The main problem with Modern Psychology is it is geared to the ego, but neglects the inner self of Jung; Un
discovered Self. The inner self is often lumped into something very similar to the ID of Freud; primal subconscious mumble jumble. It is below the personal unconscious of the ego; where ego repression and personal subliminal data are usually stored. It takes therapy to reach the boundary.
The personal unconscious is only the tip of the unconscious iceberg. The inner self is the center of the collective unconscious, common to all humans and define humans as a species; human nature. Lions have their own version of the inner self that integrates what it is to be a lion. Culture and the superego of culture; mass mind, is connected to the ego and our personal unconscious; learned. While what makes us all human, apart from any cultural training, is from the inner self; innate via human DNA.
Jung was originally a precocious pupil of Fried. He was the first to go deeper into the ID and differentiate it via his theory of the archetypes of the collective unconscious. This created a parting of the ways with his mentor, Freud. The main problem was the best and most comprehensive collective human symbolism data, that Jung used to prove his thesis of the archetypes, was connected to the world's religions. This was the most preserved ancient data of the ancient mind and psyche, that showed trends that Jung reduced to ancient types; archetypes. This use of ancient religion data, conflicted with Atheism. Jung did not fully condemn everything religion, like a good card carrying Atheist, so he was not seen as one of them. The all or nothing bias still remains.
Most of modern Psychology is more of less stuck at the ego and personal unconscious; ego motivations, and does not consider the voices in the head can also come from the collective unconscious; natural firmware apps, common to all humans. Wading in the shallows of the ego tends to default to the need for psychotropic drugs. Whereas Jung, as a Psychotherapist could deal at the deepest levels of psychosis with just interactive person to person therapy.
Jungian Psychology, when I first encountered it, was very natural for me. I had been through some ego centric therapy in my younger years. I had self actualized; goal, but I still felt that there had to be more, than just being a card carrying ego. The journey had been more fulfilling than the goal; personal growth learning about unconscious processes. Jung's writings suggested even deeper aspects of the human psyche, that were more collective human, more advanced and even more natural than the ego. This seemed, to me, to offer the potential for higher human potential. In symbolism, this is the inner world of the gods of mythology. I did unconscious mind experiement on myself to gain first hand experiences to prove this was real and just theory. I was born for that quest and made it the furthest yet.
Voices in the head can be many things, but the current state of accepted art will not accept a large segment of innate possibilities. The ancient symbols are like command lines for inner brain IT, for both scary, soothing and even helpful firmware triggers.
This exploration of the collective unconscious was not all fun and games. I did find that between the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious, there is a wall/zone that Jung refers to as the shadow. Like a shadow, it follows us around. The light of the sun creates the shadow. The shadow appears to connected to law of good and evil, with good, the light, that casts this shadow. The shadow is mostly repressed, but it is implied by the collective social evil; dark side of human nature or ID.
The shadow is very similar to an archetype, but it is not long term natural, but symbolism suggests it formed with the rise of civilization and knowledge of good and evil; Satan subroutine. The shadow can also be the voice in the head, at the zone/wall between the ego and the inner self. This may be why this is often treated with drugs, carte blanche.
How the Shadow is formed (unique voices in the head).
When the animal brain writes to memory, it adds emotional tags to the sensory content. Our memory has content and emotional tags. Our strongest memories usually have the strongest emotional valance; tag. Marriage, first child, trauma, are strong memories with almost real time feelings that can bring the memories alive.
The problem with knowledge of good and evil was, such connected memories; one implies the other, will require two opposing emotional tags; rest and fear, to express the good and evil aspects, for one connected, but polarized thing; magnet of North and South Poles. This games the animal brain in an unnatural way. An animal can feel rest or fear, but not at the same time. Each is situational. But since we are trained to assume where there is good, there is a reflected evil, like negative and positive charges, memory writing adds conflicting tags.
An easy example to see of polarized tags added to one thing, is a love and hate relationship. Love makes you want to approach the beloved, while the hate makes you want to leave the same person. But since both tags are present, you are frozen. The unconscious might compromise with an orbit. We remain, sort of close, but also separated; friends, as we inner debate what to do next.
This state of suspense is repressive to the brain's natural energy. The brain or inner self will try to solve the problem, by repressing half of the two conflicting emotions. One may start to over hate the other, so you can leave; totally ignore the good times. Or one may over love the other and ignorer or justify the bad; add a good tag, so you will endure; forget or change the valence of the bad times.
The symbolic Satan subroutine is connected to most people, wanting to be good, to avoid social punishment and condemnation, thereby defaulting to the repressing the dark side and fear tag of law. This repression has been reinforced over the last 6000 years of civilization; recreated each generation. The shadow subroutine may been added to neural DNA; 6000 years of selective social advantages.
In my experience, getting past the shadow is not too hard, if you can control your fear. That is its emotional mojo and it will try to feed and grow on your fear. I used prayer to calm my fear and it left me pass. But erasing the subroutine, is very complex, since the wring may go to the DNA. This needs the help of inner self; IT symbols. Voices in the heads can come from the repressed half of the good and evil valance polarization; shadow. When extreme, exorcisms were one way to deal with these. This is rare unless you poke the bear.
Most people just assume there is a natural polarization into opposites, even in nature; science, due to that subroutine. It has outlets, such as the ends justify the means, that keeping it fed.
