What Is the Collective Unconscious and How Does It Explain Our Fears?

The History of the Concept

Carl Jung, born in Switzerland in 1875, founded the school of analytical psychology. He introduced and developed the psychological concepts of the collective unconscious, as well as the ideas of introverted and extroverted personalities.

Jung worked with the renowned psychologist Sigmund Freud. In his early research, Jung confirmed many of Freud’s ideas. However, the two eventually parted ways in their principles. The main difference between their explanations of the unconscious is that Freud saw it as a product of personal experience, while Jung believed the unconscious is inherited from the collective past experiences of humanity.

According to Jung, the collective unconscious consists of a set of knowledge and images that every person is born with and that are shared by all people thanks to ancestral experience. Although people may not be aware of the thoughts and images in their collective unconscious, it is believed that in times of crisis, the psyche can tap into it.

So, the collective unconscious, according to Jung, is a form of the unconscious that is common to society as a whole and is the product of inherited experience. The main difference between the collective unconscious and the individual unconscious is that the former is shared. At the same time, the collective unconscious itself is part of each person’s individual psyche. It is a deeper layer than the individual unconscious.

Key Concepts of the Collective Unconscious

Understanding Jung’s ideas about the collective unconscious also requires understanding the concepts surrounding these beliefs. Jung believed that the collective unconscious is expressed through universal archetypes. Archetypes are signs, symbols, or patterns of thinking and/or behavior inherited from our ancestors.

According to Jung, these mythological images or cultural symbols are not static or fixed. On the contrary, many different archetypes can overlap or combine at any given time. Some common archetypes Jung proposed to explain the unconscious include:

• Anima: Symbolized by the idealized woman, causing a man to behave in a feminine way.
• Animus: The female source of meaning and strength, which can provoke hostility toward men but also increases self-awareness.
• Hero: This archetype can be identified with the human ego.
• Persona: The mask we use to hide our inner self from the outside world.
• Self: The whole personality; the core of the overall psyche.
• Shadow: The immoral and dark aspects of the psyche.
• Trickster: The child seeking pleasure, sometimes showing cruelty and insensitivity in the process.
• Wise Old Man: The self as an image of wisdom or knowledge.

Jung used his theory of the collective unconscious to explain how fears and social phobias can appear in children and adults without any obvious cause. Fear of the dark, loud noises, bridges, or blood may be rooted in the collective unconscious due to inherited genetic traits. For example, some children are afraid of the dark not because of negative experiences, but because darkness triggers an exaggerated response in the amygdala—a part of the brain involved in processing information.