,  357-72.
Holland, J. H. (1995). Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity. Reading, MA: Perseus.
— (1998). Emergence from Chaos to Order. Reading, MA: Perseus.
Hopkins, K. (1999). ‘The Greatest Apes’. New Scientist 162, 2186: 26-30.
Johnson, M. H., Dziurawiec, S, Ellis, H. & Morton, J. (1991).  ‘Newborns’ preferential tracking of face-               like 
stimuli and  its subsequent decline’. Cognition 40, 1-19.
Jung, C. G. (1936/68). ‘The concept of the collective unconscious’. CW  9i.
— (1938/68). ‘Psychological aspects of the mother archetype’. CW 9i.
— (1940/84). ‘Transformation symbolism in the mass’. CW 11.
— (1943/66). ‘On the psychology of the unconscious’. CW 7.
—(1950/84). ‘Symbols of Transformation’. CW 5.
—(1952/60). ‘Synchronicity: an acausal connecting principle’. CW 8.
Kauffman, S. (1995). At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and 
Complexity. New York: Oxford University Press.
Knox, J. (1999). ‘The relevance of attachment theory to a contemporary Jungian view of the internal 
world: internal working models, implicit memory and internal objects’. Journal of Analytical 
Psychology, 44, 4, 511-30.
McDowell, M. J. (1999). ‘Relating to the mystery: a biological view of analytical psychology’. Quadrant: Journalof the C. G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology (New York), 29, 1, 12-32. (Also available online as ‘Jungian analysis and biology’ in Cogprints ). 
McKinney, M. L. &  McNamara, K. J. (1991). Heterochrony: The Evolution of Ontogeny. New 
York: Plenum Press.
Paabo, S. (1999). ‘Human evolution’. Trends in Cell Biology, 9,12, M13-M16.
Pietikainen, P. (1998a). ‘Archetypes as Symbolic Forms’.Journal of Analytical Psychology, 43, 3, 325-43. 
— (1998b). ‘Response to Hester McFarland Solomon, George B. Hogenson and Anthony Stevens’. 
Journal of Analytical Psychology, 43, 3, 379-88.
Samuels, A. (1985). Jung and the Post-Jungians. London: Routledge.
Sander, L. W. (1985). ‘Toward a logic of organization in psychobiological development’. In: Biologic 
Response Styles, ed. H. Klar & L. Siever, pp. 20-36. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric 
Association.
— (1987). ‘Awareness of inner experience: a systems perspective on self-regulatory process in early 
development. Child Abuse and Neglect, 11, 339-6.
Saunders, P. Skar, P. (2001). ‘Archetypes, complexes and self-organization’. Journal of 
Analytical Psychology, 46, 2, 305-23.
Seinfeld, J. (1996). Containing Rage, Terror, and Despair: An Object Relations Approach to 
Psychotherapy. Northvale NJ: Jason Aronson.
Sharma, J., Alessandra, A.  & Sur, M. (2000). ‘Induction of visual orientation modules in auditory cortex’. Nature, 404, 841-7.Stevens, A. &  Price, J. (1996). Evolutionary Psychiatry: A New Beginning. New York: Routledge.
Wade, N. (1998). ‘Human or chimp? 50 genes are the key’. New York Times, Oct. 20th. 
Zug, G. R. (1993). Herpetology: An Introductory Biology of Amphibians and Reptiles. San Diego: 
Academic Press. 
citation:   McDowell, Maxson J.  (2001) The three gorillas: an archetype orders a dynamic system.  [Journal (On-line/Unpaginated)]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/1836/1/jap94web.html