ABSTRACT
Like many of his generation and those that followed, Jung was disillusioned with the ability of social and political institutions to deliver what individual human beings needed. As an alternative to gaining an identity through social frames and forces, Jung proposed that individuals take responsibility for their own self-knowledge and reflexively engage with the unconscious aspects of themselves – the larger personality which he called the Self. He called this process individuation and found it central to the work of analytic psychotherapy. Far from being an individualistic activity which might cut you off from your fellow man and woman, by exploring the depth of your own humanness, individuation results in a deepening knowledge of – and closeness to – others through discovery of individual qualities collectively shared by all humanity.
