A. Jung. Individuation

INDIVIDUATION

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.  Analysis can be seen as an individuation process.  It not only fosters but accelerates individuation and creates conditions in the relationship between patient and analyst which offer the possibility for rarefied experiences and transformation of self which otherwise may not happen. This is because the analytic situation allows both participants to join in a quest for the truth; to express and experience the self in ways which are often prohibited by the compromises made in the service of social acceptance in non-analytic relationships.

The concept of individuation is the cornerstone of Jung’s psychology.  Here are some of the salient features of his thinking on this topic and some of the questions that arise.