> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.descentpress.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Personification - URL: https://www.descentpress.com/index/personification/ - Published: 2026-09-05T04:40:52.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-10T01:58:30.000Z - Description: Personification names the tendency of psychic contents or complexes to take on a distinct personality, separate from the ego. Related: automatic writing; active-imagination; spirits (naive reading). - Author: Jae Botávn - Tags: #index, #Import 2026-09-04 23:45 ## 1\. Etymology **Personification** names the tendency of psychic contents or [complex](https://www.descentpress.com/index/complex/)es to take on a **distinct personality, separate from the [ego](https://www.descentpress.com/index/ego/)**. Related: automatic writing; [active-imagination](https://www.descentpress.com/index/active-imagination/); spirits (naive reading). --- ## 2\. Plain summary Every relatively autonomous complex tends to appear as a personality—statements in the first person, as if an actual someone stood behind them. The [ego](https://www.descentpress.com/index/ego/) may also deliberately personify unconscious contents via [active-imagination](https://www.descentpress.com/index/active-imagination/) to ease dialogue with the unconscious. Samuels: fundamental activity—experience becomes a psychic “person”; met in dreams, fantasy, [projection](https://www.descentpress.com/index/projection/). Enables seeing psyche as autonomous systems; depotentiates threat; makes interpretation possible. Jung took over spontaneous personifications as names (shadow, self, great mother, etc.). Analysis explores relation to one’s personifications; inability to personify tends toward mere personalizing. Hillman (noted as follower literature—not CW) develops the theme; house flag as secondary. **Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common personification motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):** complex-as-personality; first-person utterances; spirits naive reading; deliberate [active-imagination](https://www.descentpress.com/index/active-imagination/); dreams / fantasy / [projection](https://www.descentpress.com/index/projection/); autonomous systems; depotentiate / interpret; Jungian named figures; vs personalize-everything; dual-stamp [complex](https://www.descentpress.com/index/complex/) / [objectivation](https://www.descentpress.com/index/objectivation/). --- ## 3\. Academic elucidation In analytical psychology personification is **complex autonomy as psychic person**—CW 7 ¶312\. Descent Press keeps Sharp and Samuels (pp. **107–108**) in §4\. Prefer CW 7 ¶312; CW 9i ¶51; CW 5 ¶273. --- ## 4\. Lexicon **Sharp (1991)** > Personification. The tendency of psychic contents or complexes to take on a distinct personality, separate from the ego. … Every autonomous or even relatively autonomous complex has the peculiarity of appearing as a personality… The ego may also deliberately personify unconscious contents … using the method of active imagination… (Sharp, 1991) — cites CW 7 ¶312 in Sharp’s lemma. **Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986)** — *personification* p. **108** > personification A fundamental psychological activity whereby all that one experiences is spontaneously and involuntarily personified, i.e. becomes a psychic 'person'… 'the fact that the unconscious spontaneously personifies... is the reason why I have taken over these personifications in my terminology and formulated them as names' (CW 9i, para. 51). (Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986/2013, p. **108**) --- ## 5\. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive > … every autonomous or even relatively autonomous complex has the peculiarity of appearing as a personality, i.e., of being personified. This can be observed most readily in the so-called spiritualistic manifestations of automatic writing and the like… > (Jung, 1928/1966, CW 7, pp. 269–270, ¶312) > The fact that the unconscious spontaneously personifies certain affectively toned contents in dreams is the reason why I have taken over these personifications in my terminology and formulated them as names. > (Jung, 1939/1968, CW 9i, p. 285, ¶514) > … it was Miss Miller’s spirituality, which, personified as the Aztec, was far too exalted for her ever to find a lover among mortal men. > (Jung, 1912/1967, CW 5, p. 280, ¶273) --- **See also:** [complex](https://www.descentpress.com/index/complex/); [active-imagination](https://www.descentpress.com/index/active-imagination/); [projection](https://www.descentpress.com/index/projection/); [ego](https://www.descentpress.com/index/ego/); [objectivation](https://www.descentpress.com/index/objectivation/); [persona](https://www.descentpress.com/index/persona/); [shadow](https://www.descentpress.com/index/shadow/). ## References Jung, C. G. (1966). The relations between the ego and the unconscious. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), *The collected works of C. G. Jung* (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 7, pp. 269–270, ¶312). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1928) Jung, C. G. (1968). Conscious, unconscious, and individuation. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), *The collected works of C. G. Jung* (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 9, Pt. 1, p. 285, ¶514). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1939) Jung, C. G. (1967). Symbols of transformation. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), *The collected works of C. G. Jung* (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 5, p. 280, ¶273). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1912) 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. ---