Archetypal wounds are traumas that are universally present in individuals who were persecuted because they belonged to a particular large group, such as those bound by nation, location, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
The traumas affect the individuals because they identify with that trauma as constituting part of who they are, for example, they identify with the wounds suffered in the Holocaust, or through the history of slavery, or through genocide, or any kind of natural disaster, etc. These wounds are, therefore, only carried by the individual if that person feels their identity is bound up with that wound. For example, the Female Pain Body is an archetypal wound that was created by a conglomeration of wounds inflicted largely on women and children only (e.g.: rape, rape as an act of war, child abuse, child abduction, sex trafficking). A woman might identify as female, but not feel her identity is bound up with that wound. In that case, the woman is not suffering with that archetypal wound. A different woman, alternatively, who does actively identify with that wound identifies with the suffering associated with those who have been traumatized by it and that causes trauma in her own energy system, even if she personally has never been affected by the wounds in that category.