Individuation Process Essay

* Individuation process the process of beeing aware of oneself and the way to discover one’s true, inner self. * According to jung:The ego. This is the conscious mind. * The personal unconscious. This includes forgotten or suppressed memories from our own personal lives. * The collective unconscious. This is shared by all people. It is the collective memory of human thought and experience, from ancient to modern times. This includes the basic human instincts and the archetypes. * The Self is that what we are in essence. In psychological terms, it includes the conscious, the unconscious, and the ego. The Self is the central archetype in the collective unconscious, Archetypes The collective unconscious is shared by us all. This means that it is present in each of us, a vast reservoir of the archetypes of the whole of humanity. It is accessible to everyone. The collective unconscious consists of characteristics that many people have in common and which each of us inherit at birth. The content of the archetype is basically unconscious. It undergoes a transformation when it becomes conscious or when it is being perceived. An archetype is experienced as image and as emotion. It is especially recognizable in such typical and important human situations as birth and death, adolescence, extreme fear or a fearful experience. During such life phases and experiences archetypes will often appear clearly in dreams Archetypes cannot be brushed aside. They will always manifest. Individuation Individuation means that one becomes a person, an individual, a totally integrated personality. It is a process of self realization during which one integrates those contents of the psyche that have the ability to become conscious. It is a search for totality. It is an experience that could be formulated as the discovery of the divine in yourself, or the discovery of the totality of your Self. This does not always happen without pain, but it is necessary to accept many things that normally we would shy away from. Once a person has accepted the contents of his unconsciousness and has reached the goal of the individuation process, he is conscious of his relationships with everything that lives, with the entire cosmos. The individuation process begins with becoming conscious of the Persona, the mask we take on in our every day life. After this we become conscious of the Shadow, the repressed characteristics of the ego. Then we become conscious of the Anima, the inner woman in each man, or the Animus, the inner man in each woman. Then the image of the old wise man, or the old wise mother appears, after which the experience of the Self happens. The shadows The Shadow is all those uncivilized desires and emotions that are incompatible with the norms of society and with our ideal personality. It is all we are ashamed of, that we do not wish to be. when confronted with yhe shadow we feel guilt and shame for the parts of ourselves which we keek hidden. The Anima is the female aspect present in every man. Another anima trick is pseudo-intellectual dialogs which prevents a man from feeling life closely and coming to real decisions. He thinks so much about life that he cannot live, and he losses all spontaneity and the flow of life. The dark aspect will most likely appear when a man has suppressed or underestimated his female nature, treating women with contempt or carelessness. The Animus The animus in women is the counterpart of the anima in men. Like the anima, the animus has three roots: the collective image of a man that a woman acquires, her own experiences with men in her life, and the latent male principle in herself. The Old Wise Man The old wise man appears in the form of king, hero, medicine man, savior, magician, saint, ruler over man and spirits, God’s closest friend and so on. This archetype is a real danger for the personality, because once it has been aroused, a man can easily believe that he possesses ‘mana’, real magical power, and wisdom. He who is possessed by this archetype believes he is gifted with great (maybe esoteric) wisdom, prophetic gifts, the ability to heal and so on. Such a man can gather followers, as he has entered the unconscious way further than anybody else. The archetype has a fascinating power, intuitively felt by people and not easily resisted. They are fascinated by what he is saying, but after analysis it is often not intelligent. The power of the old wise man can be destructive as it forces a man to act above his power and capacity. He does not posses the wisdom he claims. In reality it is the voice of the unconscious that should be subjected to criticism and analysis. The Great Mother In a woman the archetype of the great mother acts in a similar way to the old wise man in a man. Any woman possessed by this archetype, believes that she is gifted with an unlimited capacity to love and to understand, to help and to protect, and she will exhaust herself in service to others. The archetype can be destructive when the woman is fixated on the belief that anybody within her sphere of influence are ‘her children† and therefore they are helpless or dependent on her.