We all want to know more about ourselves, especially about the underlying forces that may seem hidden to us, but that make us who we are. Perhaps the most compelling set of hidden powers within our psyches that I have worked with over the past decades are the Archetypes. There has been plenty of buzz about archetypes recently, and new books and websites devoted to them. But I haven’t seen much solid, useful material that can be applied to your personal, psychological, and spiritual development, or how they can be used in counseling or life coaching, for which I think they make ideal companions. So what are they, exactly? Archetypes are ancient patterns of behavior encoded in our DNA—or what the great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung called the “collective unconscious.” Some are impersonal patterns that affect us all, like Death and Rebirth. Others have names based on age-old human roles, such as the Mother, Knight, Warrior, Vampire, Rescuer, Sage, Victim, Saboteur, and Child. These are patterns that we all share, but certain archetypes are more prominently on display in each of us. Properly understood, archetypes provide a window into the motivations and actions of ourselves and others.

The concept of archetypes dates back at least to the time of Plato, who referred to ideals that he called Forms. Plato believed that these eternal Forms were reflected in material objects. The Form of Beauty, for example, is abstract and applies to all beautiful things. We may experience many different individual manifestations of Beauty—a beautiful person, horse, or flower—but the Form itself never changes. Early in Carl Jung's career, he was the protégé of Sigmund Freud, 20 years his senior, who built his practice of psychoanalysis on the concept of the unconscious mind. Freud believed that our neuroses and complexes were created by events that happened early in life and were then sealed away in the unconscious mind. Jung believed that in addition to what he called the personal unconscious, which is unique to each of us, "there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature that is identical in all individuals." This collective unconscious, he believed, was inherited rather than developed, and was composed mainly of archetypes.

Although Jung mentioned a limited number of archetypes, his ideas have been expanded in recent years by a number of spiritual teachers, including Caroline Myss. Caroline developed a way of identifying the 12 primary or dominant archetypes in the psyche of each individual, and then casting those archetypes into a chart consisting of 12 houses corresponding to the 12 houses of the astrological wheel. She called this group a "support team" that guides each of us throughout our lives. By identifying the archetypes that are most active in your life, you can learn how to turn them into your allies. You can also learn to identify their presence in other people, and deal with them accordingly. For example, if you know the Hermit archetype is one of your 12, you can learn to accept your need to have time alone as a regular part of your life. If you identify the Rescuer, you'll need to be alert to your tendency to want to save other people, which may come with a hidden agenda. For instance, the Rescuer might take care of people in exchange for an expectation of their eternal gratitude and dependency.

The archetypes provide the foundation for your personality, drives, feelings, beliefs, motivations, and actions. But they are not passive entities floating around in the psyche like old family portraits hanging in a dusty corridor of your ancestral castle. They take an active role as guardians and inner allies, alerting you when you are in danger of falling into "shadow" behavior. The Saboteur, for instance, warns you when you are in a situation in which you tend to sabotage your own best interests. The Victim alerts you when you might tend to play play the Victim or, conversely, to victimize others. Once you learn to recognize these patterns instead of ignoring or denying their presence, they become your friends and can help you avoid sabotaging yourself or becoming a victim.