Up: [[Jungian Glossary]] Created: 2024-11-03 Updated: 2026-10-01 Course: The Body in Individuation with Kathleen Wiley for Washington State Jung An instinct, according to [[C. G. Jung]], is **any energy that is not under conscious control.** All of our instincts are millions of years old, but they have been interfered with in our modern culture as we become less and less connected to our bodies. As a simple example, I find it difficult to know when I’m genuinely hungry. This wouldn’t have been true if I was a farmer, for example, working the land without benefit of technology. ## Five Instincts In a 1936 essay titled *Psychological Factors Determining Human Behaviour*, Jung identified five instincts. Later in life he added a sixth, religion, which I’ve subsumed under one of the original five, the Reflection instinct. Jungian analyst Kathleen Wiley taught that every instinct works at all four layers of the body: physical body, emotional body, mental body, and spiritual body. She gave examples for each instinct at each layer. Note: There are slight variations in the names assigned to the instincts. Wiley’s variations are in brackets. #### Hunger Instinct - Physical is self-explanatory and is a primary instinct of self-preservation. We need and want food. - Emotional — We all want warmth, comfort, a sense of being met - Mental — We all want stimulation, a respectful exchange of ideas, and images that inspire us and speak of our most heartfelt desires. - Spiritual — We hunger for a connection to Self, a sense of unity with Self and our world. #### Sexuality Instinct - Physical is self-explanatory - Emotional — We want a bonded connection with another, again the sense of being met - Mental — embodying our ideas and values, living our heart’s desire - Spiritual — Kathleen did not mention this, but I would imagine we long for a bonded connection with whatever we conceive of as God or source Note: Freud did a great job of exploring this instinct! None of the others have received much attention. #### Activity (Movement) Instinct - Physical movement feels good, is natural and important. - Emotional movement. As Kathleen put it “moving water doesn’t stink”. Our emotional body is healthiest when feelings move through us. - Mental — There’s movement of perspective. Hopefully what we believe now is different from what we believed thirty years ago! - Spiritual — Movement is seeing the continuum rather than being caught exclusively in our personal view or lost in the cosmic view Note: This instinct could also include travel, love of change, restlessness, and play. #### Reflection (Self-Reflection) Instinct - Physical — An example of this is the [[Body Scan - Jon Kabat-Zinn]] - Emotional — Feelings are accompanied by sensation, and sensation triggers feeling. - Mental — As Jung said, symbols of [[The Self]] arise from the depths of the body. Images get triggered by feelings and sensations. - Spiritual — I think this is the idea of awareness and interconnectedness with everything in our environment. Note: Jung included the religious urge here, and the search for meaning. #### Creativity Instinct - Physical — Being creative about how we respond to ourselves. Kathleen gave the example of sitting in a nuclear medicine room with her husband while he was having an MRI and softly chanting. - Emotional — Being creative in ways we interrupt our feedback loops - Mental — Being creative in how we shift our thinking about things - Spiritual — Being creative about finding ways to stay centred in our whole Self no matter what’s going on around us. ## Audit Your Instincts What is your relationship to each of the above instincts? How do you tend to each of them? Do you repress any? Mariana Louis, in *Tarot and the Psychology of the Soul*, offers that when repressed, any instinct can become voracious and we can be quickly overwhelmed by unconscious energy that damages our conscious ability to analyze and mediate our actions. The solution is to simply notice and then to take a small step. Doing something small is often what will get energy going. An example might be as simple as reading some of [[Rumi]]’s poems if you are wanting to enhance spiritual body for any of the instincts. You can also learn more about your instincts through your dreams. From a symbolic perspective, animals *always* represent instincts in dreams. See [[Cat]] for example. If the animal in your dream is injured, starving, or acting strangely, this means that an instinct has been dramatically interfered with or misdirected.