Anima - Definition and Overview

According to Carl Jung, the anima is the feminine side of a man's personal unconscious. It can be identified as all the unconscious feminine psychological qualities that a man possesses.

Jung also believed that every woman has an analogous animus within her psyche, this being a set of unconscious masculine attributes and potentials.

The anima is one of the most significant autonomous complexes of all. Its presence from figures in dreams to how a man will think of women in the real world is profound. Jung said that confronting one's shadow is an apprentice-piece while confronting one's anima is the masterpiece. He also had a four-fold theory on the anima's typical development ranging from its projection onto the mother in infancy through projection on prospective sexual partners and finally onto a later phase he termed Sophia, doubtlessly in a Gnostic reference. It is worth noting that in practically every theory of Jung's, he would use a four fold structure.

Anima is also the name of an aeon (a summoned creature) in the video games Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2.

Anima is also a combination of the four elements in many of the Fire Emblem series.

Anima is also the Italian word for soul.