• Title/Summary/Keyword: Self-archetype

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An Interpretation of the Folktale 'the Servant Who Ruined the Master's House' from the Perspective of Analytical Psychology: Centering on the Trickster Archetype (민담 '주인집을 망하게 한 하인'의 분석심리학적 이해: 트릭스터 원형을 중심으로)

  • Myoungsun Roh
    • Sim-seong Yeon-gu
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    • v.37 no.2
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    • pp.184-254
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    • 2022
  • Through this thesis, the psychological meaning of the Korean folktale 'the servant who ruined the master's house' was examined. The opposition between the master and the servant is a universal matter of the human psychology. It can be seen as a conflict between the hardened existing collective consciousness and the new consciousness to compensate for and renew it. From different angles, it has become the opposition between man's spiritual and instinctive aspects, between the conscious and the unconscious, or between the ego and the shadow. In the folktale, the master tries several times to get rid of the youngest servant, but the servant uses tricks and wits to steal food, a horse, the youngest sister, and all money from the master, and finally, take his life. It ends with the marriage of the youngest sister and the servant. Enantiodromia, in which the master dies, and the servant becomes the new master, can be seen that the old collective consciousness is destroyed, and the new consciousness that has risen from the collective unconscious takes the dominant position. In an individual's psychological situation, it can be seen that the existing attitude of the ego is dissolved and transformed into a new attitude. In the middle of the story, the servant marries the youngest sister by exploiting naive people to rewrite the back letter written by the master to kill him. This aspect can be understood negatively in the moral concept of collective consciousness, but it can also be seen as a process of integrating mental elements that have been ignored in the collective consciousness of the Joseon Dynasty, symbolized by a woman, a honey seller, and a hungry Buddhist monk. The new consciousness, represented by the servant, has the characteristics of a trickster that is not bound by the existing frame, so it can encompass the psychological elements that have been ignored in the collective consciousness. Such element may represent compensation or an alternative to the collective consciousness in the late Joseon Dynasty. The master puts the servant in a leather bag and hangs it on a tree to kill the servant. However, the servant deceives a blind man; he opened his eyes while hanged. Instead of the servant, the blind man dies, and the servant is freed. As the problem of the conflict between master and servant is finally entrusted to the whole spirit (Self) symbolized by a tree, the blind man gets removed. It can be understood as an intention of the Self to distinguish and purify the elements of recklessness, stupidity, and greed included in the trickster. Through these processes, the servant, which symbolizes a new change in collective consciousness or a new attitude of ego, solves the existing problems and takes the place of the master. While listening to the cunning servant's performance, the audience feels a sense of joy and liberation. At the same time, in the part where the blind man and the master's family die instead and the servant becomes the master, they experience feelings of fear and concern about the danger and uncontrollability of the servant. The tricksters appearing in foreign analogies are also thoroughly selfish and make innocent beings deceive or die in order to satisfy their desires and escape from danger. Efforts to punish or reform these tricksters are futile and they run away. Therefore, this folktale can also be seen as having a purpose and meaning to let us know that this archetypal shadow is very dangerous and that consciousness cannot control or assimilate it, but only awe and contemplate it. Trickster is an irrational manifestation of revivifying natural energy that rises from the unconscious as a compensation for hardened existing structure and order. The phenomenon may be destructive and immoral from the standpoint of the existing collective mind, but it should be seen as a function of the collective unconscious, a more fundamental psychic function that cannot be morally defined. The servant, a figure of the trickster archetype, is a being that brings transformation and has the duality and contradiction of destructiveness and creativity. The endings of this folktale's analogies are diverse, reflecting the diversified response of the audience's mind due to the ambivalence of the trickster, and also suggesting various responses toward the problem of the trickster from the unconscious. It also shows that the trickster is a problem of inconclusive and controversial contradictions that cannot be controlled with a conscious rational attitude, and that we can only seriously contemplate the trickster archetype within us.

A Study on the Delusional Characters and Their Narratives of Love in Cartoon Works of Jungae Lee and Shijin Yoo (이정애, 유시진 만화에 나타난 망상형 인물과 연애서사 연구)

  • Kim, Hye-Bin;Ahn, Sang-Won
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.16 no.8
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    • pp.640-650
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    • 2016
  • This study analyzed the narratives of love of "delusional" characters in the works of Jungae Lee and Shijin Yoo, whose cartoon creations were prominent in the 1990s and the early 2000s. Their delusional characters can be characterized by excessive obsession with their objects of love, rejection of realistic logic, madness, and extreme selfishness. They make a type of characters whose traces have disappeared not only in the South Korean society of the 21st century, where love and dating are included in the discourse of self-development and dramatic pathos is regarded as the waste of feelings, but also in creative works. It is still, however, needed to pay attention to the selfishness and collapse of those delusional characters that reject the order of the world and focus only on their love because they make the audience betray the sentimentality of melodramas stimulated by the popular culture and reconsider the concept of "love" itself. While Jungae Lee displays the progress of delusional characters and their narratives of love toward collectivized compulsion with the Messiah motif of Christianity, Shijin Yoo presents a narrative of delusional characters with lost memories reacting to hysterical fantasies and eventually choosing their collapse. Their two narratives are significant in that they propose the archetype of personal desire eliminated by the narratives of love in melodramas.

A Consideration on Creativity of the Unconscious: Focusing on a Series of Dreams (무의식의 창조성에 관한 하나의 고찰: 일련의 꿈을 중심으로)

  • Dukkyu Kim
    • Sim-seong Yeon-gu
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    • v.38 no.2
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    • pp.239-268
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    • 2023
  • Humanity has faced destruction(chaos) due to catastrophes (Covid-19, war, earthquake) and awaits a new restoration. For civilizations and individuals, creation or creativity is essential to psychic development. Creativity is the driving force that renews an individual when a new stance and attitude of consciousness or a new adaptation to reality is desperately needed in the depth of the human mind. This article is the result of an exploration of the nature and characteristics of creativity presented by a series of four dreams. First, the definition and form of creativity were explored in the context of religion, mythology, and history of Eastern and Western. While Western mythology refers to creation or creativity originating from God, ancient China viewed creativity as expressed through the interaction of yin and yang, the movement of Tao. In East and West, the form of creation is divided into creation from nothing, creation from matter, and creation through dissolution from the matrix, which psychologically suggests that creativity or creation originates from the unconscious, the seedbed of infinite potential and creative power. Next, with insights from the second dream, the characteristics of creativity were discussed. Creativity occurs through transcendent function and 'going beyond the frame of reference,' that is, 'transgressivity.' Third, the nature of creativity was explored as the creativity of the unconscious aims for regeneration and drives the renewal of Self archetypal images within the collective and individuals. Ultimately, the creativity of the unconscious is the goal of the whole psyche and aims for individuation to become the whole. Realizing the creativity of the unconscious is the fate of humans as the second creator.

The Healing Effect of 'Self-archetype' Manifested in the Analysis of 'Hunger' and 'Compulsive Overeating' : Investigation Focused on the 'Serpent' Imago ('배고픔'과 '폭식충동'을 주소로 하는 내담자의 분석과정에서 발현된 '자기원형'의 치유적 기능 : '뱀'의 상징을 중심으로 한 고찰)

  • Kim, Kye-Hee
    • Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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    • v.25 no.1
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    • pp.73-85
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    • 2017
  • Objectives : In this study I made investigations how 'strange hunger' and 'compulsive overeating' threatening the ego could be resolved and healed. And I aim to present a healing model of psychotherapy and analysis as one of methods of treatment for 'eating disorder'. Methods : The analysands of this study were outpatients who visited the department of psychiatry of Yong-In Mental Hospital from March 2008 to February 2017 with 'hunger' and 'compulsive overeating' as their chief complaints. This study is based on the detailed records of the process of analysis including dreams and visions. Results : 1) Throughout the process of analysis that explore both consciousness and unconsciousness(dream, vision), hunger and compulsive overeating is improved and healed in all analysands. 2) The Imago of 'Snake' appeared in dreams and visions of all analysands. 3) By suffering impulse rather than acting it out, impulse transformes itself into 'Imago'. As impulse transforms into 'Imago' and reveals the 'meaning' of it, ego-threatening power of impulse weakens and mood is calmed. And as a result, synthesis of consciousness and unconsciousness and creative transformation of personality can be possible. Conclusions : In some people, 'hunger' and 'compulsive overeating' are 'creative impulses' that aim 'Self-realization' which can be fruited as creative transformation of personality and as creative transformation in the relation with the world. 'Creative impulses', which often can be experienced as instinctive impulse or emotional suffering unless ego realizes the meaning, reveal the meaning in dreams or visions through 'Imago' and 'Symbol'.

On the Secret Scripture of Dragon and Tiger (Yong-Ho-Bi-Gyeol)-a Jungian Commentary (용호비결 연단술의 분석심리학적 의미)

  • Yong-Wook Shin
    • Sim-seong Yeon-gu
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    • v.33 no.2
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    • pp.141-194
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    • 2018
  • The article is about Yong-Ho-Bi-Gyeol(龍虎秘訣), which is one of the most important Taoist text in Korea written by Jeong-Ryum, a Taoist and alchemist in the Chosun Dynasty. The article deals with the alchemical and psychological meanings of Yong-Ho (龍虎, Dragon-Tiger), the way of nurturing cinnabar (修丹之道), the closing of the qi (閉氣), the method of alchemical breathing, the Dantian (丹田, cinnabar-field), and the Mysterious Female's One Opening (玄牝一竅), in addition to the brief introduction of the life of Jeong-Ryum and the bibliography of the book. The Yong-Ho (龍虎) meaning the dragon and tiger is the archetype of transformation in the form of their opposites, rooted in the psychoid system of the human psyche. The unified Yong-Ho makes Dan and the Dan, literally indicating cinnabar, has many alchemical connotations such as Mercurius, the rubedo state of the alchemical process, and the philosopher's stone. In the book, Jeong-Ryum emphasized the slow and subtle way of breathing in and out of Dantian to develop neidan (内丹, inner cinnabar or inner alchemy). The refining of neidan begins by the closing of the qi, which symbolizes the radical introversion and withdrawal of all the projections on the outer objects. The Dantian located at the lower part of the abdomen has been known to preserve jing (精), the vital essence of life, which can be refined into qi and spirit (神). In Jungian perspective, the Dantian is a mandala where an individual's mind can stay and focus at the center of psyche detached from ego and related to the Self. The long-nurtured introverted energy makes the Mysterious Female's One Opening (玄牝一竅), a pit or cavity in the transcendental space, through which the meditator can have a relationship with the great female principle of the universe. The current article has introduced the contents of the Yong-Ho-Bi-Gyeol in the perspective of analytical psychology. However, it has not dealth with the remaining topics including Taesik (胎息, embryonic breathing) and Juchenhwahu (周天火候, the great Celestial circuit firing), due to the lack of author's sufficient knowledge and experience. The unexplored areas of Yong-Ho-Bi-Gyeol will be studied in the future.