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Like many psychological processes, individuation is deceptively simple. How? On the surface, it begins with the question, “Who am I?” What could be easier to answer? I’m me. But who is that? Do we mean the Self? Our ego? Our conscious or unconscious? The process of individuation, of becoming a whole, integrated personality, and as we delve into Carl Jung’s process, we see it is much more complex than it at first appears. Who am I?

Who are you? At work, you may be self-assured, confident, serious, and competent. With your parents and siblings, you may be the jokester, the clown. With your friends, you may have yet another iteration still. We all have “different” personalities, different sides of ourselves that operate in certain circumstances. Individuation is the process of integrating these selves, the aspects of our inner lives, and it occurs naturally throughout our lives. This is developmental individuation; we can also take steps to become more aware of the process and facilitate it in our lives.

This process is affected by internal and external factors, which we will take a look at.

Outer Aspects of Individuation

Outside aspects impact our personalities. There is no question, certainly in Jung’s mind, that our environment has a tremendous effect on the development of personality. This is particularly true of the environment in which one grows as a child. This can cause our personality development to blossom, stagnate, or deform. A positive environment can provide the appropriate stimuli, contacts, and experiences, while a negative, dangerous, or unhealthy one can interfere with growth.

Parents, of course, are at the center of outer aspects of individuation because they have the closet relationship with children during formative years. They do this by providing stimuli, experiences, and love – or by being overprotective, restricting experiences, transferring their own tendencies onto the child, or compensating for their own weaknesses via the child. In either case, the impact on the personality is incredible.

Jung wrote, “Individuation has two principal aspects; in the first place it is an internal and subjective process of integration, and in the second it is an equally indispensible process of objective relationships. Neither can exist without the others, although sometimes one and sometimes the other dominates.” Just as external factors impact the development of personality, they affect the process of individuation throughout our lives.

External aspects play an important role in the integration of different elements of our personalities. We have to recognize who we are in relation to others; we have to interact with them and with society. When we know who we are in relation to others, we can gain a better understanding of our whole psyche and personality. And hopefully, we can present our true self to the world.

We have to live in the world, but we also have to separate ourselves from it and view ourselves as separate and unique individuals. We are responsible, ultimately, for our own emotional states.

Individuation: Internal Aspects

Jung believed that we had to examine each aspect of our personality in order to achieve an understanding of our true self. What are these aspects? According to Jung:

1 Mask or persona. This is the face that we present to the world. It is how we appear to others and the system we have created to interact with society. When we deviate from the norm, we tend to be viewed as unreliable, so we keep this mask in place. There is danger in both identifying too closely with the mask and not identifying closely enough.

2 The shadow self. This is the Mr. Hyde in all of us. It represents our darker desires and traits, such as egotism, greed, selfishness, or indifference. We suppress this side of ourselves. Individuation requires us to embrace this side of ourselves and guide it.

3 Animus or Anima. In women, the animus is the representation of male traits, such as power or strength. In men, anima is the representation of female traits. We must integrate these selves, which are affected by the collective view of men and women as well as our own experiences. This is similar to the idea of ying and yang.

4 The wise old man. The archetype of the wise old man represents power and wisdom. While these are typically positive attributes, there is the danger that this power can become destructive. In the process of individuation, one has to criticize and analyze this aspect of the self.

5 The great mother. This archetype is similar to the wise old man. Instead of power, though, a woman who identifies with the great mother feels an unlimited capacity to help, protect, love, guide, and mother. The risk is that she will wear herself out in helping others; it is also possible that she will view everyone else as children and as needing her help.

Individuation is a process that continues throughout our lives. We work, whether consciously or not, to integrate these aspects of our personality into a true self that we can present to the world, to our friends, to our family, and to ourselves. We are often obliged to adopt a number of different masks, making individuation quite difficult at times. The goal, though, is being able to achieve unity and an understanding of your true personality.

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