‘Abstract:
What if archetypes arise not from the mind alone, but from the dynamic relation between organism and environment? In this issue of Psychosocial Wednesdays Stefano Carta proposes an ecological model of the psyche that traces the evolutionary roots of Jungian archetypes as functions-between rather than fixed inner forms. At their most basic level, these functions couple organism and environment, following James Gibson’s theory of perception-action, where meaning emerges through direct engagement with environmental affordances. From this perspective, the richness of archetypal images reflects not only mental complexity but the structure of the environment itself. Archetypes emerge through the interiorization of ancestral environments, forming networks of meaning grounded in perception and action. These networks are then abstracted and generalized through constructivist processes, aligning with predictive processing accounts of priors under the Free Energy Principle. The psyche transforms these affective-perceptual patterns into abstract meanings expressed through imagined (noetic) images—at their core, archetypal. Within this framework, the Self emerges as the dynamic entanglement of individual and world.
Bio:
Stefano Carta is a Jungian analyst and Full Professor of Dynamic Psychology and Ethno-Psychology at the University of Cagliari, Italy. He graduated from the C.G. Jung Institute in Küsnacht in 1992 and has since held several prominent academic and professional roles, including President of the Italian Association of Analytical Psychology (AIPA). He has been Visiting Professor at the University of Essex and Kyoto University, and Honorary Professor at the Department of Psychoanalytic Studies in Essex. Carta is Editor-in-Chief of the Rivista di PsicologiaAnalitica, the oldest Italian Jungian journal, and served as European Deputy Editor of the Journal of Analytical Psychology.’.
Mosaic or Binary?
31 July 2026