An Exploration of the Puella Archetype in Analytical Psychology: Girl Unfolding
Excerpt-Susan Schwartz
What does the puella part of the personality and femininity look like? What happens when we decouple femininity from female bodies? We are led to puella with imagination and hope, enchanted and curious about her elusive elements. As Jungian analyst Toni Wolff said years ago, ‘What is of practical importance is the awareness of the existence of the problem, and the attempt to resolve the state of inner confusion by attaining greater consciousness’ (1956, p. 2). Although the puella character can form within the psyche in various ways, this perspective focuses on the prominent effect of the absent father and the absorption in the mother who is emotionally missing without sufficient connection to her being.
Puella is noticeable with a certain style, a freshness and interest. She can be of any age, energetic with ideas and hope. However, she can also be bogged down with a secret numbness, like carrying a dead weight. The zest is compromised; the strength is as well. She is smart, quick, and the development of personality has yet to unfold. She needs time as something became stunted. It can come from parental lack, neglectful family systems and structures and culturally limiting and prescribed aspects. She is withheld, living behind a wall, taken with destructive complexes and unable to access a more complete self. This exploration is to free her from the shackles and projections into her more natural movement. She is the girl becoming and emerging from what has been into what she can be.
Puella is described through archetypal images and the etymology of the word itself. Puella represents the young feminine on the brink of becoming and at a crossroads. She exists between her individual nature, energy, youth and the innovative, yet can be drawn back to traditional ways. Puella is the creative, unusual, desirous and different. Even so, often infirm in her position, she can become waylaid. Whether women or men, heterosexual, lesbian, gay or nonbinary, puella remains a concept and personality aspect to be understood and made conscious in all people.
Puella, as an archetype humanly lived in each of us, represents movement in time, revealing patterns and tendencies of psychological development. She is aligned with the maiden of mythology. She is a figure in the life cycle, as Jungian analyst Murray Stein noted, ‘The imagos people realize in their individual development are based on archetypal forms which are relatively timeless and unchanging, are shaped by history and culture’ (1998, p. 120). We learn about ourselves by examining the puella’s roles and enactments, unconscious assumptions and perceptions, acquired consciously and unconsciously.
Jung suggested this archetypal predisposition, this orientating structure, is filled out and given content by the external world. It is experienced and taken in, linked with the archetypal predispositions and rendered meaningful by them. Jung also said, ‘It [the archetype] persists throughout the ages and requires interpreting anew. The archetypes are imperishable elements of the unconscious, but they change their shape continually’ (1968, CW 9i, para. 301). The process of interpreting anew is what this expose aims to do. This includes the large and small incremental processes of rebirth, transformation and renewal occurring through the developmental stages involving separation, differentiation, dismemberment and unification.
Puella stands on a historical, mythological, cultural and personal continuum, symbolising one form of the category called feminine. She works the female voice out of its conformity and repression into creative spaces with her rebellious nature. Her challenging of traditional patterns takes courage, dedication and devotion. This emerges through the process of individuation and by exploring the many facets of the psyche to find what it means to be true to herself.
Notions of woman, man and the feminine are altering dramatically, and more shifts are on the horizon. This presents challenges, not for pathologising but for psyche transforming. The Jungian perspective presents ways of understanding what this means in our current era. Thinking about the feminine has changed with cultural attitudes and awareness of the varieties of conscious and unconscious identifications. These variations enlarge our understanding while also creating misperceptions. Gender stereotypes indicate the need to rethink gender assumptions influenced by traditional hegemonic codes shaping many of the current adaptations. The fundamental tensions for navigating gender represent radical and wide‐spread changes in the sociocultural environment.
We want to know about puella. The more we recognise the ongoing issues, the more definitive she becomes with personal and collective ramifications. Being conscious of puella, she ceases to be an object and she unfolds into being creative and potent, confident as she discovers her agency, connecting to self and others. As Jung commented, ‘It has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my forefathers, and which had not yet been answered ... things which previous ages had left unfinished’ (Jung, 1989 p. 233).
Jung, C. G. (1968). The collected works of C. G. Jung: Vol. 9i. The archetypes and the collective unconscious. Pantheon Books.
Jung, C. G. (1989). Memories, dreams, reflections (A. Jaffe, Ed.) (R. Winston & C. Winston, Trans.). Vintage. (Original work published 1961).
Stein, M. (2022). Four pillars of Jungian analysis. Chiron. Wolff, T. (1956). Structural forms of the feminine psyche. Jung Institute
Follow the link to Susan's website
See Jung and the Worl Podcast with Susan on YouTube