September 9, 2022
"Individuation" is one of the major buzzwords of Jungian psychology, but it doesn’t carry the same meaning as the common use of this term. For instance, a parent may speak about their child "individuating” to explain the process of their becoming their own person. In this context, individuation is used as a synonym for "differentiation” or “the differentiation of self,” a concept that is core to Murray Bowen’s work in Family Systems.
But in Jung’s exploration of this term, the meaning is quite different. Jung analogized individuation far more with the yogic path or the alchemical process than with interpersonal growth, and he tended to speak of it as possible only after midlife. Joseph Campbell elaborated on the journey of individuation through the Hero’s Journey monomyth.
An editor at Psychological Perspectives asked me to define individuation for my 2015 paper, The Inner World of the First Half of Life, in which I explored the possibility for this psychological work before the second half of life—an idea that is often antithetical to classical Jungian ideas and which is the topic of my book, Quarterlife. In that article, I wrote about individuation this way:
“No matter the age, the trust of an inner source, with the ego strength to parse and manifest its guidance, is the path of individuation.”
And like this:
“[The] loss of faith in social prescriptions, the inability to see the value in cultural expectations, may prematurely prompt the goal of individuation: to create a life that adheres to inner direction and inner laws, versus those imposed by the social collective.”
Individuation, while often tied to biological age in the literature, ultimately has nothing to do with biology. Individuation is about the development of consciousness and a working relationship between the conscious self and the unconscious. It’s work that requires a healthy, strong, and flexible ego, an asset that often comes with age—but not always.
I’ll write more about this next week and the roles that sex, gender, and heteronormativity play in Jung’s definitions of individuation. As always, I speak about these ideas with my 80/20 rule: in exploring Jung’s work with the discernment of a person in 2022, I tend to see 80% of the writing as transformative and even still ahead of its time and 20% that is, well, in need of revision.
I’ll also break all this down further in my upcoming seminar, The Timeless Search for Stability and Meaning which starts September 30th!
xo, Satya
Satya Doyle Byock, Director of The Salome Institute of Jungian Studies