The feminine and the masculine in the dream imagery of career-oriented women - a post-Jungian perspective

[摘要] The central aim of this study is to explore the archetypal Feminine and Masculine in the dreamimagery of career-oriented women in order to understand more about their developmentalpatterns and dynamics, especially within white Afrikaner culture.The study is theoretically grounded in the analytical psychology of C.G. Jung. In evolving hisideas on psychological development, Jung sees development and individuation as embedded inthe archetypes of the Feminine (nurturing, interrelatedness, immersion in life, empathy) and theMasculine (autonomous, separateness, aggressiveness). Jung argues that women instinctivelyhave more of these Feminine qualities and live in a Feminine consciousness, while men havemore of a Masculine consciousness.Post-Jungians have come to understand that, as a result of gender and cultural conditioning in thewestern patriarchy, women, as a result of their experiences, tend to have the archetypal Femininepatterns and ways of being mediating themselves. Post-Jungian thinking has led to anunderstanding that Feminine and Masculine consciousness are open to both sexes from birth. Apost-Jungian developmental model regards the Feminine and Masculine as the basic principles inwhich all other archetypes partake. They are used to explain the developmental patterns of theSelf and ego-consciousness over a life-time. Thus this post-Jungian model becomes a way inwhich to understand the developmental patterns of the Self in career-oriented women by usingthe Feminine and Masculine principles, their images, and forms.In the Jungian paradigm, the world of industrialised market-related work forms part of theMasculine archetypal principle with its modes of consciousness in its heroic drivenness,aggression, goal-orientation, and regulatory nature. Thus, career-oriented women would tend tomove closer to, and even identify with, the world of the Masculine and its modes ofconsciousness, while leaving more of their Feminine qualities in the unconsciousness.These considerations lead to the questions of what Feminine and Masculine themes emerge inthe dream imagery of career-oriented women and how they relate to the developmental model ofthe Self which explains development in terms of the Feminine-Masculine polarity. Thisinvestigation also indicates particular images with which these women are identified and whichmediate their ego-consciousness and ways of being.The first part of the literature study deals with Jung's understanding of the dynamics of the psycheand how these pertain to the two basic archetypal principles of the Feminine and Masculine. Thefocus is on the developmental model of the Self which integrates Jung's work and current post-Jungian thinking. This part also explores the Feminine and Masculine principles, their forms,images and structures.The second part of the literature study focuses on the Masculine nature of work. The last part ofthe literature study deals with an adapted model of the Self, using the archetypal Feminine andMasculine, for career-oriented women.To address the research questions empirically, a hermeneutically-grounded thematic analysis of128 dreams reported by career-oriented women of Afrikaner origin was undertaken. Nineteenthemes emerged from the data, each of which has been elucidated in turn, using Jung's methodof amplification. This process yielded two concise themes, the Feminine and the Masculine.This study concludes that the dream imagery in career-oriented women reveals more Femininethemes (fifteen) than Masculine (nine), indicating that these women have as a group movedcloser to the Masculine modes of consciousness with their specific implications for developmentand individuation. The structural or typological images mediating these modes of consciousnessare identified and described within the developmental model of the Self. The clinical implicationsof these findings and indications for further research are explained.

[发布机构] University of the Free State