Description
As with other archetypes, the Apollo archetype is not gender-specific. "Women often find that a particular god exists in them as well, just as I found that when I spoke about goddesses men could identify a part of themselves with a specific goddess. Gods and goddesses represent different qualities in the human psyche. The pantheon of Greek deities together, male and female, exist as archetypes in us all… There are gods and goddesses in every person."
In addition to the many positive aspects of the Apollo archetype such as order, reason, moderation, harmoniousness, and unemotional perfection, archetypal psychologist James Hillman suggests that the archetype may also manifest as a negative potential if it becomes overly dominant: "Apollo certainly presents a pattern that is disastrous, destructive for psychological life, cut off from everything that has to do with feminine ways, whether Cassandra or Creusa or Daphne — whomever he touches goes wrong — so that you have the feeling that Apollo simply doesn't belong where there is psyche."
Of what she describes as the negative Apollonic influence, Dr. Shinoda-Bolen writes:
Individuals who resemble Apollo have difficulties that are related to emotional distance, such as communication problems, and the inability to be intimate… Rapport with another person is hard for the Apollo man. He prefers to access (or judge) the situation or the person from a distance, not knowing that he must "get close up" - be vulnerable and empathic - in order to truly know someone else…. But if the woman wants a deeper, more personal relationship, then there are difficulties… she may become increasingly irrational or hysterical.Read more about this topic: Apollo Archetype
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