Follow your passions, we’re told. Live according to your values. That’s all great, but what if you’ve lost your way? What if life seems meaningless? Exploring this through the figure of puella according to Jungian analytical psychology, we find her as an archetypal, symbolic, and personality aspect. The puella is youthful, a charmer, appealing and seductive; she represents the energetic, the unusual, and the wisdom of the feminine in her many forms. Harkening back while looking forward, the puella figure lives out differently in each of us. She leads to creative and innovative expression, pointing to the future. When distorted and disturbed, however, she halts the development of the psyche until these issues are addressed.
There are many facets of this aspect of the personality. It entails a journey from the classical Jungian approach to the current day to reconnect parts of the self. There are many aspects puella needs to face and move beyond, especially how narrowly she has been defined. How easily the fictions and true stories could trade places, how quickly the verities of her life could confuse feelings. Yet she can evolve from this to desire, imagination, and access to the encounters forging transformation.
I am writing this from my experience as a Jungian analyst working with people who do not know how to harness the puella energy creatively or how to access the potential. The puella has often been demeaned, described as remaining too young, and unrealistic, unknown, and unconscious, or even a self-centered narcissist. In extreme cases, the puella person cannot root in life, unable to take themself or the world seriously, and remain complicit in an intricate series of psychological webs. Jung commented in "The Psychology of the Child Archetype," the “eternal child ... is an indescribable experience, an incongruity, a handicap, and a divine prerogative; an imponderable that determines the ultimate worth or worthlessness of a personality" (1968, CW 9i, para. 300).
Puella is noticeable with a certain style—a freshness and interest. She can be of any age, energetic with ideas and hope. However, she can also be bogged down with a secret numbness, like carrying a dead weight. The zest is compromised; the strength is as well. She is smart, quick, and the development of her personality has yet to unfold. She needs time, as something became stunted. It can come from parental lack, neglectful family systems and structures, or culturally limiting and prescribed aspects. She can be withheld, living behind a wall, taken with destructive complexes and unable to access a more complete self. This exploration is to free her from the shackles and projections into the girl becoming—from what has been into what she can be.
Puella represents the young feminine on the brink of a crossroads. She exists between her individual nature, energy, youth, and the innovative, yet can be drawn back to traditional ways. Puella is the creative, unusual, desirous, and different. Even so, often infirm in her position, she can become waylaid. Whether women or men, heterosexual, lesbian, gay, or nonbinary, puella remains a concept and personality aspect to be understood and made conscious. Puella is fluid; she is the feminine emerging in ways different from previous generations when denied and repressed. This puella exploration marks an era of gender fluidity with open‐ended descriptions of feminine aspects. It puts us in an unprecedented land, with self‐definitions changing, a moving kaleidoscope of the imaginal, the unknown.
Puella stands on a historical, mythological, cultural, and personal continuum, symbolising one form of the category called feminine. She works the female voice out of its conformity and repression into creative spaces with her rebellious nature. Her challenging of traditional patterns takes courage, dedication, and devotion. This emerges through the process of individuation and by exploring the many facets of the psyche to find what it means to be true to herself.
She too often has been obstructed by persecutory internal figures, harsh self‐assessments and critiques, and emotionally distant partnerships. Without an accurate inner mirror, she assesses herself with inferiority. She needs to be adored but nothing is enough to compensate for the inner emptiness. Trapped in fantasy, she lives in a bubble, abdicating to the male mirror, submissive, her individuality halted. The narcissistic wounds coincide with an underdeveloped capacity for empathy and compassion for herself as well as others. She is tough on herself and relentlessly critical. There is a destructive and envious force behind the aggression, feeding a determination to win. An inability to satisfy these internal demands leads to depression and anxiety.
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This writing aims to rescue the puella aspect of the personality from the past where this personality aspect has been treated as though being a girl is an indication of stunted growth. If one learns to stop growth, they can never achieve maturity. Because she is rendered inadequate, the word girl has been associated and synonymous with growth interrupted. Here, on the other hand, is a revaluing of the girl—puella—with her trove of talents and creativities marking this aspect of the personality. The puella within us all is special, not as the unfinished masculine or in the likeness of the male, but as solid and clear in our own right. Although puella is the eternal girl, she is the late bloomer and contains potential that can manifest throughout the life cycle.
The content for her unfolding appears in the images, feelings, somatic manifestations, dreams, and synchronicities informing life experiences. Puella’s hunger for life is passionate and fierce. However, many have lost the certainty of what it is they love and what brings ecstasy and joy. They yearn to reclaim their bodies and souls, the passions inspiring creativity, to be fully alive, setting new flexible patterns. Puella embodies the bud opening to potential, youth, and new beginnings extant within us all. Puella needs a more complete portrayal of her role and value in the personality and culture. Conceptually, the unfolding of ideas and ways of becoming is inherent in the puella herself. Our challenge is to be youthful at each stage of life so we can access the energy and remain creative, innovative, and our unusual selves.
