Type and Archetype
So What?
"Go by the way of ignorance. That's the calling card of the unconscious. Let go of predicting and say, 'I don't know and I'm interested in finding out.'"
Milton Erickson
Dr. Beebe has obviously found the archetypal aspect of type to be illuminating and useful in working with clients in psychoanalysis. But what about for the rest of us? This is relatively new territory; and although there are many who intuitively sense that there is something very important here, most of us are still working to figure out how to use it in our practices and in our lives.
At Wellness Resources of Vermont, we have been experimenting with a "self-exam" exercise for using the archetypal framework as a tool for enhancing personal development. It can be used as a guide for investigation and reflection on how effectively we are functioning in terms of our personality frameworkâto learn more about which parts of our personality toolkit are well developed and where we could use some improvement.
…the Jungian archetypes have been used for almost a century and have consistently been found to provide informative and useful insights into the nature of personality.
The association of archetypes with personality type probably can never be "scientifically" proven. The recesses of the mind simply don't lend themselves well to the black-and-white lens of this method of inquiry. We can say, however, that the Jungian archetypes have been used for almost a century and have consistently been found to provide informative and useful insights into the nature of personality. Only time will tell whether Beebe's archetypes will hold up as well. It should also be noted that our "self-exam" templates have been used only on a limited basis to date; and it is far too early to know how useful or effective they will prove to be. Lastly, Dr. Beebe himself cautions us that the framework is not a hard-and-fast one-size-fits-all structure. Individuals may find that some parts of it really do not fit for them.
Nevertheless, we are making the "self-exam" exercise available for those who wish to try it out. We hope that you will find it (as we have) to be interesting and helpful. We also hope that you will contact us to let us know how it went. Did it seem to fit for you? Did you have any "aha" moments?