The Collective Unconscious in the Room (Part 3)

Notes From Training (Part III)

When the Pattern Knows It’s Being Watched

By the time you get to a “Part III” of anything, there’s a small risk you’ve become that person who won’t stop talking about Jung at parties. I comfort myself with the fact that I don’t really go to parties, I work nights and read case material and that’s my idea of a great party, so the main person who has to tolerate this is me (and a few unlucky supervisors).

Part I was about realising there is such a thing as the collective unconscious the sense that certain emotional architectures repeat across lives. Part II was about noticing how those patterns show up inside the therapeutic relationship and start casting both client and therapist into roles.

Part III is about a more awkward question:

What happens when the archetype realises it’s being watched? I explore this more fully in my piece When Patterns Start Behaving Like People, where I look at archetypes as autonomous patterns that don’t just sit passively in the background but react when they are recognised. On that page, I describe what can happen clinically when we begin to identify and name these patterns: how they often intensify at first, how they can “fight for their life”, and how, over time, therapist and client can start to negotiate with them rather than be possessed (not spiritual possession, I talk about this more in the future) by them. It’s an attempt to think through both the consequences and the possibilities that arise when an archetype knows it is no longer operating in the dark. This is something that can really help the client and will discuss this more comprehensively in the future and bring more context to why they exists and how they are formed over different generations.

There’s something very different that happens in the room when a pattern goes from being lived blindly to being dimly sensed, then named, then worked with. Jung hints at this when he describes how unconscious contents, once constellated, can become “charged” and then modified by consciousness (Jung, 1959). The polite clinical phrase for that charge is “affect.” The less polite trainee translation is: things can get weird for a bit.

When the Client Gets There First

Sometimes the collective unconscious doesn’t need my help at all. The client walks in and does half the job for me.

A client will say things like:

• “I’m basically reliving my dad’s marriage, aren’t I?”
• “Why do I always end up as the responsible one in every group?”
• “It’s like I’m cast as the bad guy, no matter what I do.”

There’s a moment there that feels strangely like being caught eavesdropping on the psyche talking to itself.

In those sessions I don’t need to introduce an archetypal frame. The client is already hovering around it: they sense they are playing a role that is bigger than the immediate situation. Knox’s idea that archetypal patterns emerge from early relational experience, rather than dropping in from the sky, helps here; the “role” they describe is not random, but a condensed history of attachment, expectation and survival strategy (Knox, 2003).

My task is less “clever interpretation” and more: Can I stay with them as they discover that this isn’t just this boss / this partner / this family chat it’s something like the Exile, the Scapegoat, the Invisible Child trying to update its script?

When Naming the Pattern Makes It Louder

One of the more sobering discoveries is that when you accurately name a pattern, it sometimes gets worse for a while.

Psychoanalytic language would say that the conflict becomes hypercathected: more psychic energy floods into it as it comes closer to awareness (Laplanche & Pontalis, 1973). Jung, in a different idiom, talks about how an activated complex can temporarily “possess” the ego (Jung, 1960). As a trainee, my much less impressive wording is: “Ah. I’ve poked it.”

I’ve seen something like this:

• A client recognises, often with relief, “I’m always the one who rescues everyone.”

• For a few weeks, they rescue even harder.

• Then something shifts and they start experimenting with not rushing in.

In that middle phase, the myth seems to double down. The “Rescuer” archetype does not retire gracefully the moment it’s identified; it throws a farewell tour. Behaviourally, this can look like more intensity: more caretaking, more testing, more repetition. If I forget this, I can panic and think, “I’ve made it worse.”

Freud’s early papers on resistance and repetition are a useful corrective: bringing something into view doesn’t magically dissolve it; it often increases tension before it reorganises (Freud, 1914; 1920). The field between us what Ogden calls “the analytic third” thickens for a while as both our histories light up (Ogden, 1994). That’s not a sign of failure. It’s usually a sign that the work has actually begun.

The Archetypal Field: When the Room Has a Mood

There are sessions where it feels less like “client plus therapist” and more like we’re both sitting inside a particular atmosphere.

Sometimes the mood is martyrdom: everything feels heavy, sacrificial, quietly resentful. Sometimes it’s heroic: big gestures, big ideals, a lot of pressure on both of us to “transform” something. Sometimes it’s tricksterish: jokes, tangents, interruptions, a sense that the real topic is slipping away.

I’ve found it helpful to think of this as an archetypal field – not in a mystical sense, but in the way Stein describes archetypes as organising principles that give shape to experience (Stein, 1998). The field is what it feels like to inhabit a certain pattern together.

As a trainee, I often only realise afterwards what field we were in:

• “Oh. We both spent that hour trying to be the Good One.”
• “We were in Judge Defendant mode from minute five.”
• “That was basically a small ritual of exile and return.”

The temptation is to tell the client immediately: “We were in the Sacrificial field! Let me explain Jung.” I have (mercifully) resisted saying this out loud. Instead, I try to translate it into human language:

“It felt like both of us were trying very hard not to disappoint anyone in here.”
“I notice I ended up taking the role of the strict one, and you as the one being assessed.”

The theory stays in my head; the feedback tries to stay in our relationship.

A Brief Detour with Freud: Repetition, Resistance and the Archetype

If Jung gives me language for pattern and image, Freud keeps me honest about conflict.

When a client seems to be “playing out” an archetypal story the abandoned child, the shamed lover, the defeated hero it can be seductive to stay at the mythic level. Freud’s writing on repetition compulsion and resistance is a reminder that, under the poetry, there is often a very stubborn compromise: a way of managing forbidden wishes, fear, and guilt (Freud, 1914) / (Freud, 1920).

From a Freudian angle, catching an archetypal pattern in the act means:

• We are close to whatever wish or fear that pattern has been protecting.
• Resistance will probably increase, because part of the psyche sees the danger in change.
• My countertransference will also intensify, because I am being invited into the same compromise.

This is where Laplanche and Pontalis’ dry dictionary phrases come alive. A pattern that is “overdetermined” supported by multiple memories, fantasies and identifications doesn’t fall apart because we give it a nice Jungian name (Laplanche & Pontalis, 1973). It needs time, repetition, frustration, repair.

So while my Jung leaning side is quietly tracking “Hero” or “Orphan,” my small internal Freudian asks boring but necessary questions:

• What is being defended here?
• What would be at stake if this person stopped playing this role?
• Who, in their past, would they be “betraying” by changing?

It’s not as glamorous as talking about the Grail, but it stops me floating off into archetypal airspace.

A Few Trainee Moments of Getting It Wrong (and Slightly Less Wrong)

There have been times this year when I have absolutely been “that Jung trainee” and felt it land badly.

In one early case, I got excited about the obvious repetition: the client kept ending up as the responsible fixer in every relationship. Instead of staying close to their lived experience, I drifted into abstract territory and said something like, “It sounds like you’re always cast as the caretaker.”

They looked at me politely and said, “Yes, that’s literally what I just told you.” Fair point.

What I heard afterwards, in supervision and in my own body, was: I’d moved too fast into pattern recognition and away from their specific pain. I was enjoying the elegance of the formulation more than the messiness of their feelings.

A contrasting moment went better. With another client, after many weeks of circling, I said:

“I’m struck by how often you end up taking the blame, even when the facts don’t quite support it. I’m wondering if this is an old position not just about this situation.”

They went very quiet and then said, “That’s exactly it. It’s like I don’t know how to stand anywhere else.”

Same basic observation about a repeating pattern; very different impact. The difference, as I understand it, was pacing and tone. In the second case, I was less in love with my own archetypal lens and more willing to sit with how costly that position had been for them.

When the Pattern Knows It’s Being Seen

There’s a particular atmosphere in the room when a pattern moves from being lived blindly to being dimly seen. It’s not just “insight” in the polite textbook sense; it’s more like the psyche squinting into a bright light and deciding what to do next.

At first, it often looks like relief. A client might say, “Oh my God, I do always end up being the one who apologises,” or, “This feels exactly like school again.” For a brief moment, there’s a sense of distance: instead of being the pattern, they are looking at the pattern. Jung would say that a complex has become “constellated” and partially objectified in consciousness (Jung, 1960). My trainee translation is: “We’ve managed to put it on the table instead of having it drive the car.”

Then something interesting usually happens: the pattern pushes back.

Sometimes it tightens. A client who has just recognised their “rescuer” role may spend the next few sessions rescuing even harder bringing more stories of over-functioning at work, taking on extra favours, apologising for “taking up time” in therapy. Freud’s idea of resistance helps here; what looks like escalation can be the psyche’s way of defending a long-standing solution that has just been questioned (Freud, 1914) / (Freud, 1920). The role has been keeping them safe for years. It is not going to retire quietly because we have given it a clever name.

Sometimes the pushback appears as doubt or minimisation. I have had clients say, a week after a powerful insight, “Maybe I was overthinking it,” or, “It’s not that deep, really.” The archetypal script tries to slip back into the background, where it can keep operating without interference. Laplanche and Pontalis talk about how certain formations are “overdetermined” held in place by many strands of memory and fantasy (Laplanche & Pontalis, 1973). You can cut one thread, and the knot still holds.

Occasionally, the pushback shows up in the relationship itself. After we name a pattern of being “the one who is always blamed,” the client may test me more directly: arriving late, cancelling at the last minute, saying something provocative and watching my face carefully. On the surface this looks like “non-compliance.” In transference terms, it is the archetype checking whether I will play my appointed part: Will you turn into the punishing authority like everyone else? Will you confirm the story I have just started to question? (Ogden, 1994) and (Bowlby, 1988).

I notice my own pushback too. Once I have spotted a pattern, a part of me wants to tidy it up. I feel the urge to steer the session towards “the insight,” to get us back to that moment when things felt clear and meaningful. That, of course, is another pattern: the therapist as Hero trying to resolve the tension instead of staying in it. Rogers’ emphasis on congruence is a quiet corrective here; if I can admit inwardly, “I really want this to change now,” I am less likely to act it out unconsciously in the work (Rogers, 1961).

Over time, I am learning to expect this phase. When a pattern first becomes conscious, I imagine it a bit like a long-term tenant being told that the lease is under review. It protests. It presents its case. It points out all the ways it has kept the person alive and functioning. In behaviour, that protest may look like intensified symptoms, stronger defences, or a temporary feeling that things are “worse.” In depth-psychological terms, the archetypal or complex driven organisation of the psyche is meeting ego-consciousness in open negotiation for the first time (Jung, 1959) and (Stein, 1998).

My job is to not panic when this happens in them or in me. If we can keep talking through the turbulence, something usually shifts. The pattern rarely disappears; it becomes one option among others rather than the only available script. And that, in practice, is what “making the unconscious conscious” often looks like: not a dramatic exorcism, but a slow, sometimes awkward re-negotiation of who gets to run the show.

Living with Archetypes Outside the Room (Without Becoming Intolerable)

Once you start seeing patterns, you can’t unsee them. The risk is becoming the person who turns every bus journey into an internal Propp analysis of fellow passengers’ roles in the Folktale of the Jubilee Line (Propp, 1968).

Part of my training task has been to contain this awareness. Not everything needs an archetypal commentary. Sometimes a bad day is just a bad day, not the Return of the Wounded Healer. Sometimes a grumpy email from a manager is just… a grumpy email, not the Father Complex Rising Again.

Here, Bowlby’s very concrete emphasis on secure attachment has been a healthy antidote (Bowlby, 1988). People don’t only need myths; they need predictable responses, clear boundaries, and the sense that relationships can survive annoyance.

So I try to keep a simple rule:

• In my head, I’m allowed to notice archetypal echoes.
• In the room, I speak as one person to another, about what they are living right now.

It’s a work in progress. Some days I succeed. Other days I mentally draft a paragraph about the Scapegoat archetype while making tea and then gently tell myself: Not everything needs to go on the website, Thaire

Where Part III Leaves Me

If Part I was about discovering that certain patterns seem to run through us, and Part II was about realising that those patterns also run through the therapy relationship, Part III is about noticing what happens when those patterns become conscious and start to push back.

As a trainee, I don’t feel like a master of any of this. I feel more like someone who has stumbled backstage and realised there’s a whole crew of characters moving the scenery around. Sometimes I notice them in time; sometimes I realise afterwards that the Rescuer or the Judge or the Orphan has been directing the scene for most of the hour.

What gives me hope is this:

Every time a pattern is named gently enough that shame doesn’t flood the room, something loosens in the client, and in me. The archetype doesn’t vanish, but it is no longer the only script available. A small increase in choice is, in depth work, a major victory.

And if the collective unconscious does indeed “have opinions,” as I half joked in Part II, then Part III is about learning to listen to those opinions without obeying them blindly. Part IV will move into rougher weather: what happens when archetypes flare up and fight back to keep the script running when insight is followed by backlash, when the old story doubles its efforts to survive, and when both client and therapist have to decide whether they will stay with the new awareness or retreat into the familiar drama.

Part IV will also explore how archetypes don’t just arrive fully formed in one lifetime; they thicken over generations. Families, cultures and institutions keep replaying similar scenes exile, sacrifice, rescue, betrayal, redemption and each repetition adds another layer of expectation about “how this kind of story goes.” In that sense, when a client and therapist begin to see an archetypal pattern clearly, they are not only meeting one person’s history but brushing against centuries of rehearsals.

Finally, I want Part IV to ask a quietly dangerous question: what happens when someone breaks the spell of an archetypal pattern? When the “good daughter” says no, when the “unseen son” takes up space, when the “rescuer” sits on their hands and lets someone else stand up? These moments can feel small from the outside but seismic on the inside. They are the points where a very old story realises it might not be able to cast this particular person in the same role any more and where a different, less destructive script starts to become imaginable.

References 

1. Ainsworth, M.D.S., Blehar, M.C., Waters, E. and Wall, S. (1978) Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
2. Bowlby, J. (1988) A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. London: Routledge.
3. Campbell, J. (1949) The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York: Pantheon Books.
4. Freud, S. (1914) ‘Remembering, repeating and working-through’, in Strachey, J. (ed. and trans.) The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 12. London: Hogarth Press, pp. 145–156.
5. Freud, S. (1920) Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Trans. J. Strachey. Vienna: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag.
6. Hillman, J. (1996) The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling. New York: Random House.
7. Jung, C.G. (1959) The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. 2nd edn. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
8. Jung, C.G. (1960) The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
9. Knox, J. (2003) Archetype, Attachment, Analysis: Jungian Psychology and the Emergent Mind. Hove: Brunner-Routledge.
10. Laplanche, J. and Pontalis, J.-B. (1973) The Language of Psycho-Analysis. London: Hogarth Press.
11. Ogden, T.H. (1994) ‘The analytic third: working with intersubjective clinical facts’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 75, pp. 3–19.
12. Propp, V. (1968) Morphology of the Folktale. 2nd edn. Austin: University of Texas Press.
13. Rogers, C.R. (1957) ‘The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change’, Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21(2), pp. 95–103.
14. Rogers, C.R. (1961) On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
15. Stein, M. (1998) Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introduction. Chicago: Open Court.