The Lover Archetype

The Lover archetype is not just about sex and sexuality. Nor is it just about love, either. For one thing, there are many forms of love: affection, compassion, brotherly and sisterly love, romantic love, and passionate sexual love. 

Many other words in our language refer to different kinds of love: companionship, friendship, and self-love, to name but three. So the Lover archetype isn’t just about love. In fact it’s about the most primal energy of life. It’s about passion, in every sense of that word. It’s about flow, connection and sensation. It’s about feeling your experiences in the world.

In fact, the Lover archetype is all about sensory experiences. All the senses are an essential part of the Lover’s experience:  sounds, colours, shapes, tactile sensations, smells. 

You see, the Lover in his or her fullness is deeply sensual. Indeed he or she lives for sensation, in every sense of that word. Emotional sensation, physical sensation, sensuous pleasure,  sensitivity to the world. All of these are the domain of the Lover. And the Lover also wants connection. He or she – if archetypes have a gender! – wants connection with other people, connection with ourselves, connection with the world around us.

For the Lover archetype takes us beyond the bounds of the human experience into the realm of the spiritual. When your Lover archetypal energy is fully flowing, you may feel connected with the entire world and everything in it. This ability to identify in a “felt” way with yourself, with other people, and the world around you, is what leads us to the experience of empathy.

Some people claim to actually feel the experience of other beings. And maybe they do. Certainly the Lover represents a gateway to some kind of collective unconscious; perhaps at the very least a gateway to a higher degree of awareness and sensitivity. Whether you believe in the idea of a universal consciousness or the collective unconscious of Jung, or not, you can probably accept that the Lover archetype is the gateway to some area of being, some experience of feeling, which seems to extend beyond our own physical and emotional boundaries.

Compare this with the Magician archetype within us, which “connects” through intellectual reasoning and conversation, symbols and language, rational thought and speech and mutual understanding.

But the Lover’s ability to connect is not intellectual. The Lover connects through feeling. There are some primal drives, some primal hungers – sex, food, connection with other people – which are part of the essence of who we are. They are within us all, and we all feel them at some level.

If you aren’t allowing yourself to feel your desire for connection with other people consciously, the energy will  certainly emerge in unconscious behaviours, thoughts and actions. It’s certainly possible that many behaviours – inappropriate touching and sexual advances, addictions,  overeating, drug use, gambling, and drinking – are related to the inner child’s desire to be loved, to feel connection. These behaviours can either be an attempt to self-sooth or a way of completely avoiding the pain which comes from loss of connection.

The Lover Archetype In Life Coaching

You may be wondering how this part of the human personality can be accessed in deep process psychotherapy or life coaching – and what the benefits are likely to be?

Since this archetype is all about connection with others, exploring this archetype during life coaching can provide insights into your ability to get along with others, as well as insight into how easy you find it to establish a sense of empathy, understanding, and closeness with others.

In fact, life coaching can offer insights into any behaviours which disrupt or limit your connection with others. And on a personal level, you may experience some profound insights into how you relate to yourself, your colleagues, friends and families. You’re also likely to discover areas of your personality which could be strengthened, to the benefit of your sense of ease, relaxation, well-being and comfort. And together, during coaching, we may discover unhelpful areas of your personality; these are generally aspects of your personality which are in shadow, and which represent the shadows of the archetypes discussed on this website (King Warrior Magician and Lover). They may be under-active (deflated) or over-active (inflated) and need some care and attention. By providing the appropriate support, we can make them less influential and prominent in the way you present yourself in the world.

All of this work will ensure you have a more stable and balanced personality, a greater sense of openness and warmth, and greater self-assurance.