The Core Archetypes

The four core archetypes are common to everyone. The are also called ‘survivor’ archetypes because they symbolize our major life challenges and how we choose to survive. The four archetypes are The Child, The Victim, The Prostitute and The Saboteur. They influence how we respond to authority, and how we make choices. This category contains articles written about these archetypes.

Dating Survival Guides Part 4: Check Yo Self

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Ever get super annoyed about a date’s habit of eating loudly, or feel uncomfortable because they have a super hot ex?  It can be oh so easy to extrapolate small things into relationship-stopping catastrophes even when other aspects of the situation are great.  When your list of deal breaking items gets longer than five, the Saboteur is lurking in your psyche and things are about to get messy. This archetypal dating guide has a reputation as ‘the Ninja’ because it has a way of being subtle and lethal before you know what hit you.  I’m referring to the archetype of...

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The Sun – At Play With The Child

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 Subscribe in iTunes Here Comes the Sun! After the dark debacle of the stage represented by the Moon card, the nineteenth card of the Major Arcana shares its rays of light on the Archetypal Tarot Podcast.  Inside the protective walls of a golden kingdom, two children (or a child and horse in the Rider Waite) are happily at play. Like Romulus and Remus, suckled from the wolves of the last card, it is as if the birth of a new Rome has taken place as a long-awaited result of this Tarot journey’s recent trials. Julienne Givot and Cyndera Quackenbush explore this stage of rebirth by...

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Dating Survival Guides Part 3: Safety vs. Strength

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If dating seems like an ordeal, you are not alone.  I’ve heard many versions of  “I’m not dating because it sucks”  from all sorts of people; gay, straight, men and women of all ages.  I’ve expressed that sentiment myself more than a few times, but I also know that it doesn’t HAVE to be that way.  Each of the archetypal guides in this series can help illuminate why dating can be difficult and how we can experience the process in a more grounded, wholehearted way. This next archetypal guide is a biggie – it’s probably the main reason dating can be...

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Dating Survival Guides Part 2: You Are Enough

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They say to always lead with your strength. I’m going to lead with one of my weaknesses – sometimes I feel like I’m not enough. Not smart enough, pretty enough, rich enough, thin enough etc. Basically, take any positive quality and put ‘not’ in front and ‘enough’ behind it and I can, at some point, feel that this is so. It’s a type of nefarious self-judgement that most people can identify with and it can make dating un-fun and stressful. These self-judgements can take over and have us thinking that inadequacy is the only possible reason why we...

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Victim-Victorious

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Let’s consider for a moment that we all have a container in our psyche that holds the entire history of our being wounded: betrayal, abandonment, shame – the whole painful enchilada.  This same container also holds the story of our healing: past, present and future. The archetype of the Victim is our guide through these storylines and shows us either a heroic triumph or an exasperating epic that never seems to end. The difference being which side of the pattern we pay attention to. The Victim, like the rest of the survival archetypes has a bad reputation which might be why...

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Three Archetypes of Awesome

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Little things can mean a lot. Let’s say you’re having a crappy day and you’re at the store when the cashier pulls out a coupon that saves you a dollar. This gives you a boost and you walk out the door in a better mood.  Maybe you don’t honk at the numbskull ahead of you for doing whatever it is that annoys you.  That person doesn’t get irked with you for being a numbskull honking at them and who knows what other little improvements occur because someone did you a solid just for the heck of it.  Little bits of beauty & generosity have a tendency to carry on...

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Part of us is grouchy and lives in Florida

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Understanding archetypes goes much deeper than a chat about a movie and beyond the confines of a psychology textbook.  An archetype is not just a pattern “out there” in theory but it is a recurring set of experiences that unfold through the course of a human life.  Our ability to spot when a particular pattern walks in the door makes the difference between acting out and making a conscious choice.  We begin to view the shape of our lives within an archetypal language by introducing ourselves to four patterns that we all share, the Survival Archetypes.  Let’s imagine...

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Summertime and the Child Archetype

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It’s summertime here in the northern hemisphere and it seems our Child archetypes are clamoring to go out and play.  I remember as a child, summer was about being outside and hanging out doing whatever we fancied at the time.   For most of us, childhood was the only time we’ve felt totally free.  Once the archetype of the responsible Adult comes along, any frivolous playtime tends to get reserved for weekends and vacations.  We box up the fun and put it on the shelf until the appropriate time. Summer can bring the Child out in all of us.  I’ve noticed it in my clients...

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Prostitute Finds Faith in You

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The term Prostitute doesn’t typically come up in polite conversation. It does however in popular culture, usually  in it’s slang form, “ho”. In fact “ho” is used quite liberally and casually in music, movies and by kids talking on the bus. So what is all this “Ho” business?  Do they really mean the Prostitute archetype when referring to someone as a “Ho”?   I looked up the definition from the  slang website Urban Dictionary (Warning – this site does contain much foul language).   Below is the 3rd listed definition: Ho...

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Survival Archetypes and “The Wizard of Oz”

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The film “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” provides a prime example of the hero’s journey of each of the four survival archetypes: the Child, the Victim, the Prostitute, and the Saboteur.   This film is an archetypal treasure trove, but for brevity’s sake I will concentrate mainly on these four. The first character that we meet in the film is Dorothy – the Child.  She looks for attention and is struggling to be heard and recognized by the adults (the Child seeking self-authority, responsibility).  She longs for a place “somewhere over the rainbow”...

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Survival Archetypes aka the Fab Four

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The four ‘Survival Family’ of archetypes are common to everyone.  The are called ‘survival’ archetypes because they symbolize both our major life challenges, strengths and how we choose to survive. The four survival archetypes and their primary purpose: The Child – responsibility, innocence, authority The Victim – personal power, self-esteem The Prostitute – faith, negotiation, integrity The Saboteur – choice, truth, self-esteem These archetypes influence how we respond to challenge, how we make choices especially when we are afraid of...

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The Child Archetype

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Simply said, we all have had a childhood and a part of us remains a child throughout our lives.  Eight or Eighty we are all still capable of playing wild and free, throwing tantrums, hiding from grown-ups (authority), believing that anything can happen or just being silly for the sake of doing so. “We are every age that we have ever been.” ~Madeline L’Engle The Child archetype resides in us all and is the first that we come to know.   The Child archetype is sometimes called the guardian of innocence and it represents our beginning point.  This archetype sets up our...

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