Sometimes I want to travel inside myself. Are you aware that psychology, which is a very comprehensive scientific field, appears in many different parts of our lives? From the books we read to the movies we watch, the science of psychology permeates many different areas of life. One of the topics closely related to psychology is fashion. As someone who has studied both fashion and psychology, I immediately remembered Jung as soon as I watched the short film that the Dior fashion house made to promote its new collection.
In this short but impressive film, we witness the inner journey of the woman who is the main protagonist of the film. Throughout the movie, we come across some archetypes of Jung. Two of them are anima and animus.
Jung was a person interested in esotericism. His work was influenced by Eastern philosophies such as Buddhism, and even wrote a book on Kundalini yoga. In 1927, after the Sinologist Richard Wilhelm sent Jung to his work "The Secret of the Golden Flower" on Taoist alchemy translated from German, Jung became interested in alchemy. During his many years of friendship, Freud often expressed his dislike for Jung's interest in esotericism. Freud thought that Jung's frequent mention of mysticism would have a negative impact on their careers, and he constantly warned Jung, whom he regarded as his heir, about this issue.
In Analytical Psychology theory, the whole personality is called the psyche. Ego, personal subconscious and collective subconscious. One of his contributions to psychology is the concept of the collective unconscious. People are born with this collective subconscious. He named his collective subconscious images archetypes. The term "archetype", which he brought to the world of psychology, is defined as the structures that organize our perceptions, regulate, change and develop the contents of consciousness in the psychology literature.
Anima represents the feminine side of the male psyche, while the animus represents the masculine side of the female psyche. A man has a shared image of a woman that is unconsciously inherited. A man's anime is shaped by his mother, and a woman's anime is shaped by his father. Anima and animus help one discover the opposite sex. According to Jung, every man finds people who fit his female image (anima) attractive. On the other hand, women are attracted to men who are suitable for their animus.
Going back to Dior's collection promotional film that reminds me of Jung, we should point out that this movie also has feminist elements. Anyway, Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Italian creative director of the Dior fashion house, is a designer who frequently adds to feminism in her collections. The T-shirts with the words "We Should All Be Feminists" in the collection that Chiuri prepared in the first year she became head of the French fashion house attracted a lot of attention. As we all know, the fate of the heroines of the fairy tales is to wait to be saved by the handsome princes in the fairy tale. But there is no princess waiting to be rescued in this short film directed by Matteo Garrone. The main protagonist of the film, the woman, takes a journey towards herself, encounters and integrates with the aspects that she suppresses, and eventually becomes a sort of savior of herself. This is where individuation, a term that Jung brought to the world of psychology, comes into play.
Individualization is finding our authentic self by recognizing the anima and animus and combining it with the repressed parts of the subconscious, including the shadow archetype. It is connecting the consciousness and the subconscious. In this way, we become a complete human being at peace with all aspects. The goal is to become an indivisible whole; Being a single, harmonious, unique individual means that a person is his own essence.
Our hero dares to take a journey into himself, discovering all parts of his soul, including his shadow, and uniting with his anima and animus. I wish you days full of courage to explore all aspects of your being.
After reading this I realized that it's okay to keep wandering and exploring in life like you are going to find and discover things you find interesting until you die..for me it's a meaningful existence.