Beebe's eight archetypes

An archetype, in Jung's sense, is a pattern of behaviour that every human being knows from the inside: the hero, the parent, the child, the trickster. Myths and stories are full of them because we are.

John Beebe noticed that the functions of a type do not only differ in strength. Each place in the order gives its function a typical role. The first one acts like a hero, the second like a parent, and so on down to the eighth. A function can be heroic in one type and demonic in another: the character belongs to the seat, not to the function.

The four shadow seats are the four light seats seen in a mirror: the same function, facing the other way. The Opposing Personality is the shadow of the Hero, the Senex or Witch the shadow of the Parent, the Trickster the shadow of the Child, and the Demon the shadow of the Anima or Animus.

Beebe also saw two lines in each half. The Hero and the Anima or Animus form the spine of the ego, its strength and its longing; the Parent and the Child form its arms, how it reaches out. The shadow has the same shape, seats 5 and 8 as its spine, 6 and 7 as its arms.

The shadow seats are not bad. They are less conscious, so they act without asking: when you feel attacked, cornered, exhausted, or when life asks more than your ego can give. That is when people say "I was not myself". In Beebe's model you were: another character of the same cast had taken the stage.

Each shadow seat also holds a gift, once it is recognized: a second view, wisdom, humility, transformation. Meeting them is the heart of the hero's journey within.