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Video Description
We all wear a mask — and behind it, the real story waits. This second lecture from Academy of Ideas on Carl Jung follows the individuation process, his road map from persona to wholeness. It explains the social mask we show the world, the hidden shadow we would rather ignore, and the anima and animus that guard the inner depths. Finally it arrives at the Self, the unifying center Jung symbolized with the mandala. Along the way, Jung makes a social warning too: a million zeros, joined together, do not add up to one.
Full Video Transcript
Individuation means becoming a single, homogenous being, 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 self-realization.
In this second video in our mini-series on the ideas of Carl Jung, we are going to examine the individuation process, a process Jung believed to be essential for a healthy, functioning personality.
Such an examination will lead us to explore some of the parts of the personality that Jung viewed as particularly important,
namely the persona, the shadow, the anima and animus, and the self.
Before we go into more detail on the individuation process,
we will begin with a brief overview of the relevant content from our first video on Jung.
Jung conceived of the psyche, or one’s total personality, as composed of a conscious and unconscious realm.
The unconscious realm he split into the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious.
The personal unconscious is largely composed of repressed elements from one’s personal history,
while the collective unconscious is composed of instincts and archetypes which are common to all
human beings. Archetypes can be viewed as evolved cognitive structures which influence emotions,
thoughts, and behaviors. Archetypes provide structure to different parts of the psyche
and the psyche functions optimally when there exists a harmonious balance between these parts.
Unfortunately, according to Jung, few people function in an optimal manner. Rather, most suffer
from imbalances where some parts of their personality suffer from inflation or overexpression
in consciousness, while other parts suffer from deflation or underdevelopment whereby they lack
proper expression in consciousness. Imbalances, Jung believed, often lead to the development of
neuroses and a lack of vitality in life. Working to bring about proper expression
of the various archetypally structured elements of one’s personality by
confronting contents of the unconscious and thus obtaining self-knowledge is the
purpose of the individuation process. It is important to note that this process
occurs spontaneously if unimpeded, as the contents of the unconscious naturally
strive for outward expression in the world, or as Jung put it, everything in
the unconscious seeks outward manifestation. However, the problem is that while natural,
most people get stuck at various stages of the individuation process as they are unable to
properly integrate into consciousness certain elements of the unconscious. How to promote such
integration when it does not occur naturally was a question of deep concern for Jung. Through his
patient analysis research and personal experience, he arrived at the idea that dreams provide the
the greatest opportunity to access the unconscious, as he put it,
“…dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche,
outside the control of the will. They are pure nature,
they show us the unvarnished, natural truth, and are therefore fitted, as
nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human
nature when our consciousness has strayed too far from its foundations
and run into an impasse.” Jung put enormous emphasis on the therapeutic
therapeutic effects of dream analysis. By recording and analyzing one’s dreams, determining
their meaning and relevancy, Jung thought one could integrate unconscious contents into
consciousness. It must be noted, however, that dream analysis is not a simple matter,
due to the often confusing nature of dreams, and the fact that quite frequently dreams
express material which can be difficult to incorporate into consciousness. The interpretation
of dreams therefore must be seen as a skill acquired through practice and improved with
an understanding of some of the most important archetypes, archetypes which we will spend
the remainder of the video looking at.
Before looking at some of the archetypes which suffer from underdevelopment and therefore
may manifest themselves in dreams, it is important to first look at the persona.
The word persona was used in Roman times to signify a mask worn by an actor.
In an analogous manner, in Jungian psychology, the persona represents the social mask that
each of us wear in our interaction with others in society.
Or to put it differently, it represents the personality that we try to portray to others.
While the persona plays an important role in promoting social interaction and communal
life, problems arise when people over-identify with their persona.
As Jung writes,
Fundamentally, the persona is nothing real.
It is a compromise between the individual and society as to what a man should appear
to be.
He takes a name, earns a title, represents an office.
He is this or that.
In a certain sense, all this is real, yet in relation to the essential individuality
of the person concerned it is only a secondary reality, a product of compromise, in making
which others often have a greater share than he.
The persona is a semblance, a two-dimensional reality.
Most people suffer from inflation of the persona, meaning that they over-identify with their
social mask to the detriment of other important areas of the psyche.
In the course of the individuation process, one must come to the realization that the
persona is not the totality of their being, but rather only a small component of a much
larger personality.
Such a realization is achieved by diving into the unconscious, and mining from it the rich
and meaningful contents manifested by the archetypes.
The first stage in the exploration of the unconscious according to Jung is an encounter
with one’s shadow archetype.
Over the course of one’s life certain personality traits elicit negative feedback and even punishment
from others.
This negative feedback creates anxiety, resulting in these traits being pushed away from awareness
into the unconscious where they form the shadow, the dark side of one’s personality.
To become aware of and integrate the shadow into consciousness is often a difficult and
sometimes heroic endeavor, but failure to do so can create chaos in one’s life.
In the darkness of the unconscious, the shadow is far from impotent, but instead influences
emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in a manner which is beyond conscious control.
Often the shadow finds expression through projections, whereby instead of seeing the
disagreeable elements of the shadow as residing within oneself, one projects these traits
onto others.
Bringing elements of the shadow into the light of consciousness is crucial if one is to correct
some of these less desirable aspects of themselves.
As Jung explains,
Unfortunately, there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines
himself or wants to be.
Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious
life, the blacker and denser it is.
If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it, but if it is repressed
and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected.
The shadow, according to Jung, is not only composed of negative traits, rather, in the
process of over-identifying with the persona often people reject personality traits not
because they are harmful, but because they don’t fit with the dominant social attitudes
of the day.
Therefore, when integrating the shadow into consciousness, one is also exposed to positive
traits and creative energies that can bring about a renewed sense of vitality to life.
The shadow, when it is realized, is the source of renewal.
The new and productive impulse cannot come from established values of the ego.
When there is an impasse and sterile time in our lives, we must look to the dark, hitherto
unacceptable side which has been at our conscious disposal.
In addition to the shadow, another archetype which normally suffers from underdevelopment
is a contrasexual archetype termed the anima in males and the animus in females.
While the persona is oriented outward, acting as a barrier protecting the ego from the external
social world, in an analogous manner the anima and animus is oriented inward, protecting
the ego from the sometimes threatening and overwhelming contents which emerge from the
dark inner depths of the unconscious.
The natural function of the animus, as well as the anima, is to remain in place between
individual consciousness and the collective unconscious, exactly as the persona is a sort
of stratum between the ego consciousness and the objects of the external world.
The animus and the anima should function as a bridge or a door, leading to the images
of the collective unconscious, as the persona should be a sort of bridge into the world.
An encounter with the anima and animus is manifested in one’s consciousness as a meeting
in dreams or visions with a member of the opposite gender.
Such a figure often arises during times of severe psychic disorientation, offering guidance
as to how to remove any psychological barricades hindering the natural progression of the individuation
process.
Encountering such an archetype can therefore signify the coming of a deeply meaningful
period in one’s life, defined by significant psychological transformations.
The meeting with the anima represents a connection to the unconscious even deeper than that of
the shadow.
In the case of the shadow, it is a meeting with the disdained and rejected pieces of
the total psyche, the inferior and unwanted qualities.
In the meeting with the anima, it is a contact with levels of the psyche which has the potential
to lead into the deepest and highest reaches that the ego can attain.
After one encounters and integrates aspects of the anima and animus archetype into one’s
ego, one gains access to enter into the deepest layer of the psyche, the archetype of wholeness,
which Jung called the self and viewed as the most important of all the archetypes.
Proper expression of the self is the goal of the individuation process.
Jung put it, the self is our life’s goal, for it is the completest expression of that
fateful combination we call individuality.
As the sun occupies the center of the solar system, in an analogous manner the self is
the central archetype of the entire psyche.
The self archetype acts as the unifying or organizing principle of the psyche, and is
oriented toward a union of the conscious and unconscious realms.
Remembering from our first video on Jung that the center of the field of consciousness is
the ego, Jung noted that the more numerous and more significant the unconscious contents
which are assimilated to the ego, the closer the approximation of the ego to the self,
even though this approximation must be a never-ending process.
As one increasingly identifies with the self they will notice a greater sense of harmony
both within themselves and with the world as a whole.
In fact, Jung saw a connection with the self as so important that at various times he described
it as a treasure that would make one independent and a link to the infinite.
Jung came upon the existence of the self by exploring the universality of symbols such
as the quaternity and the mandala, which in his words, occur not only in the dreams of
modern people who have never heard of them, but are widely disseminated in the historical
records of many peoples and many epochs.
A mandala, said Jung, is the psychological expression of the totality of the self.
Not only do mandalas have an extremely long history and repeatedly show up in the imagery
of many religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity, but Jung observed that with
some of his patients, mandalas spontaneously arose during times of psychic disorientation
or reorientation.
Mandalas and other symbols of order, Jung believed to be compensatory symbols of wholeness
which are manifested by the self in times of crisis.
The individuation process which culminates in an identification with the self is, according
to Jung crucial for the development of a healthy functioning personality as well as the expression
of the unique potential that exists within each of us.
But along with these personal benefits, Jung thought the process of individuation was essential
for the well-being of society.
Jung believed that conformist societies, composed mainly of people who over-identify with their
persona, are easy prey for the rise of oppressive governments.
Therefore, it is essential for any lasting positive societal change that increasing numbers
of people, assisted by the individuation process, come to the realization that there is more
to their being than the social role dictated by their persona.
A society increasingly composed of individuated individuals would not, according to Jung,
succumb as easily to the rise of oppressive governments.
In so far as society is itself composed of de-individualized human beings, it is completely
at the mercy of ruthless individualists.
Let it band together into groups and organizations as much as it likes.
It is just this banding together and the resultant extinction of the individual personality that
makes it succumb so readily to a dictator.
A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one.
Source: Academy of Ideas