The Reintegration of the Archetypal Feminine in Black and White

Patricia Dunn-Fierstein

Abstract

This article explores the archetypal feminine as a transcendent image in the psyche, in both her dark and light forms. Two images in particular are explored in depth: Kuan Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion, and the Mammy as an element of the Black Madonna. These images are depicted in the case of a 7-year-old girl who lost two mothers and was living with a rejecting grandmother. It shows with amazing clarity, Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious as this 7-year-old child uses Kuan Yin in the tray, and speaks of her with amazing internal knowledge, impossible for her to have known.

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