27.4.20, Jung and individuation
Schmidt, Martin, date unknown, Individuation, Available from: https://www.thesap.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Individuation.pdf [Accessed 25 September 2013]
‘In the Freudian/Kleinian psychoanalytic tradition, the self is described as a by-product of ego development. By contrast, for Jung the self is present before the ego; it is primary and it is the ego that develops from it. The self retains its mystery. We can never fully know or embrace it because we are dependent upon the relatively inferior ego to perceive it.’
‘Jungian analytical psychology sees the self as many things including psychic structure, developmental process, transcendental postulate, affective experience and archetype. It has been depicted as the totality of body and mind, the God image, the experience of overpowering feelings, the union of opposites and a dynamic force which pilots the individual on his/her journey through life. This latter idea is quintessentially Jungian, for even though other psychoanalysts have talked about the self in a similar way, Freudian psychoanalysis still largely sees the self as a structure within the mind, similar to an object representation, and not as a teleological agency.’
Collective and personal:
Individuation describes how this agency works. Jung saw it as the process of self realisation, the discovery and experience of meaning and purpose in life; the means by which one finds oneself and becomes who one really is. It depends upon the interplay and synthesis of opposites e.g. conscious and unconscious, personal and collective, psyche and soma, divine and human, life and death.
The concept of individuation is the cornerstone of Jung’s psychology. p1
Jung (1935) stressed that individuation requires the integration of both collective and personal elements.
Two halves of life:
Fordham (1985) described how individuation begins in infancy, but Jung saw it predominantly as a development in the second half of life. In the first half, one is concerned with expanding the ego and “adaptation to collective norms”, such as building personal social status. The second half of life is concerned with coming to terms with death, finding meaning in living and the unique part each one of us plays in the world. P2
Relationship:
The self is relational. Individuation is dependent upon relationships with others. Jung went so far as to say: “The self is relatedness… The self only exists inasmuch as you appear. Not that you are, but that you do the self. The self appears in your deeds and deeds always mean relationship.” (Jung 1935-39, p. 73) p 2
However he also argues that individuation is an active on-going process and not a static state. P3
Jung calls individuation an unconscious natural spontaneous process but also a relatively rare one, something: “only experienced by those who have gone through the wearisome but indispensable business of coming to terms with the unconscious components of the personality.” ( 1954, para 430) He also stated that it is a border-line phenomenon which needs special conditions in order to become conscious (1935, para 431). This is a different type of individuation from that described by Fordham.p3
Fordham’s field theory of the self, which describes how the self as a primary integrate develops through the process of deintegration and reintegration throughout the whole of life, is very useful for our comprehension of the normal process of maturation. He claims that this basic underlying process of individuation is identical in childhood, adolescence and adulthood (Fordham, 1985).
However, Jung was also talking about something other than the normal day to day development of ego and self. He adumbrates:
“There is no linear evolution; there is only circumambulation of the self. Uniform development exists, at most, only at the beginning; later everything points towards the centre.” (Jung 1961, p. 188)
This is an important distinction. Individuation requires the development of ego, but it is not synonymous with it. Although the process of deintegration and reintegration occurs throughout life, Jung argued that there is a functional difference in the underlying process of individuation in later life as opposed to childhood. He was trying to emphasise the difference between early development, which is mainly concerned with the establishment of ego, and later individuation which involves a surrendering of the ego’s dominion. P3,4
The ego, of both analyst and patient, acts as if it wants to remain in control, to expand and promote itself at the expense of other aspects of the personality. It has a quality which seems manufactured or man made. The Self, by contrast feels like a force of nature, it seems to have a wider view, a perspective that the ego can’t understand and is in the service of a greater truth. P4
Jung (1931) contends that we often mistake the ego for the Self because of that bias which makes us all live from the ego, a bias which comes from overvaluation of the conscious mind. The ego has to suffer to allow the Self to express itself. P5
Individuation could therefore be understood as the drive of the Self to consciousness p5
Schmidt, Martin, date unknown, Individuation, Available from: https://www.thesap.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Individuation.pdf [Accessed 25 September 2013]
‘According to Jung, it is individuation that is the central process of human development…. Individuation can be defined as the achievement of self-actualization through a process of integrating the conscious and the unconscious.’
Journal Psyche (date unknown) Jung and his individuation process, Available from: http://journalpsyche.org/jung-and-his-individuation-process/ [Accessed: 27 April 2020]
Fordham, Michael, 1985 in Schmidt, Martin, date unknown, Individuation, Available from: https://www.thesap.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Individuation.pdf [Accessed 25 September 2013]
Scheuler, Gerald and Scheuler, Betty, 2001, Individuation, Available from: http://www.schuelers.com/ChaosPsyche/part_1_27.htm, [Accessed 12 October 2010]
Schmidt, Martin, date unknown, Individuation, Available from: https://www.thesap.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Individuation.pdf [Accessed 25 September 2013]
‘In the Freudian/Kleinian psychoanalytic tradition, the self is described as a by-product of ego development. By contrast, for Jung the self is present before the ego; it is primary and it is the ego that develops from it. The self retains its mystery. We can never fully know or embrace it because we are dependent upon the relatively inferior ego to perceive it.’
‘Jungian analytical psychology sees the self as many things including psychic structure, developmental process, transcendental postulate, affective experience and archetype. It has been depicted as the totality of body and mind, the God image, the experience of overpowering feelings, the union of opposites and a dynamic force which pilots the individual on his/her journey through life. This latter idea is quintessentially Jungian, for even though other psychoanalysts have talked about the self in a similar way, Freudian psychoanalysis still largely sees the self as a structure within the mind, similar to an object representation, and not as a teleological agency.’
Collective and personal:
Individuation describes how this agency works. Jung saw it as the process of self realisation, the discovery and experience of meaning and purpose in life; the means by which one finds oneself and becomes who one really is. It depends upon the interplay and synthesis of opposites e.g. conscious and unconscious, personal and collective, psyche and soma, divine and human, life and death.
The concept of individuation is the cornerstone of Jung’s psychology. p1
Jung (1935) stressed that individuation requires the integration of both collective and personal elements.
Two halves of life:
Fordham (1985) described how individuation begins in infancy, but Jung saw it predominantly as a development in the second half of life. In the first half, one is concerned with expanding the ego and “adaptation to collective norms”, such as building personal social status. The second half of life is concerned with coming to terms with death, finding meaning in living and the unique part each one of us plays in the world. P2
Relationship:
The self is relational. Individuation is dependent upon relationships with others. Jung went so far as to say: “The self is relatedness… The self only exists inasmuch as you appear. Not that you are, but that you do the self. The self appears in your deeds and deeds always mean relationship.” (Jung 1935-39, p. 73) p 2
However he also argues that individuation is an active on-going process and not a static state. P3
Jung calls individuation an unconscious natural spontaneous process but also a relatively rare one, something: “only experienced by those who have gone through the wearisome but indispensable business of coming to terms with the unconscious components of the personality.” ( 1954, para 430) He also stated that it is a border-line phenomenon which needs special conditions in order to become conscious (1935, para 431). This is a different type of individuation from that described by Fordham.p3
Fordham’s field theory of the self, which describes how the self as a primary integrate develops through the process of deintegration and reintegration throughout the whole of life, is very useful for our comprehension of the normal process of maturation. He claims that this basic underlying process of individuation is identical in childhood, adolescence and adulthood (Fordham, 1985).
However, Jung was also talking about something other than the normal day to day development of ego and self. He adumbrates:
“There is no linear evolution; there is only circumambulation of the self. Uniform development exists, at most, only at the beginning; later everything points towards the centre.” (Jung 1961, p. 188)
This is an important distinction. Individuation requires the development of ego, but it is not synonymous with it. Although the process of deintegration and reintegration occurs throughout life, Jung argued that there is a functional difference in the underlying process of individuation in later life as opposed to childhood. He was trying to emphasise the difference between early development, which is mainly concerned with the establishment of ego, and later individuation which involves a surrendering of the ego’s dominion. P3,4
The ego, of both analyst and patient, acts as if it wants to remain in control, to expand and promote itself at the expense of other aspects of the personality. It has a quality which seems manufactured or man made. The Self, by contrast feels like a force of nature, it seems to have a wider view, a perspective that the ego can’t understand and is in the service of a greater truth. P4
Jung (1931) contends that we often mistake the ego for the Self because of that bias which makes us all live from the ego, a bias which comes from overvaluation of the conscious mind. The ego has to suffer to allow the Self to express itself. P5
Individuation could therefore be understood as the drive of the Self to consciousness p5
Schmidt, Martin, date unknown, Individuation, Available from: https://www.thesap.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Individuation.pdf [Accessed 25 September 2013]
‘According to Jung, it is individuation that is the central process of human development…. Individuation can be defined as the achievement of self-actualization through a process of integrating the conscious and the unconscious.’
Journal Psyche (date unknown) Jung and his individuation process, Available from: http://journalpsyche.org/jung-and-his-individuation-process/ [Accessed: 27 April 2020]
Fordham, Michael, 1985 in Schmidt, Martin, date unknown, Individuation, Available from: https://www.thesap.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Individuation.pdf [Accessed 25 September 2013]
Scheuler, Gerald and Scheuler, Betty, 2001, Individuation, Available from: http://www.schuelers.com/ChaosPsyche/part_1_27.htm, [Accessed 12 October 2010]