Mother Archetype and Complex

Course Description

Our lives are deeply influenced and shaped by the mother archetype and complex. These dynamics influence how we relate to others, especially in our intimate relationships. They affect our sense of safety, our longing for home, and the way we inhabit our bodies.

James Hollis explores the archetypal and psychological dimensions of the Mother, drawing on Carl Jung’s insights and rich symbolic imagery. He discusses her dual nature – life giving and dissolver– and how this energy shows up in culture and personal life. Hollis also reflects on how traditional cultures once offered initiations to loosen the grip of the archetype and support the journey of individuation.

This course also explores how our experience with the biological mother, or a stand-in figure, shapes the mother complex. These unconscious scripts influence how we respond to life. Often, we meet the present with patterns from the past. By identifying these patterns, we can see where they support us and, more importantly, where they hold us back. Hollis examines how the mother complex may take different forms in men and women, shaping our sense of identity, intimacy, autonomy, and inner life. Through story, myth, and symbol, we are invited to notice where we are still entangled in inherited dynamics and how we might begin to loosen their grip.

This course offers language, insight, and image to help us deepen our understanding and grow more consciously in relationship with ourselves and the archetypal ground of life.

This program is ideal if

• You want to understand how your early relationship with your mother still shapes your sense of self, safety, and belonging.
• You feel caught in emotional patterns—such as people-pleasing, emotional distance, or longing—and want to explore their deeper roots.
• You are curious about how archetypal energies influence your life, especially in your relationships, body, and search for home.
• You sense the pull of inherited expectations or fears, and are looking for insight, language, and imagery to loosen their grip.
• You want to deepen your individuation journey by understanding the archetypal and psychological dynamics of the mother complex in men and women.

Course Overview

Class 1:  The Mother Archetype 

James Hollis discusses and explains the Mother archetype. It is one of the most powerful and foundational images in the human psyche. He distinguishes between the personal mother and the archetypal Mother. The latter being a primordial energy that gives life, nurtures it, and takes it back. The mother archetype is experienced multifaceted: nurturing, protective and loving and also suffocating, overwhelming and smothering.

Our earliest relationship with the personal mother serves as a lens through which we first encounter this archetypal force. These early impressions shape our unconscious attitudes toward ourselves, others, and the world.

Class 2: The dual nature of the Mother archetype

James Hollis continues his exploration of the Mother archetype as both a giver of life and as destruction and death. What blooms is at the same moment decaying. 

Figures like Kali, Baba Yaga, and the dragon speak to this archetype’s darker face. Baba Yaga stands at the edge between regression and transformation. The dragon represents fear, addiction, and the pull to make ourselves small.

Without real initiation, we remain tied to the Mother, seeking safety in love, belief, or structure. Holiis invites us to ponder the question: Does this path make me smaller, or does it help me grow?

Class 3: The Mother complex in boys 

James Hollis explores based on Jung’s profound writings how a boy’s early experience of the mother leaves a deep emotional imprint, a mother complex. The personal mother is the first great other, she is the source of life, safety, and meaning. But she can also be absent, engulfed and emotionally fused. These early dynamics shape the mother complex in boys. These are the scripts we act out, unconsciously in our relationships with others, the world and ourselves. 

The complex may show up as abandonment anxiety, emotional fusion, or a deep craving for safety. The son may spend years seeking the warmth he once knew or defending against the threat of being overtaken again. He may idealize women or keep emotional distance. These patterns are not conscious choices, they are old responses still playing out. 

Class 4: The Mother Complex in Girls
James Hollis turns to the mother complex in girls, exploring how a daughter’s early bond with her mother shapes her psyche and adult relationships. The mother is the first mirror of love, worth, identity. She offers care and containment, but may also be critical, enmeshing, or emotionally unavailable.

These early dynamics can live on as internal voices and emotional patterns. A woman may carry a deep need for approval, feel overly responsible for others, or struggle with her own autonomy. Hollis shows how the mother complex may leave a woman caught between loyalty and individuation, between staying close to the mother’s values or stepping into her own life.

This class gives insight into the many faces of the mother complex in women, and offers a language to begin untangling its hold. We are invited to examine where we may still be living out old scripts, and what it means to reclaim our own voice.