Genome and psyche: a response to Christian Roesler’s critique

Abstract

Definitional chaosMany thanks to Dr. Roesler for engaging with me in this discussion of the biological dimensions of archetypes. I agree that the archetype as a concept has a serious definition problem. As Roesler points out, even Jung himself was inconsistent, vague, and perhaps even contradictory with respect to the term. And over the years, the term has become mystified, stretched and expanded to the point that it's hard to know what exactly the referent of the term 'archetype' is any more.To say I am not aware of this problem of definition, however, is to overstate. I recognize that there are other definitions of archetype, such as the metaphysical one, which has been recently updated by Atmanspacher and Rickles (2022), for example. In other works, I have also tackled the metaphysical definition of archetype (Goodwyn 2019, 2022a), which I based on philosophy of mind considerations (see Goodwyn 2021). I have also developed this framework further in collaboration with philosopher and psychoanalyst Jon Mills (Mills & Goodwyn 2023). But in any case, one can easily find a discussion of this issue of definition in most of my writings on archetype theory.I am also aware of the disagreements regarding the idea of 'instinct', which is why I asked what we, in the field of depth psychology, would like to do with it, if anything. I even offered a possible definition for discussion. In any case, I am developing a practical, updated, and clinically-focused definition for the archetype, which includes the links to biology. I am developing a way of determining to what degree a given spontaneous clinical expression can be defined as 'archetypal' or not, since it bears on the issue of interpretation (more on this later). Thus, I am not simply repeating Jung. I am trying to update the term using more precise terminology, giving it a sharper clinical scope and criteria, while staying true to the spirit of what Jung was intuiting. To this I add the latest updates from neuroethology, evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, anthropology, comparative mythology, and genetics. My