Editing Collective unconscious (section)

== Application to psychotherapy ==
Psychotherapy based on analytical psychology would seek to analyze the relationship between a person's individual consciousness and the deeper common structures which underlie them. Personal experiences both activate archetypes in the mind and give them meaning and substance for individual.<ref>Sherry Salman, "The creative psyche: Jung's major contributions" in Young-Eisendrath & Dawson (eds.), ''Cambridge Companion to Jung'' (2008).</ref> At the same time, archetypes covertly organize human experience and memory, their powerful effects becoming apparent only indirectly and in retrospect.<ref>Jung, ''Collected Works'' vol. 8 (1960), "On the Nature of the Psyche" (1947/1954), ¶440 (pp. 230–232). "Archetypes, so far as we can observe and experience them at all, manifest themselves only through their ability to ''organize'' images and ideas, and this is always an unconscious process which cannot be detected until afterwards."</ref><ref>Progoff, ''Jung's Psychology and its Social Meaning'' (1953), pp. 76–77. "Archetypes have a double aspect. On the one hand, they are the symbols that represent psychic processes generic to the human species. In this sense, they express universal tendencies in man. On the other hand, the psychic processes do not possess any symbolic content until they are expressed in the lives of specific historical individuals. In themselves, the archetypes are only tendencies, only potentialities, and an archetype does not become meaningful until it goes out into the world and takes part in life according to its nature and according to the time in history in which it occurs."</ref> Understanding the power of the collective unconscious can help an individual to navigate through life.

In the interpretation of analytical psychologist Mary Williams, a patient who understands the impact of the archetype can help to dissociate the underlying symbol from the real person who embodies the symbol for the patient. In this way, the patient no longer uncritically transfers their feelings about the archetype onto people in everyday life, and as a result, can develop healthier and more personal relationships.<ref name="Williams1963">Mary Williams, "The Indivisibility of the Personal and Collective Unconscious", ''Journal of Analytical Psychology'' 8.1, January 1963.</ref>

Practitioners of analytic psychotherapy, Jung cautioned, could become so fascinated with manifestations of the collective unconscious that they facilitated their appearance at the expense of their patient's well-being.<ref name="Williams1963" /> Individuals with [[schizophrenia]], it is said, fully identify with the collective unconscious, lacking a functioning ego to help them deal with actual difficulties of life.<ref>Shelburne, ''Mythos and Logos'' (1988) p. 59.</ref>