Father Archetype

Father Archetype

Most religions have a God who expresses the father archetype. From Dyaus Pita (literally “sky father”) of Vedic Hinduism, Zeus as “Father of the gods” in the Greek pantheon to “Shangdi”, the supreme God worshiped in ancient China, there was a tendency for the Father God to be associated with the sky (as complementary to the Earth Mother) and with Kingship and the masculine role in creation. A child unconsciously either takes father or mother as its main model for structuring its behaviour and aims. But also, huge areas of our basic identity revolve around mother and father. The absence of an available father in the life of a child leaves an enormous imprint in the developing psyche, just as much as the presence of the father. Our father in our dreams therefore is most often the overall effect, habits, traits, that arise from our experience – or lack of it – of our father. Our father is the great figure of original authority and strength in our life – or lack of it. He is therefore a focus of our relationship with outside authority or power, the world outside the home and family. But there is also a cultural representation of what a father is, and each nation has particular ways of representing this. During our growth, and continuing throughout adulthood, we are confronted with literary, artistic, film and drama representations of the role of father. These also form a powerful part of our inner ‘father’. These, along with the deeply inbuilt expectations at an almost biological level, of what our father is or should be, form our internal male parent, and in synthesis form the father archetype. The father archetype doesn’t necessarily involve parenthood or relationship with ones own children, but rather the leadership and caring for the development and growth of people whether they are family or not. In a personal sense it echoes what sense you have of being supported or undermined by your background of life experience and parents. So although it involves your parents, it is much wider than that. For instance it also includes how you relate to your own life process. Do you feel secure that life upholds you and supports, or do you feel life is constantly a chaotic and meaningless accident within which you can easily get fatally ill or killed? Does life uphold or seek to destroy you? Or is life completely impersonal and uncaring?