What is the anima and animus in Jungian psychology?

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In Jungian psychology, the anima is the unconscious feminine dimension within a man's psyche, and the animus is the unconscious masculine dimension within a woman's psyche. Jung proposed that these contrasexual archetypes represent the undeveloped or repressed qualities associated with the other gender, and that integrating them is essential to psychological wholeness. Carl Jung observed that in cultures where gender roles are strictly demarcated, the qualities associated with the opposite gender are typically suppressed and relegated to the unconscious. A man socialized to be rational, stoic, and dominant may suppress emotional sensitivity, receptivity, and relational attunement, which then form his anima: the unconscious feminine that influences him from below the level of conscious awareness. The anima and animus often appear first in projection: the qualities we have not integrated in ourselves are experienced as overwhelmingly attractive or repellent in people of the opposite gender. The idealized romantic partner, onto whom we project all the unlived qualities of our own contrasexual nature, is often an anima or animus figure. Falling in love is frequently, at least in part, encountering one's own unlived self projected onto another. Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz at the C.G. Jung Institute documented that the anima and animus can function as guides to the unconscious when integrated, but as compulsive influences when projected. The man who is constantly beguiled by unavailable women, or the woman who is compulsively attracted to dramatic, unreachable men, may be in the grip of anima or animus possession: identified with the archetype rather than in relationship with it. Integration of the anima or animus involves developing a conscious relationship with the contrasexual qualities within oneself rather than projecting them onto others. This does not require adopting the opposite gender's social roles but rather developing the psychological capacities, emotional attunement, assertive direction, creative receptivity, that have been suppressed as belonging to the other.