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Individuation is a process of transformation whereby the personal and collective unconscious are brought into consciousness (e.g., by means of dreams, active imagination, or free association) to be assimilated into the whole personality. It is a completely natural process necessary for the integration of the psyche. Individuation has a holistic healing effect on the person, both mentally and physically.
The difference between the "natural" individuation process, 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. The encounter between conscious and unconscious has to ensure that the light which shines in the darkness is not only comprehended by the darkness, but comprehends it.
Defining the Individuation process
In Jungian psychology, also called analytical psychology, individuation is the process where the individual self develops out of an undifferentiated unconscious – seen as a developmental psychic process during which innate elements of personality, the components of the immature psyche, and the experiences of the person’s life become, if the process is more or less successful, integrated over time into a well-functioning whole. Other psychoanalytic theorists describe it as the stage where an individual transcends group attachment and narcissistic self-absorption.
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 (buy his books from Amazon) 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.
Analytical psychology and Individuation book recommendations
The Purpose of Individuation
The purpose of this individuation process is to increase the individual’s consciousness.
With greater consciousness, individuals can heal the splits in their mind between what’s conscious and unconscious, bringing them to wholeness in their psyche.
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.
From Jung’s outlook, the second part of life can represent a turning inward toward a deeper part of ourselves.
This inward turn starts the individuation process.
Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthrals and overpowers, while at the same time he lifts the idea he is seeking to express out of the occasional and the transitory into the realm of the ever enduring. He transmutes our personal destiny into the destiny of mankind, and evokes in us all those beneficent forces that ever and anon have enabled humanity to find a refuge from every peril and to outlive the longest night.
Tools for the Process
How do we proceed with our psychological development toward individuation?
Jungian psychology offers two related methods: dream work and active imagination.
Dream work
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.
The Self, however, cannot communicate in language. Instead, it uses symbols and images.
The Self 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 us every night.”
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To be "normal" is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful, for all those who are still below the general level of adaptation. But for people of more than average ability, people who never found it difficult to gain successes and to accomplish their share of the world's work-for them the moral compulsion to be nothing but normal signifies the bed of Procrustes-deadly and insupportable boredom, a hell of sterility and hopelessness.
Active Imagination
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.
Refusing the call of Individuation
Although Jungian psychology and the individuation process can liberate us, it’s not a “safe path.” There’s no safety once we leave the everyday world.
Plus, to achieve success, we must strip away all of our false identities our egos have invested in creating. Doing so triggers fear from our ego.
That’s why most people resist their call to adventure and why, according to Jung (buy his books from Amazon), so few people individuate or achieve psychic wholeness.
