Topic: Working with Complexes

[archetype]

Jung saw parallels between the psyche of the individual and the psyche of a culture.  The sub-personalities of the individual he named complexes, and those same dynamic structures that shaped cultural identity he called Archetypes.  Complexes and archetypes operate as super-structures for conducting the evolution of consciousness. There are primitive and illuminated psychic structures that we are all "bound" to.  These super-structures have two features....information and dynamism.  The energy that we feel is in proportion to how responsive we are to stimuli. Ego does nothing more than regulate perception and expression...each of which contributes to our total experience of being energized.  Consider this: our energy is directly dependent on our response-ability.  Our personality complexes regulate how much energy, in the form of information and expression, is allowed to pass through us. The more rigid the complexes are, the more symptomatic we become.  Anxiety, tension, guilt, shame, resentment, depression, and fear are not emotions, but rather, they are symptoms of blocked emotions.  Complexes restrict self expression and promote symptomatic expression.  The initial observation of this truth was in Jung's early word-association experience.  The delay in response to a word, indicated the presence of a complex blocking or filtering the response.  Now imagine that all delays in self expression follow the same rule of inhibition.  The simple solution for working with complexes might be to simply: not hold back!

[archetype]

The original question posed in this thread:

"My question is this:  how does one know when one is under the influence of a complex or reacting in a way not fully conscious?  What are the clues or signs?  How can I begin to get out of one?"

All behaviors are governed in one way or another by a complex or archetype.  These are psychological structures that influence 1. how we perceive the world, 2. our response to that perception.  Each complex has a "light" and "dark" aspect.....or in other words, each complex has a high energy and low energy feature. Here is basically how a complex (personality structure) is formed.
"...the reality of our day-to-day life consists of an endless flow of perceptual interpretations which we…have learned to make in common."  
".....the reality of the world we know is so taken for granted, that the basic premise that our reality is merely one of many descriptions, could hardly be taken as a serious proposition."
"....everyone who comes into contact with a child is a teacher who incessantly describes the world to him/her…until the moment when the child is capable of perceiving the world as it is described.”   
"...what I held in mind as the world at hand was merely a description of the world;…a description that had been pounded into me from the moment I was born"  Carlos Castaneda Journey to Ixtlan
However, it is the dark aspect of the complex, the shadow, that feels "bad".  Since the dark side of the complex is actually the part of the Self that is being repressed by your personality, it produces very common symptoms that I have listed above: anxiety, tension, guilt, shame, fear, depression, and resentment, are the most common symptoms of repression.  When you feel those, you are under the influence of a complex.