Identity
Which Archetypes Are You Living?
Carol Pearson explains how understanding archetypes can lead to a fuller life.
Posted August 8, 2024 Reviewed by Jessica Schrader
Carol S. Pearson, Ph.D., D.Min, is an internationally known authority on archetypes and their application to everyday life and work. Her work in the field has helped people find their purpose and live more fulfilling and successful lives. Her books include The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By and Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World. With Hugh Marr, she also developed the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator (PMAI), a tested instrument that helps individuals discover the archetypes that motivate them at a deep level. Pearson served most recently as executive vice president/provost and then president of Pacifica Graduate Institute. Currently, she is an author and educator in private practice. We spoke from her home in Carpinteria, California.
Mark Matousek: What first drew you to the study of archetypes?
Carol Pearson: First of all, I love stories, and I love the characters in stories. The archetypes I work with are about people and the stories that they live. They are universal images and the narratives, like plot lines, give you energy for acting and doing things. If something happens and your first reaction is, “I’m going to stop that SOB,” then that’s probably a Warrior response. If something difficult happens and the desire to help those in trouble arises, that’s a caregiver response. If you’re inspired to think about and understand what happened, that’s the sage response. The 12 archetypes I focus on are absolutely universal and show up in all times and places. They’re the ones that helped the earliest humans survive, and also ones that help us thrive today.
MM: As I understand it, we all contain all of the archetypes within us but tend to favor certain ones over others. Is that correct?
CP: Yes, the Jungian belief about archetypes is that they’re in the collective unconscious, so we all have access to them. But like any psychological type, you have preferences in the stories that you like and those you live by. Some of that can be innate and some of it can be your conditioning. For example, I was to be a caregiver like many women my age, but it was very important for me to access my ruler and warrior, to be able to have boundaries and say no.
MM: Are certain archetypes more conducive to the classic hero’s journey?
CP: Joseph Campbell had one idea about that, which is very good and solid. I had another idea about that for reasons to do with gender equality. The 12 archetypes that I work with, which I wrote about in my book, Awakening the Heroes Within, are a kind of a prototype hero’s journey going from youth to old age. The archetypes start out with the innocent and the orphan as parts of the inner child, then move on to caregiver and warrior, which are necessary for functionality in the world. Then the next two are much more related to finding yourself. That’s the Lover and the seeker, which are about leaving your familiar ground and taking a journey. After that come the creator and the destroyer, or revolutionary, which are about expressing yourself, finding out who you are, through what you create and what you let go of.
The last four are about returning to transform the kingdom. That’s obviously the ruler, taking charge of your life, being responsible for yourself and other people, and the balance with the gesture to be able to lighten up and help people enjoy the process of their life. Then two forms of wisdom: the sage, which would be more the scientist, thinking rationally, and the magician, thinking in a transformational way. That’s the 12.
MM: You’ve said that the way to free ourselves of shadow possession is to awaken our heroic potential. How do you explain that?
CP: Finding our heroic potential makes us stronger. It strengthens the awareness that even though we’re not perfect—and we’re not—nobody else is either. Figures from the shadow arise from all the ideas and behaviors and images that we have rejected as not OK. The usual defense is initially to project all those qualities onto others, which is at the root of all the isms that make others seem unworthy. Then feel better than them. Facing a monster in our dreams or being willing to face harm that we have done head-on, requires courage. Competition, as in sports or business, can help us hone our strengths, but if we keep obsessively needing to win to feel OK about ourselves, we have been taken over by the not-enough demon. Our meritocracy can feed this, making everyone feel that they are a loser if they are not a big and then bigger winner. Real heroism is about having the courage to fully live one’s purpose, making a positive difference in the world as much as possible. Sometimes what we are here to do is not popular or does not lead to wealth and status, so it may take courage to do it anyway. If you’re doing what brings you happiness and fulfillment, and feel like you’re giving back to the world, that can be enough. This confidence means you can face the shadow, including those things you wish were different in yourself and the world. But as many Jungians have said, there’s also the treasure in the shadow. If we have the courage to look into the dark aspects of our lives, then we can open up also to see what else is there, perhaps gifts we did not even know we had.
MM: So, our heroic potential reminds us that we’re bigger than whatever fiction we’re living in the moment?
CP: Yes. It allows us to move beyond the persona of how we’re showing up, and then accept the wholeness of who we actually are, sometimes discovering things we had not known about ourselves. Being aware of archetypes can help with this, giving us ways to name the various stories we are or could be living. At some point, we can trust what feels right to us and then move into the unknown with greater faith that we can handle whatever occurs.
MM: Many people feel powerless these days. How can archetypal thinking help us navigate our current chaos?
CP: First, I have to admit that I’m feeling that way myself. On the other hand, I remember that there have been worse times. Life is always mixed. There are bad things happening and there are good things happening. What comes to us over the airwaves and in the papers focuses on the bad things because it sells, because we have amygdalas that are attracted to fear.
I think being able to recognize and name the archetypes in and around us increases our ability to know what stories we are living, even as they also help us better notice and appreciate what others are doing. I subscribe to the Daily Optimist, and I’m always learning about somebody who invented something that’s going to solve one of our problems. That helps me trust that there are more like that throughout the world. All we need is slightly more people doing good in the world than the others who, for whatever reason, just want to do creepy things. And we need patience. We love the beauty of nature, but sometimes fire burns it and human creations with it—but after a certain amount of time, things start growing again.
There’s a resilience in nature and we’re part of nature. We have that resilience as a people and as individuals. The real danger is when we give up. We can have more faith that other people are doing things that help if we are doing something that helps. Not just voting, which is obviously important, but also finding your call and taking time to do it, as well as being kind every day. Just go out and smile at people, and treat them nicely. All that stuff makes a difference and the more we do it, the more we can trust that this is going to come out OK. We have more agency than we realize.
