During this month's webinar, there was not enough time to answer the stack of questions that came in. So, I've detailed my responses below for everyone to see. Have a listen through the webinar again, if you like, and feel free to add further questions at the bottom of the page. Enjoy...
What’s the difference between archetypes and complexes?
Not being a trained psychologist or psychoanalyst I’m not entirely sure I can give a complete explanation, however…
I understand that Archetypes can be viewed as being the centre or core of a complex.
In a way, a complex can be seen as the sum of the expressions of a particular archetype. The very first archetype that Jung and Freud identified was, at least for a while, described almost interchangeably as the Oedipus Archetype and the Oedipus Complex.
However there are certainly complexes that cannot be described as synonymous with an Archetype, one example being the ‘inferiority complex’. It still fits the description of a complex but it is not equal to any specific archetype in itself – in fact it can be present amongst any of the archetypes.
I understand that Archetypes can be viewed as being the centre or core of a complex.
In a way, a complex can be seen as the sum of the expressions of a particular archetype. The very first archetype that Jung and Freud identified was, at least for a while, described almost interchangeably as the Oedipus Archetype and the Oedipus Complex.
However there are certainly complexes that cannot be described as synonymous with an Archetype, one example being the ‘inferiority complex’. It still fits the description of a complex but it is not equal to any specific archetype in itself – in fact it can be present amongst any of the archetypes.
Aren’t archetypes more of a way of being, while Meyers/Briggs seeks to define personality …which is how we act out our way of being.
Yes, I’d essentially agree. As I see it, archetypes address *character* issues, whilst Meyers/Briggs deals with *personality* issues. That’s the reason why I always start with archetypes – it immediately engages people at a gut-level and speaks to the core of their being; their sense of identity.
Can you just elaborate on what you think the archetype actually is. i.e. spirit, conscious, program, hologram?
I define an archetype as an innate, facet of character that has a distinctive and predictable set of behavioural traits, based upon their unique values, perspectives and beliefs.
They exist within the unconscious from before birth and can be attributed to several ‘levels’ of what might be called Soul and Spirit (which I see as two distinct areas). As such we can really only explore them through the use of metaphor rather than through empirical science.
They are also universally recognised, having been proven to exist as structures of thinking (and feeling) across all races, cultures and periods of time. They are absolutely inseparably from our design us as human beings.
They exist within the unconscious from before birth and can be attributed to several ‘levels’ of what might be called Soul and Spirit (which I see as two distinct areas). As such we can really only explore them through the use of metaphor rather than through empirical science.
They are also universally recognised, having been proven to exist as structures of thinking (and feeling) across all races, cultures and periods of time. They are absolutely inseparably from our design us as human beings.
I often find archetypes have a more masculine aspect to them why do you think that is?
Much of the original work around the definition of archetypes was conducted by men, rather than women, and so suffered from an evidently masculine bias (that these teachers would likely have been entirely unaware of). And maybe I’m guilty of this too – would a woman have chosen those specific ‘hat’ images that I chose for each archetype? Do they convey more of a masculine bias? They very well may do. (Apologies to my sisters, if this is found to be true, I welcome your input.)
That said, I personally treat the six Team Me archetypes as genderless. So if I am coaching a woman, I’ll talk about her ability to act as the Queen, and when I mention the Warrior I make sure that what she has in mind in a female Warrior figure, etc, etc.
Thankfully some significant teachers like Carol S. Pearson have since entered this space; though much of the original framework of understanding had already been established. As a case in point, building upon the work of Joseph Campbell, Carol’s work emphasises the journey of the ‘Hero’ which itself is a masculine, adolescent archetype! I’m not sure she realised that. (I do very much believe in Heroines, I should add.)
Whatever, I’m pleased to see several significant female teachers now taking a notable position in the field. There are some whose teaching (male and female) I have to say I really don’t agree with – especially those who suggest we should be ‘contacting archetypal spirits and asking them for guidance’ (not a path I want to tread myself, nor would I encourage), but none of us have this thing totally sown up, we just go by the best map we have.
That said, I personally treat the six Team Me archetypes as genderless. So if I am coaching a woman, I’ll talk about her ability to act as the Queen, and when I mention the Warrior I make sure that what she has in mind in a female Warrior figure, etc, etc.
Thankfully some significant teachers like Carol S. Pearson have since entered this space; though much of the original framework of understanding had already been established. As a case in point, building upon the work of Joseph Campbell, Carol’s work emphasises the journey of the ‘Hero’ which itself is a masculine, adolescent archetype! I’m not sure she realised that. (I do very much believe in Heroines, I should add.)
Whatever, I’m pleased to see several significant female teachers now taking a notable position in the field. There are some whose teaching (male and female) I have to say I really don’t agree with – especially those who suggest we should be ‘contacting archetypal spirits and asking them for guidance’ (not a path I want to tread myself, nor would I encourage), but none of us have this thing totally sown up, we just go by the best map we have.
How can we use this for Management development training?
Having an awareness of archetypes can be very helpful in both management and leadership development. I would go as far as to say it is essential.
Since you’re asking about management in particular, we should first ask the question, ‘What are the key success factors for any manager?’
Whatever industry they find themselves in, every manager needs to be able to plan, organise, staff (or recruit), delegate, supervise, measure and report on their department’s activities and progress.
How the manager deals with the people she’s responsible for is absolutely key to her success. She needs to have a very good understanding of her staff; what they value, what motivates them, what annoys them, how they prefer to operate, in what sort of situations they thrive…or simply shrivel, and, crucially, which members of their team they likely to get on with well, and which they are likely to find a bit more challenging.
All these issues can be unearthed through archetypal profiling.
As the managers come to understand the typical characteristics and tendencies of each archetype, they will be much better equipped to plan ahead and assign the required tasks to the most suitable team member.
Managers we coach are trained to recognise the tell-tale signs of the various archetypes (and their shadows) as they are expressed by particular individuals in their teams and given specific methods of handling, directing, supervising and structuring activities to achieve the highest performance possible.
These matters are explored in a little more detail in the book ‘Team Me’, but for a more in-depth understanding of our methods do contact Pad directly.
Can we work in an opposite type role. Is it possible to go against our natural tendencies?
NLP has provided us with tools that can retrain the brain to link pleasure to values, beliefs and behaviours that once caused pain… and to link pain to values, beliefs and behaviours that once caused feelings of pleasure. Because of this, it is possible actually to ‘re-wire’ somebody quite extensively - so that they operate in the mode of any archetype they desire.
Such ‘re-wiring’ can be designed so that their energies are steered away from a presently strong archetype, that they wish to ‘demote’, and towards one that is weaker, so that traits of the formerly inferior archetype begin to manifest in daily life.
So, yes, it is possible to achieve this. However, it would be prudent to need to ask why you would want to do that? Is it really ‘congruently desirable’? What I mean by that is; would it benefit you, others around you and the world at large?
At times it actually would. So there are times when I have gone some way down this path because the person I’m coaching has evidently developed some limiting decisions that they now need to demolish – usually due to some significant emotional event they faced in the past.
These unconscious, limiting decisions have limited their perceived set of available options and continue to hamper their progress in life. Related to this there is the example I gave (in the webinar) of the education manager in the HM Prison service. She felt she was naturally a more nurturing kind of person (the Lover), yet her experience told her that the Warrior was required to ‘keep those inmate in line’. Here I would want to see more of the Lover, but not lose the strength of the Warrior. For her own part, she would need to see that the Lover could be effective in gaining positive results before she relaxed her current Warrior stance.
All that said, aside from the negative impact of significant emotional events, I believe that you should generally accept what you’ve been made to be and press on to a greater place of maturity. This would firstly involve seeing the great benefits of your naturally dominant archetypes - ensuring they are operating in a balance/mature way, rather than frequently ‘overheating’ and causing damage – and then seeking to grow a little more in the mode of the other archetypes. (Specific techniques for this are detailed in the book ‘Team Me’).
Such ‘re-wiring’ can be designed so that their energies are steered away from a presently strong archetype, that they wish to ‘demote’, and towards one that is weaker, so that traits of the formerly inferior archetype begin to manifest in daily life.
So, yes, it is possible to achieve this. However, it would be prudent to need to ask why you would want to do that? Is it really ‘congruently desirable’? What I mean by that is; would it benefit you, others around you and the world at large?
At times it actually would. So there are times when I have gone some way down this path because the person I’m coaching has evidently developed some limiting decisions that they now need to demolish – usually due to some significant emotional event they faced in the past.
These unconscious, limiting decisions have limited their perceived set of available options and continue to hamper their progress in life. Related to this there is the example I gave (in the webinar) of the education manager in the HM Prison service. She felt she was naturally a more nurturing kind of person (the Lover), yet her experience told her that the Warrior was required to ‘keep those inmate in line’. Here I would want to see more of the Lover, but not lose the strength of the Warrior. For her own part, she would need to see that the Lover could be effective in gaining positive results before she relaxed her current Warrior stance.
All that said, aside from the negative impact of significant emotional events, I believe that you should generally accept what you’ve been made to be and press on to a greater place of maturity. This would firstly involve seeing the great benefits of your naturally dominant archetypes - ensuring they are operating in a balance/mature way, rather than frequently ‘overheating’ and causing damage – and then seeking to grow a little more in the mode of the other archetypes. (Specific techniques for this are detailed in the book ‘Team Me’).
It seems very confusing because I have a lot of the Sovereign but I'm also very high as the Lover - would that make sense?
The simple answer is that your profile makes perfect sense, yes. Can you think of anyone else who might have a similar profile? One comes to my mind…. Richard Branson.
I’ve met him only once, and briefly shook his hand (though our conversation was admittedly rather limited) but those who know him say that though he’s clearly the big boss, he also makes sure that people are looked after – and this applies to his staff, not just his customers. Definitely Sovereign and definitely Lover.
I’ve met him only once, and briefly shook his hand (though our conversation was admittedly rather limited) but those who know him say that though he’s clearly the big boss, he also makes sure that people are looked after – and this applies to his staff, not just his customers. Definitely Sovereign and definitely Lover.
In terms of the extremes discussed earlier, are there ways of using archetypes to rebalance yourself / approach to a situation / help other people?
Let me comment on each scenario in turn – though you’ll see a common thread in each situation.
1. Approaching a situation: Ok, here’s the key point - The more mature archetypes that you have personally available to you, the more flexible you can be in your approach to any life situation and the more effective you’ll be at overcoming any challenges that face you. (The individual with the greatest flexibility comes out on top, as they say in NLP.) If you only have strong Sovereign and Warrior traits, how will you fair when the answer can only be seen by the Lover or a Mystic?
2. Rebalancing: first you need to decide if it’s better that you team up with others who have the archetypal strengths you lack, or if you’re ready to stretch yourself outside your usual comfort zone to learn to command what will be unfamiliar territory. Once decided, you can use a number of NLP techniques to strengthen weaker archetypes and defuse overheated behaviours. (Impossible to detail the techniques here but they would include anchoring, parts integration and swish patterns, amongst others.)
3. Help other people: Of course this depends upon the type of help that someone needs. But broadly speaking, if they need help it’s simply because they have not been able to access the required archetypal resources that they need to deal with their situation.
Your job is to show them they can (indeed *must*) take responsibility for their behaviours and that they do have the resourcefulness required to turn things around (even if that is only the resourcefulness to pray!). In the near term you, yourself, might have to be the Warrior or Sage or Mystic that they need – but longer term you’d want to ‘teach a man to fish’ for himself, as the old saying goes.
So let me throw down a challenge; sometimes someone will have tried to help their friends/son/daughter/colleague by approaching them as a Lover… when actually what they need is a Warrior to give them a good kick up the butt. The Lover is offended by such a proposition, but it might actually be the most *loving* thing to do. The key, again, is having the flexibility to try several different approaches – but if you don’t have many mature archetypes available to you, you’ll find yourself burning out and in danger of slipping into the frozen state of the archetype you’ve completely ‘spent’.
1. Approaching a situation: Ok, here’s the key point - The more mature archetypes that you have personally available to you, the more flexible you can be in your approach to any life situation and the more effective you’ll be at overcoming any challenges that face you. (The individual with the greatest flexibility comes out on top, as they say in NLP.) If you only have strong Sovereign and Warrior traits, how will you fair when the answer can only be seen by the Lover or a Mystic?
2. Rebalancing: first you need to decide if it’s better that you team up with others who have the archetypal strengths you lack, or if you’re ready to stretch yourself outside your usual comfort zone to learn to command what will be unfamiliar territory. Once decided, you can use a number of NLP techniques to strengthen weaker archetypes and defuse overheated behaviours. (Impossible to detail the techniques here but they would include anchoring, parts integration and swish patterns, amongst others.)
3. Help other people: Of course this depends upon the type of help that someone needs. But broadly speaking, if they need help it’s simply because they have not been able to access the required archetypal resources that they need to deal with their situation.
Your job is to show them they can (indeed *must*) take responsibility for their behaviours and that they do have the resourcefulness required to turn things around (even if that is only the resourcefulness to pray!). In the near term you, yourself, might have to be the Warrior or Sage or Mystic that they need – but longer term you’d want to ‘teach a man to fish’ for himself, as the old saying goes.
So let me throw down a challenge; sometimes someone will have tried to help their friends/son/daughter/colleague by approaching them as a Lover… when actually what they need is a Warrior to give them a good kick up the butt. The Lover is offended by such a proposition, but it might actually be the most *loving* thing to do. The key, again, is having the flexibility to try several different approaches – but if you don’t have many mature archetypes available to you, you’ll find yourself burning out and in danger of slipping into the frozen state of the archetype you’ve completely ‘spent’.
RSS Feed