Writing about past failures reduces the ‘stress hormone’ cortisol, research finds.

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That ultimate telos or goal of psychic life is, according to Jung, ‘individuation’ (cf. ACU: 275-289): a full realization of the whole personality in conscious awareness. Each archetype embodies a part of the personality’s latent potential, all of which seek expression and recognition in consciousness. In other words, the psyche seeks to develop the properties of volitional control, self-reflection and cognitive association for all its contents, so they can be—indirectly, in the case of psychoid contents— examined and deliberately integrated into a harmonious whole. The manifestations of the archetypes in our lives—whether in dreams, visions or instinctual feelings and behaviors—aim precisely at advancing the psyche towards this teleological destination. They point to a preferred developmental direction. Therefore, according to Jung, attention must be paid to the meaning of archetypal manifestations, if we are to succeed in the process of individuation and achieve the ultimate psychic objective. The unconscious provides the clues, but ego-consciousness must deliberately reflect on their symbolic connotations and grasp the message

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