The

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...

archetype The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ...

personifies the aspect of the

personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, m ...

that wants clear definitions, is drawn to master a skill, values order and harmony. The Apollo archetype favors thinking over feeling, distance over closeness, objective assessment over subjective

intuition Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; ...

.Shinoda-Bolen, J., ''Gods in Everyman: A New Psychology of Men’s Lives and Loves'' (1989) p.135 Harpur & Row

Background

Early in the 20th century,

Carl Gustav Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

sought to find a word that could describe the innate patterns of behaviour that govern our lives. Thus he introduced the term ‘

’ into modern

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...

. Jung described archetypes as distinct themes manifesting in the

fantasies Fantasy is a genre of fiction. Fantasy, Fantasie, or Fantasies may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Fantasia (music), a free-form musical composition * ''Fantasie'' (Widmann), a 1993 composition for solo clarinet by Jörg Widmann * ...

and behaviour of his patients, and found these same themes visibly rendered in the arts,

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

myths Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

, and social customs of all peoples. Because he did not want the term ‘archetypes’ to become yet another intellectual abstraction, Jung advanced various mythic images to illustrate them. For instance, the goddess Demeter is a presentation of the archetypal mother; Zeus an archetypal father; Apollo the archetypal intellectual, and so on. Jung went on to personify many archetypes by using general expressions such as 'the Great Mother’, 'Old Wise Man’, 'Shadow archetype’, etc. which have now become standard expressions in the field of

analytical psychology Analytical psychology ( de , Analytische Psychologie, sometimes translated as analytic psychology and referred to as Jungian analysis) is a term coined by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, to describe research into his new "empirical science ...

. Jung writes “The fact that the unconscious spontaneously personifies is the reason why I have taken over these personifications in my terminology and formulated them in names”.

Description

As with other archetypes, the Apollo archetype is not gender-specific. "Women often find that a particular alegod exists in them as well, just as I found that when I spoke about goddesses men could identify a part of themselves with a specific goddess. Gods and goddesses represent different qualities in the human psyche. The pantheon of Greek deities together, male and female, exist as archetypes in us all… There are gods and goddesses in every person." In addition to the many positive aspects of the Apollo archetype such as order, reason, moderation, harmoniousness, and unemotional perfection, archetypal psychologist

James Hillman James Hillman (April 12, 1926 – October 27, 2011) was an American psychologist. He studied at, and then guided studies for, the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich. He founded a movement toward archetypal psychology and retired into private pract ...

suggests that the archetype may also manifest as a negative potential if it becomes overly dominant: "Apollo certainly presents a pattern that is disastrous, destructive for psychological life, cut off from everything that has to do with feminine ways, whether

Cassandra Cassandra or Kassandra (; Ancient Greek: Κασσάνδρα, , also , and sometimes referred to as Alexandra) in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be belie ...

or Creusa or

Daphne Daphne (; ; el, Δάφνη, , ), a minor figure in Greek mythology, is a naiad, a variety of female nymph associated with fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of freshwater. There are several versions of the myth in whi ...

– whomever he touches goes wrong – so that you have the feeling that

simply doesn't belong where there is psyche."Hillman, J. ''Inter-Views'', Spring Publications, 1983 p.25 Of what she describes as the negative Apollonic influence, Shinoda-Bolen writes:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Apollo Archetype Psychodynamics Greek mythology Phrases and idioms derived from Greek mythology Metaphors Jungian archetypes