“No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself. No man is free who cannot command himself.”
This is the final part of our three part series on Carl Jung’s Model of the Psyche. It is the central theme of his Model known as Individuation. Simply put, Individuation is the process, simple or complex as the case may be, by which every living organism becomes what it was destined to become from the beginning.It is the process for complete self, an individual goes from being a fragmented piece to a unique whole. With this, you would find more freedom and fewer contradictions within yourself. Individuation can be both challenging and exhilarating, treacherous and liberating. Ready for a crash course on this? Okay, let’s dive in …
In a general sense, individuation simply refers to the process of separating from the collective, including one’s parents and cultural norms, to become a unique individual. However, the meaning of individuation goes far deeper in the context of Jungian psychology. Jung believed becoming whole is the ultimate goal of individuation, and each person is unique and has a distinct destiny.The individuation process was Jung’s way of explaining the path to optimal personal development for an individual. That is, to individuate, one ultimately needs to strip away two things:
1. The social mask and false identity the ego created for itself in the course of early development, and
2. the unconscious influences of the archetypes.
Jung writes in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology: “Individuation means becoming an “in-dividual,” and, insofar as “individuality” embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one’s own self. We could therefore translate individuation as “coming to selfhood” or “self-realization.” As we individuate, we begin to connect and identify with the entire human family.
From Jung’s perspective, the Individuation process begins in the first half of life, we make our way through the world, doing our best to develop healthy egos. The first portion of life is mainly external as we seek to meet our basic needs. Establishing a home, starting a family, having a career, and developing skills and competencies are all common external objectives for the first half of life. The second part of life ideally represents a turning inward toward a deeper part of ourselves. This “inward turn” initiates the individuation process.
Jung identified three stages of the individuation process and before we initiate the individuation process, we wear a series of personas or social masks. We subconsciously choose our social masks based on our experiences during our formative years. (NOTE: Some authors list “four stages” in Jung's model. They include the personas as the first stage. However, this isn’t technically accurate as a person wearing a social mask hasn’t begun the individuation process yet.)
While individuation is different for each person, Jung highlights three archetypes that coincide with three vital stages of psychological development:
● Stage 1: The Shadow
The shadow archetype represents all the personal traits we have ignored, denied, or cut off from ourselves. In the individuation process, we first get to know and integrate our shadow and all the disowned parts of ourselves that we’ve alienated to create our personality. Getting to know and integrating the shadow is a critical first step in individuation.In many cases, spontaneously becoming interested in knowing one’s shadow is what initiates the individuation process. (Note: Refer to part 1 of this series for more detail on the Shadow.)
● Stage 2: The Anima-Animus
The Anima is the feminine aspect of a man’s personality. The Animus is the masculine counterpart within a woman’s psyche. Jung saw the Anima/Animus as enlivening souls or spirits within men and women. This archetype connects us to the impersonal collective unconscious. For Jung, Anima/Animus are essential building blocks in the psychic structure of every man and woman. In his book The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Jung termed integrating shadow as the “apprentice-piece” of becoming whole while the integration of the anima or animus is the “master-piece.” That is, integrating the Anima/Animus is considerably more challenging than integrating one’s shadow. (Note: For more details, refer to part 1 (Animus) and part 2 (Anima) of this series.)
● Stage 3: The Self
The self is the archetype of wholeness and self-transcendence. A sage, or Wise Old Man/Woman, often represents this universal image. Jung borrowed the concept of the Self from Hindu philosophy. He described the Self as the “totality of the whole psyche,” distinguishing it from the ego. The ego represents a small part of one’s whole psyche. Think of the Self as an unknown, inner Divine center we explore throughout our lives. We like to use Gandalf from The Lord of the RIngs as an example. Jung’s psychology offers two related methods to support individuation: dream work and active imagination.
Dreams, Jung found, are the gateway through which the unconscious communicates with our conscious mind. Our inner Wise Old Man or Woman (the Self) knows what’s best for us, not our conscious ego. The Self, however, doesn’t communicate through words and language. Instead, it uses symbols and images.
The Self, Jung found, cannot communicate directly with our conscious mind. Instead, according to Jungian psychology, it sends us messages through our dreams.As Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz says in The Way of the Dream: “Dreams are the letters of the Self that the Self writes to us every night.” Jung maintained that a crucial factor in determining how conscious we are is whether we attend to our dreams and the degree to which this enables us to make what is unconscious conscious. By working with dreams we:
● create soul
● wake up to our total situation
● become conscious
● achieve ‘wholeness
Dream analysis is a very deep topic. However, an accessible first step is to simply start recording at least one dream each morning in a journal. Doing so helps begin building a bridge between the unconscious and the conscious even if you don’t yet understand the messages held within your dreams right away.
While in dreams, our dream ego interacts with the unconscious parts of our psyche, in active imagination this interaction takes place while we’re awake. Instead of going into a dream, we go into our imagination, allowing the images to arise from the unconscious and communicate with us directly. Active imagination is the process of engaging with our unconscious including the characters within our psyche, using our consciousness. it is the most powerful tool to access the unconscious and for achieving wholeness of personality, which is latent potentiality.
If we honestly want to find our own wholeness, to live our individual fate as fully as possible; if we truly want to abolish illusion on principle and find the truth of our own being, however little we like to be the way we are, then there is nothing that can help us so much in our endeavor as active imagination. Although Jungian psychology and the individuation process can liberate us, it’s not considered a safe path.
There’s no safety once we leave the everyday, conventional world. To achieve success, we must strip away all of the false identities our egos have created. Doing so can trigger our ego’s fears. That’s why most people resist their call to adventure and why, according to Jung, so few people individuate (achieve psychic wholeness). Jung writes in his commentary of the Taoist classic, The Secret to the Golden Flower: “The way is not without danger. Everything good is costly, and the development of the personality is one of the most costly of all things.” Jung also believed that it can lead us out of the hall of mirrors and return us to our Self.
Jung believed that we are ALL fragmented and divided, and knowingly or not, we’re all searching for our souls. When you don’t know what you are searching for, how can you find it? We are here to help you learn to explore your shadows, balance your masculine and feminine, and support you as you look at your dreams and use active imagination. Let us help you understand and discover what you are searching for and how to find your state of true harmony, true “self”.
We leave you with a quote from Pythagoras: “No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself. No man is free who cannot command himself.” Here are a couple of books you might want to look into if you want to read more about Jung’s methods to support individuation through dream work and active imagination:
➢ Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth, Robert A. Johnson
➢ The Red Book, Carl Jung
Stay tuned next week as we explore, believe it or not, the male brain!
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