A Comparison of Thoughts from Horney and Jung

Have you ever heard the words mother or archetype? Do you wonder what they mean and refer too? Everyone knows what a mother is. A mother is simply an individual who nurtures her young. So what then is an archetype, you may wonder? Well an archetype is a model or a prototype. Prototypes serve as a model for some future project. What then is a mother archetype? A mother archetype is an ideal, something one wants to hold as true. An example of a mother archetype is God. Carl Jung in, "The Personal and the Collective Unconscious" and Karen Horney in, "The Distrust between the Sexes" discussed the concept of the mother archetype. Both Horney and Jung agree the mother archetype originates in the unconscious, is created without conscious intent, can seep into the conscious, and serves as a problem solving-tool.

The mother archetype as Horney and Jung described originates in the unconscious. Horney spoke of situations where a wife would expect something of her husband and not get what she wants. The wife would not tell the husband specifically what she wants and she would then become depressed. Women don't demand of anything and become depressed because of their unfulfillment. Horney said, "A wife who harbors suicidal thoughts because her husband does not give her all his love, time, and interest, will not notice how much of her own hostility, hidden vindictiveness, and aggression are expressed through her attitude" (361). The wife's expectations distract her from her own behavior. Furthermore, Horney said, "One is inclined to overlook how little one gives of oneself, but one feels all the more this same deficiency in the partner [ . . . ]" (361). Women expect highly of men, but give little to them. In addition, Horney said, "The intensity of our feelings of love stirs up all of our secret expectations and longings for happiness, which slumber deep inside us" (361). One can think of these expectations as ideals. She then said, "All our unconscious wishes, contradictory in their nature and expanding boundlessly on all its sides, are waiting here for their fulfillment" (361). Horney thus believes the mother archetype sits in wait in the unconscious. Jung said the mother archetype is created in the unconscious through transference, which serves as the cure for neurosis - a mental disorder. The mother archetype is created without a person's awareness.

According to Horney and Jung, a person can't create an image of an archetype by conscious intentions. The mother archetype is created without conscious intent. Something in an individual's life happens and their experience creates a mother archetype in their unconscious. An ideal is formed. The mother archetype will compensate for the individual's grief and seep into the conscious.

The archetype can seep into the conscious where one becomes aware of their mother archetype. Jung and Horney described certain instances of people having a bad experience and then responding by creating a mother archetype. Eventually the archetype comes into the conscious where the individual becomes mentally aware of the archetype their unconscious created. Jung said the unconscious brings the personal unconscious into the consciousness, which feels unpleasant in the conscious. The truth hurts. Jung believes people can distinguish between the archetype their unconscious created and reality. Again, a mother archetype is simply an ideal generated by the unconscious. Horney gave an example of a girl who grows up and has a bad experience because of men. The girl creates an archetype unconsciously, which one day surfaces in her conscious. The girl who felt treated harshly by men would thus consciously desire to harm them - to seek revenge. If a young girl is hurt by men she will feel hatred towards men and seek revenge; her mother archetype is thus to destroy men. Hopefully the girl doesn't actually start killing men, she simply desires to. Better said, "She will imagine that every male merely intends to exploit her, that he wants from her only sexual satisfaction, after which he will discard her" (Horney 363).

Most importantly, the mother archetype serves as a problem-solving tool, as Jung and Horney similarly described. The mother archetype serves as a tool for one's appeasement, pleasure, and fulfillment. The goal of the mother archetype is to solve an individual's conflict in the person's life. Horney said children create fantasies to make themselves feel better - to feel satisfied and compensate for their harsh treatment from others. She also spoke of women's ideals towards their men and how the women would seek out their ideals. Jung spoke of a particular case of a woman who developed a father-lover figure. The woman created an archetype in her unconscious, which seeped into her conscious and she thus became confused, but felt happy with the ideal her unconscious created about her own father. The mother archetype solved the woman's conflict, but only temporarily. The archetype, as Jung says, can cure the conflict, but sometimes only temporarily. Jung says the archetype "Holds the possibility of a cure," but "it is far from being the cure itself" (347).

Karen Horney and Carl Jung described the mother archetype in the same manner. Each of them said the unconscious creates the archetype because an individual has some experience, which triggers the archetype. They also said the mother archetype serves a special purpose. The purpose of the archetype is appeasement and to make the person feel content. Everyone experiences some sort of archetypal imagery. Everyone has had good and bad experiences in their lives and in response to those experiences, a mother archetype brewed itself up in the unconscious. After residing in the unconscious, the archetype brings itself into the conscious, where the conflict is cured, as Jung said. The archetype serves as the "Ideal solution to the conflict" (Jung 360).

Works Cited

Horney, Karen. "The Distrust between the Sexes." A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers. 6th ed. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Boston: Bedford, 2002. 359-370.

Jung, Carl. "The Personal and the Collective Unconscious." A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers. 6th ed. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Boston: Bedford, 2002. 344-354.