Apotropaic

1. Etymology

Apotropaic describes “magical thinking” aimed at depotentiating the influence of an object or person—warding off power by naming, ritual, or precaution. Related: introversion; magical thinking; adaptation to threatening objects.

2. Plain summary

Apotropaic moves try to take the sting out of what feels too strong—object or person—before you meet it bare. Jung ties such actions to introversion as orientation: the child who learns every name in the room before first steps is a classic picture—words as wards so the world can be touched.

It is not dismissed as mere superstition in the Index sense; it marks a psychological strategy of reducing object-power so the subject can move. Related to abstraction’s withdrawal of value from the object, without being the same thing.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common apotropaic motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
magical thinking to depotentiate influence; ward object or person; introverted orientation; child naming objects before walking; naming as protection; ritual precaution; introversion characteristic; vs extraverted empathy toward object; kinship with abstraction’s devaluation (distinct); adaptation under threat.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology apotropaic names depotentiating magical strategy—especially introverted—kept in Sharp’s lexicon. Samuels has no dedicated head. §5 holds a sample stamp at Sharp’s CW 6 ¶897 pointer (the leaf shows the child-naming / protection example; the English word apotropaic is not on that leaf).

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Apotropaic. Descriptive of “magical thinking,” based on the desire to depotentiate the influence of an object or person. Apotropaic actions are characteristic of introversion as a mode of psychological orientation. I have seen an introverted child who made his first attempts to walk only after he had learned the names of all the objects in the room he might touch.

(Sharp, 1991)

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

To reverse the picture, one of the earliest signs of introversion in a child is a reflective, thoughtful manner, marked shyness and even fear of unknown objects. … When he asks questions, it is not from curiosity or a desire to create a sensation, but because he wants names, meanings, explanations to give him subjective protection against the object. I have seen an introverted child who made his first attempts to walk only after he had learned the names of all the objects in the room he might touch. Thus very early in an introverted child the characteristic defensive attitude can be noted which the adult introvert displays towards the object…
(Jung, 1921/1971, CW 6, p. 704, ¶897)

See also: introversion; abstraction; adaptation; typology; analysis-jungian.

References

Jung, C. G. (1971). Psychological types. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (Vol. 6, p. 704, ¶897). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1921)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.