We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us. – Marcel Proust, Chapter IV: Seascape, with a Frieze of Girls, Vol.II: Within a Budding Grove
This post describes a concept of personality called the puella in the schema of Jungian analytical psychology. What follows is a brief overview of this part of the personality and its expression of femininity apparent to a greater or lesser extent in all people. Examining oneself means decoupling femininity from rigid psychological definitions of body and psyche.
As Swiss Jungian analyst Toni Wolff said years ago, “What is of practical importance is the awareness of the existence of the problem, and the attempt to resolve the state of inner confusion by attaining greater consciousness” (Wolff, 1956). We are led to puella with imagination and hope, enchanted and curious about her make-up within each of us. The puella character forms in the psyche in various ways. It is influenced from the prominent effect of the absent father and mother figures who are emotionally missing and do not provide sufficient connection to a child’s being. They do not encourage growth to maturity and model inadequacy in guidance and their attachment to each other or to the child and can contribute to the narcissist's adaptation to the world.
Puella is noticeable with a certain........