| This thesis demonstrates how using Jungian-based dream work assists a woman to engage a negative animus figure as a Trickster--guide who can aid her in the individuation process. A series of dreams is used as an example of how a therapist might work with a female client to understand her own dream language and so enter a related relationship with her animus to restore wholeness. In the early 20th century C. G. Jung proposed the existence of two contrasexual archetypes in the unconscious: the Eros-aligned anima in men's psyches and the Logos-aligned animus in women's. In dreams the animus usually takes male form, and can appear as either a positive or negative figure. This thesis reinterprets the negative animus through the lens of the Trickster archetype using heuristics, traditional and alchemical hermeneutics, and phenomenology, together with the theories of both the classical and archetypal Jungian schools. |
