A method of dream interpretation developed by Jung in which a dream image or motif is enlarged, clarified, and given a meaningful context by comparing it with similar images from mythology, folklore, and religion. Amplification establishes the collective context of a dream, enabling it to be seen not only in its personal aspect but also in general archetypal terms that are common to all humanity.

Latin for “soul.” Jung defined anima as the unconscious feminine dimension within a man’s pyshce, animus as the masculine dimension within a woman’s psyche, an inner figure shaping how one feels, relates, and falls in love. Meeting this figure is often where real self-understanding starts. Many Jungians today read both as the psyche’s own otherness, idependent of gender. See also: Projection

A pattern or image that turns up again and again across cultures and centuries (the wise elder, the trickster, the great mother) as if built into the human mind itself. Jung thought we inherit archetypes the way we inherit instincts. When one surfaces, in a dream, a story, a sudden strong reaction, it tends to feel bigger than the moment that triggerd it. See also: Collective Unconscious, Amplification

The deepest layer of the unconscious: one Jung believed is inborn rather than built from our own life experience. It’s shared across humanity rather than personal to you, and its contents are the archetypes: the raw material behind myths, religions, and recurring dream imagery worldwide. See also: Unconscious, Archetype

The center of consciousness: the part of you that experiences itself as “I.” The ego is the conscious-facing aspect of the self.

The lifelong process of becoming who you actually are, rather than who you were raised or expected to be. For Jung this meant bringing unconscious, buried, or disallowed parts of yourself into awareness and integrating them. Less a finish line than a direction. See also: Self, Ego

An exaggerated sense of one’s own importance: often a sign that a person has unconsciously identified with something archetypal, a role or power much bigger than any individual. See also: Archetype

The psychic energy that drives the whole system, not sexual energy specifically, despite the Freudian association. Attention, interest, motivation: all of it is libido at work. What matters is where the energy is invested, and how strongly.

Sanskrit for “magic circle.” An image of a circle, often with a square or four-part structure inside it, that appears across nearly every culture in art, architecture, and ritual. Jung saw it as a natural symbol for the Self: the psyche’s own way of drawing its center. See also: Self

A term borrowed from theologian Rudolf Otto for the experience of encountering something sacred: awe-inspiring, unsettling, unlike anything ordinary. Jung used it to describe what it feels like when the ego brushes up against an archetype, especially the Self. See also: Self, Archetype

French for “mystical participation,” a term Jung borrowed from anthropologist Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. It describes a kind of unconscious merging: a blurred line between “me” and “that person” or “that object.” It’s the mechanism underneath projection: feeling connected to something before you consciously know why. See also: Projection

Latin for “actor’s mask.” The public face a person presents to the world, shaped by social expectations and early upbringing. Useful as a way of engaging with others; a problem only when someone mistakes the mask for the whole face.

When an unrecognized quality of your own (a talent, a flaw) gets perceived instead in someone else. Classic example: outsized irritation at a trait in another person that you don’t recognize, or won’t admit, in yourself. See also: Participation Mystique, Anima/Animus

Greek for “soul” or “breath of life.” Jung’s term for the whole of a person’s mental and emotional life, not just the conscious mind, but also thought, feeling, memory, and everything happening below awareness as well. Every other term in this glossary describes some part or process of the psyche. See also: Unconscious, Self

Jung’s model of personality has two parts: Attitudes (how you engage with the world) and Functions (how you make decisions). Everyone has access to all of them, just in a different order per person. Extraversion: energy and focus flow outward, toward people, objects, and situations. Introversion: energy and focus flow inward, toward one’s own reactions and inner life.

Thinking: a judgment based on logic and structure. Feeling: a judgment based on value, not emotion; weighs what matters personally. Sensation: perception through the physical senses: what is immediately, concretely real. Intuition: perception of pattern or possibility beyond the five senses, “seeing around corners.” See also: Participation mystique, Anima/Animus

The archetype of wholeness, and in Jung’s model, the real center of the psyche (distinct from the ego, which only feels like the center). Encountering the Self often carries a charge similar to a religious expereince; something vast and meaningful, larger than “me.” See also: Ego, Numinous, Individuation

An unconscious part of the personality containing characteristics and weaknesses that one’s self-esteem will not permit one to recognize as one’s own. It is generally the first layer of the unconscious to be encountered in psychological analysis. See also: Unconscious, Projection

The best available expression for something that can’t yet be put into plain words. Symbolic thinking is holistic and image-based: the complement to logical, linear thinking, not a lesser version of it.

Jung’s term for an acausal meaningful coincidence: two events with no causal connection that land together in a way that feels significant. Jung linked many reports of extrasensory experience to synchronicity, though that connection remains debated outside Jungian circles.

What happens when you consciously hold the tension between two opposing impulses instead of collapsing into one side or the other. Jung believed that if the tension is held long enough, without forcing a resolution, a third option eventually emerges: a new symbol or attitude that neither side alone could have produced.

The emotional charge, positive or negative, that moves between patient and therapist during analysis. Both are versions of projection, just directed at the person doing the work with you. See also: Projection

A damaging psychological experience not readily assimilated consciously.

Everything happening in the psyche outside conscious awareness: showing up in dreams, fantasies, slips of the tongue, and the things we can’t quite explain about ourselves. Jung split it into two layers: the personal unconscious, built from your own life, and the collective unconscious, shared by everyone. See also: Collective Unconscious, Shadow