Uroborus: A Review of Jung's Thinking on the Nature of the Psyche and the Transformation of Libido

Abstract

For Jung, the nature of the psyche derives from its containment within the opposites of biological instinct and archetypal spirit. Jung describes the energy generated by this opposition as disposable psychic energy, and gives it the term libido, another word for which is will. Will denotes consciousness, so Jung concludes that psyche, that which is contained within the opposites of instinct and spirit, equals consciousness. The archetypes are “instinctual images” that organize and regulate consciousness. Their nature is that of spirit, and they form the counter-pole to the biological matter from which the instincts arise. The intimate relationship between instinct and archetype is resolved in the central archetype of wholeness, the self, imaged by Jung as both a color wheel, in which the ultrared of instinct merges into and joins with the ultraviolet of the archetypes, and the uroborus, the tail-eating serpent, in which the spiritual archetype, the head of the serpent, feeds off of and is nourished by instinct, the serpent's tail. Jung postulates that within the individual psyche, libido arising from instinct is transformed away from its original instinctual object by its canalization into an analogue of that object. These analogues arise in the psyche as symbols, and their source is the sphere of the archetypes. The instinctual analogues in the form of symbols are projected upon the environment, and individuation is the process of becoming conscious of the archetypal psychological source of one's projections.