A Sense of Doubt blog post #1480 - Essay Four - Alex + Ada and the Self and Jung's Process of Individuation
I am gearing up to not only teach Jungian ideology in my classes but to prepare a talk for community conversations next semester.
Here's a collection of materials on Jung's process of individuation collected for my benefit and that of my students, though I did not manage to post before many of them turned in the essay, the requirements for which are posted below as well.
There's a lot of shared resources with due credit given, but I see this as a resource page, so there you have it.
I posted this link in yesterday's blog --
https://www.mindstructures.com/carl-jung-individuation-process/ -- created by an interesting writer in the Netherlands and with the esemplastic power of her imagination she unifies multiple theories into a whole, such as
https://www.mindstructures.com/maslow-hierarchy-of-needs/.
She also had a cool post on science and the collective unconscious, which I like, though it assumes one's interest in the zodaic, which many in hard-science will eschew.
Here's some other stuff.....
http://journalpsyche.org/jung-and-his-individuation-process/
Individuation – A Definition
From a linguistic point of view definition of terms and meaning introduces the potential for understanding. While individuation has become the property of the world of psychology it is worth noting that Jung intended for it to be a much more than that. For him it encompasses the philosophical, mystical, and spiritual areas of the human being.
The word itself has roots going back to the 1600’s when it was used to identify a person as an individual or individuation. Here again, Jung applied another of the elements of the classic psychology paradigm; the freedom to rename and redefine within a limited scope those terms that apply to the work at hand.
In the broadest possible way, individuation can be defined as the achievement of self-actualization through a process of integrating the conscious and the unconscious. Once again, any accurate understanding of Jung should come from him.
https://scottjeffrey.com/individuation-process/
The Path of Individuation
Individuation is Jung’s solution to our tendency toward one-sidedness.
In this process of becoming a complete human being, we integrate all the parts of our personality of which we aren’t presently conscious.
Why did Jung call the process “individuation”?
Jungian psychologist Robert Johnson explains in Inner Work:
Because this process of actualizing oneself and becoming more complete also reveals one’s special, individual structure. It shows how the universal human traits and possibilities are combined in each individual in a way that is unlike anyone else.
Jung writes in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology:
Individuation means becoming an “in-dividual,” and, in so far 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.”
Johnson points out that individuation doesn’t mean we become isolated from the human race. He writes,
Once we feel more secure as individuals, more complete within ourselves, it is natural also to seek the myriad ways in which we resemble our fellow human beings … the essential human qualities that bind us together in the human tribe.
As we individuate, we connect and identify with the entire human family.
The other top results in the Google search for "Jung's process of individuation" are
https://www.thesap.org.uk/resources/articles-on-jungian-psychology-2/about-analysis-and-therapy/individuation/
INDIVIDUATION AND THE SELF
By Martin Schmidt
The Self
In the Freudian/Kleinian psychoanalytic tradition, the self is described as a by-product of ego development. By contrast, for Jung the self is present before the ego; it is primary and it is the ego that develops from it. The self retains its mystery. We can never fully know or embrace it because we are dependent upon the relatively inferior ego to perceive it. Perhaps this struggle in apprehension has led to very different understandings of the self’s qualities.
Jungian analytical psychology sees the self as many things including psychic structure, developmental process, transcendental postulate, affective experience and archetype. It has been depicted as the totality of body and mind, the God image, the experience of overpowering feelings, the union of opposites and a dynamic force which pilots the individual on his/her journey through life. This latter idea is quintessentially Jungian, for even though other psychoanalysts have talked about the self in a similar way, Freudian psychoanalysis still largely sees the self as a structure within the mind, similar to an object representation, and not as a teleological agency.
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.
https://academyofideas.com/2017/10/carl-jung-what-is-the-individuation-process/
The following is a transcript of this video.
Far too many of us are oblivious to the dangers that some of our behavioural patterns pose to our long-term well-being. Instead of facing up to our problems, we either try and convince ourselves that our issues are trivial and so can be ignored, or we pretend that the problems do not exist at all. We can only delude ourselves for so long, as eventually what were once manageable problems turn into problems of unmanageable proportions. For this reason, Carl Jung maintained that a crucial first step toward self-improvement is simply to become more aware of the reality of one’s situation.
Jung, however, is not unique in this respect as many philosophers and psychologists, both past and present, share in this view. Where he is more unique is in his belief that not only do we have to overcome our ignorance regarding the reality of our external situation, but just as importantly we need to become more aware of what he called the reality of our psyche.
“What most people overlook or seem unable to understand is the fact that I regard the psyche as real.” (Carl Jung, Answer to Job)
The psyche, in Jung’s view is not merely a by-product of a certain configuration of matter. Rather the psyche is an irreducible, a priori fact of nature that should be considered as real as the physical world, and just as impactful to our overall well-being. Most people, however, know little of this world within.
One reason for this lack of knowledge can be attributed to our Christian heritage and the associated belief in an omniscient god who not only knew if we were committing bad deeds, but also if we were thinking blasphemous thoughts. While belief in such a god has dwindled, there remains a tendency to repress elements of our personality which run counter to the moral system of our day and thus to strive for a type of moral perfectionism.
Jung was no proponent of this ideal. Striving after perfection is like chasing after wind and far from making us better people it in fact greatly hinders our development. The more we strive for perfection, the further we fuel our dark side and lose control over how it manifests itself in our day-to-day actions. In addition, if we constantly repress thoughts which run counter to the dominant moral system of our society, we will never reach the deeper layers of the psyche, an awareness of which can often substantially improve our lives.
“One should never think that man can reach perfection,” wrote Jung “he can only aim at completion – not to be perfect but to be complete. That would be the necessity and the indispensable condition if there were any question of perfection at all. For how can you perfect a thing if it is not complete?Make it complete first and see what it is then. But to make it complete is already a mountain of a task, and by the time you arrive at absolute completion, you find that you are already dead, so you never reach that preliminary condition for perfecting yourself.” (Carl Jung, Visions: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1930 -1934)
The task of striving toward completeness, or what is also referred to as “wholeness of the personality”, was of such great importance that most of Jung’s career was dedicated to exploring this process, a process he would eventually call individuation.
Jung did not use the term individuation until 1921, however the seeds of this idea reach back to his doctoral dissertation. In this dissertation, titled, “On the Psychology and Pathology of So-called Occult Phenomena”, Jung attempted to explain his observations of a medium who claimed to interact with spirits during seances. To account for this Jung hypothesized that the manifestation of these spirits was the result of “splinter personalities” which lay dormant in the unconscious mind of the medium but which were somehow brought to her conscious awareness by the act of the seance. Rather than accepting that these “splinter personalities” emerged from within, from the reality of her psyche, the medium believed they were spirits manifesting themselves from a realm independent of her.
As Jung’s study of the psyche progressed he came to believe that the experience of this medium was but one example of a more general phenomenon. All of us have unconscious components which reside dormant in our psyche and as Jolande Jacobi explains in her book The Way of Individuation:
“. . .it remained Jung’s untiring scientific and psychotherapeutic endeavor to work out a methodological procedure for bringing these components to consciousness and associating them with the ego, in order to realize the “greater personality” which is potentially present in every individual.” (Jolande Jacobi, The Way of Individuation)
It is important to note that the individuation process, according to Jung, is something that occurs naturally, and does not require any initiation by the individual. As we age, the depth and complexity of our consciousness increases, whether we are intentionally striving for this outcome or not. The natural individuation process, however, does not advance in a smooth and uninterrupted manner. Rather it often comes to a halt, or develops in a way unconducive to mental health. When this happens, it is imperative for our well-being that we reignite the process and return it to a healthy course of development – and this, the assistance or promotion of the natural individuation process, is the main goal of Jungian psychotherapy.
A good way to understand the natural individuation process, which just happens, and the more conscious way of individuation which Jungian psychotherapy promotes, is to consider the analogy of the human body. Our physical bodies grow and develop on their own without requiring our conscious awareness. We can, however, take a more proactive, conscious, stance towards our physical development by exercising and eating properly. In the same manner we can be more proactive in terms of the development of our psyche by taking certain measures which help to accelerate the natural process of individuation:
“The difference between the “natural” individuation process,” wrote Jung “which runs its course unconsciously, and the one which is consciously realized, is tremendous. In the first case consciousness nowhere intervenes; the end remains as dark as the beginning. In the second case so much darkness comes to light that the personality is permeated with light, and consciousness necessarily gains in scope and insight.” (Carl Jung, Answer to Job)
The best method to accelerate individuation is to record and analyze our dreams over an extended period of time. Jung was greatly influenced by Sigmund Freud’s work on dreams, but his views evolved and eventually came to differ in fundamental ways from those of Freud. Both Jung and Freud agreed that dreams were a product of the unconscious. Where they were to differ, however, was in their conception of what the unconscious was expressing through our dreams.
“For Freud,” wrote Robert Hoptke “the dream was a psychological mechanism that functioned to preserve sleep by expressing and thereby discharging unacceptable, unconscious wishes in disguised form.” (Robert Hoptke, A Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung)
It was Freud’s claim, that dreams are disguised expression of the unconscious, which Jung found untenable. Dreams according to Jung are not hiding anything, rather they are undisguised and spontaneous symbolic representations of the unconscious, or as he wrote:
“[O]ur dreams are like windows that allow us to look in, or to listen in, to that psychological process which is continually going on in our unconscious.” (Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934–1939)
The reason many people have trouble making sense of their dreams is because they do not understand the language of the unconscious mind, which is purely symbolic. In his attempt to decipher this symbolic language, Jung noticed a remarkable similarity between the symbols expressed in the dreams of many of his patients and those found in the mythologies of cultures past and present. To account for such similarities Jung proposed that the unconscious mind contains transpersonal, or universal elements which are heritable and the product of one’s biology, not their personal experience. The commonality in symbols found in dreams of different people, and in myths of cultures past and present, can be attributed to the fact that they are manifestations of these “identical psychic structures common to all”, which Jung would call the archetypes. The word archetype in Greek means “prime imprinter” and as a colleague of Jung’s, Aniela Jaffé, explained:
“With respect to manuscripts [the word archetype] denotes the original, the basic form for later copies. In psychology archetypes represent the patterns of human life, the specificity of man.” (Aniela Jaffé, The Myth of Meaning)
Individuation, therefore, is the process whereby one becomes increasingly conscious of the symbolic manifestations of the archetypes, thus gaining knowledge of the timeless “patterns of human life”. This knowledge is of great value for it provides us with an awareness that many of our problems are not unique to us, but common to all of humanity. Simply knowing that we are not alone in our suffering can often have a therapeutic effect as it provides us with a new perspective:
“What, on a lower level, had led to the wildest conflicts and to panicky outbursts of emotion, now looks like a storm in the valley seen from the mountaintop. This does not mean that the storm is robbed of its reality, but instead of being in it one is above it.” (Carl Jung, Alchemical Studies)
For those who wish to begin on the conscious path of individuation the first step is always the same, we must as Jung put it “divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona” (The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious). The persona is the social mask we wear to fit into society. Its formation begins early in life as the pull of conformity causes us to identify most strongly with elements of our personality which are in harmony with the social values of our day, while rejecting those that clash with social norms. The problem, however, is that many people reach a point where they believe they are the social mask they wear and in so doing they cut themselves off from the deeper realms of the psyche. It is imperative, therefore, for anyone who wishes to take the conscious path of individuation to accept that their social mask represents but a sliver of their total personality, for as Jung explains:
“[O]ne cannot individuate as long as one is playing a role to oneself; the convictions one has about oneself are the most subtle form of persona and the most subtle obstacle against any true individuation. One can admit practically anything, yet somewhere one retains the idea that one is nevertheless so-and-so, and this is always a sort of final argument which counts apparently as a plus; yet it functions as an influence against true individuation.It is a most painful procedure to tear off those veils, but each step forward in psychological development means just that, the tearing off of a new veil. We are like onions with many skins, and we have to peel ourselves again and again in order to get at the real core.” (Carl Jung, Visions: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1930 -1934)
http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseofthesun/individuationprocess.htm
an article by Dirk Gillabel, 1993
|
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. William Blake
The individuation process is a term created
by the famous psychologist Carl Gustav Jung
to describe the process of becoming aware of oneself,
of one’s make-up, and the way to discover one’s true,
inner self. Although the structure is basic and simple,
the contents require a much deeper understanding.
For as long as mankind has existed, there
were always people who asked themselves that
most intriguing question: "Who am I".
There is no simple answer, but Jung’s individuation
process provides us with some clear guidelines.
First you need to understand a couple of terms,
frequently used in psychology.
The ego. We are all familiar with the ego, or are we?
What is the ego? When we say "I" or "me",
what are
we pointing to? The ego is the center of consciousness,
but it is not what you are, as most people think.
It is rather a function that allows you to distinguish
yourself from others. It is a structure that orders
your psychological qualities, so you can make sense of
yourself and your actions. It gives you a sense of
uniqueness, but know that we all have that in common.
The memories of the personal unconscious can
be evoked, although they cannot be totally controlled
by will. Sometimes an accidental association will bring
them to light. Sometimes they appear in dreams and
fantasies. Hypnosis can also reveal them.
Self is from a higher order than the ego.
The Self is that what we are in essence.
In psychological terms, it encompasses the conscious,
the unconscious, and the ego.
The Self is the central archetype in the
collective unconscious, like the Sun is the center of
the solar system. The Self is the archetype of order,
organization and unity. It unifies the personality.
The Self is our goal of life, because it is the most
complete expression of the highest unity that
we call individuality.
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101 ESSAY four - alex + ada and the SELF
for ENGLISH 101 - Lower Columbia College - WINTER 2019
- Worth
100 points - DUE Tuesday March 12th
- MINIMUM
LENGTH = 600 words and MAXIMUM LENGTH = 750 words
- MINIMUM
SOURCE USE - cited once each (minimum)
- Alex
+ Ada by Sarah Vaughn and Jonathan Luna
- JUNG:
one Jungian source with an author
-
Additional sources as well as an additional topic may earn bonus points.
“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is
to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” -- Carl Jung
PURPOSES
- How do
we become who we are? What is a person?
- Define
by Analysis, Investigation, and Narrative
-
Process of individuation (the student, a person, or people)
To
examine the question of how we “individuate” into an individual person, a whole
self, WRITE a classically
structured essay with a one-sentence thesis statement at the end of a
one-paragraph introduction that includes your analytical topics in an essay
map. Essay uses three paragraphs minimum in the body and employs a final
paragraph conclusion.
EXPLORE three elements of the process of individuation via
- an
experience (a beneficial experience or an adversity/tragedy)
- a
psychological element, such as an aspect of a personality type, a complex, an
archetype (anima/animus, shadow)
- an
inherited trait that is something that retards the process of individuation and
the individual must work to improve
Extra
examples will be given in class.
These
topics must be set forth in paragraphs with topic sentences leading each that
advance one aspect of the thesis and make key word connections with the thesis
essay map.
At least
one paragraph must contain a reference to a Jungian source written by an
author, and another paragraph must contain at least one reference and
comparison-contrast of the individuation element discussed and Ada’s journey to
become a conscious person in Alex + Ada.
CRITERIA, ERRATA, AND CAVEATS
You may
write in first or THIRD person. This assignment can be at an intellectual remove
in which you write about the process of individuation that on which an
individual embarks using examples about other people or from source material
UNLESS you want to share, and then use first person to chart your own process
of individuation.
ELIMINATE
SECOND PERSON PRONOUNS.
The
student writer utilizes MLA format for sources in the essay.
STRUCTURAL CONCERNS
- Topic
sentences as shown in SEAGULL pg. 18.
-
Structure as argument (pg.47) and rhetorical analysis (pg.53).
-
Paragraphs lead with topic sentences and then provide support for topic ideas
with source use and SPECIFIC examples. Even in a third person remove, examples
must be specific.
- The
introduction should set context of Jungian psychology, process of
individuation, and introduce the central question of the essay: how do we
become who we are, what makes up a person, how does a person become a person
(as Jung would say “a unified and whole self”), what elements of individuation
are important to becoming a person. How does Ada’s quest for personhood in the
book Alex + Ada mirror our own journey of personhood as human
beings?
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS ON CONSCIOUSNESS, ONTOLOGY, AND STRONG AI
How does
a person become a person? So far, we have defined “person” as a being with
consciousness, which thus far has only meant human. The concept of “being” is
studied as ontology, the philosophical study of being. But what does “being”
mean, what does “consciousness” mean when things other than humans, such as
robots, become what we consider to be “conscious?” And what does “conscious” mean?
Is it just free will? The ability to learn? Emotion? What else? What are the
qualities that make up personhood? My Alexa app learns and can process
requests. She’s more of a person than my calculator, but how much more so?
Food for
thought.
-chris tower, your friend
in learning, English 101 rodeo
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1903.10 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1345 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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