Anima and Animus
Anima and Animus – from the Latin anima, meaning “soul,” and animus, meaning “spirit” – terms introduced by C. G. Jung in analytical psychology to denote archetypal images associated, respectively, with the feminine and the masculine.
According to Jung, a man perceives his unconscious complement primarily through a feminine image, the Anima, while a woman perceives hers through a masculine image, the Animus. These images function as mediators between the conscious and unconscious aspects of the human psyche.
Anima is the personification of the feminine principle in the male psyche; it is associated with the emotional and sensual dimensions of a man’s life.
Animus is the archetype of the masculine in the female psyche. It is formed on the basis of a woman’s experience of communication with men and, in Jung’s model, regulates women’s intellectual activity, career orientation, thinking, and capacity for abstraction.
Since Anima and Animus denote archetypal images contained in the collective unconscious, their connection with sex/gender should be understood primarily in the social and symbolic plane, rather than as a direct consequence of biological differences between the sexes.
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