Toni Wolff on the “Four Functions” and the “Animus”
Four Eternal Women: Toni Wolff Revisited – A Study in Opposites by Mary Dian Molton
Similar to the four basic psychological functions, all the four structural forms are inherent to every woman.
If possible she will realize the one which is the most consistent with her nature.
By and by, a second form will assert itself from within.
This process, too, runs parallel to the gradual differentiation of the four basic functions, in so far as the second form is not the opposite one in our schematic representation except for those cases where the opposite presses up from the unconscious.
Consequently, for the mother for instance, this second form will be the Amazon or the medial woman; the personal relationship is thus joined by an impersonal one or, vice versa, by a personal one in the case of an initially impersonally related woman.
If the gradual integration of the next structural form does not take place, the original one will be exaggerated and turn negative.
In the further course of life a third form will have to be dealt with, which usually lies upon the same axis as the second, but has more of a shadow character and can be less easily reconciled with the first one.
Again similar to the four functions, the fourth form causes the greatest difficulty.
The fourth structural form cannot as a rule be lived concretely, representing too great a contrast to the original character and to reality.
Like the fourth «inferior» basic function it must therefore be expressed on the symbolic level.
And just as the coming to terms with the fourth function is the way to psychic totality, the integration of the fourth structural form of the woman is an approach to the Self. This task also requires a whole life — whole both in respect of time as well as in the intrinsic meaning of a process of change which cannot be described here.
The woman who can intelligently submit herself to it will find her proper place in this modern world and will fulfill her cultural task, thus gaining the inner security which is reached when one’s psychic contents — the Shadow, the Animus, the «Great Mother», the «Wise Woman» and even the Self — are no longer projected into the environment.
As the woman is related to life, it is indeed her task to get the male involved in life and to make ideas life.
But involvement and realization can take place positively or negatively, consciously or unconsciously, with or without responsibility. ~Toni Wolff, Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche, Page 11-12
