Individuation

The Opposite of Individualism

Earliest record: 1916Two typescripts signed and dated "Oct. 1916", found in 1964 in the archives of the Psychological Club, Zurich; trans. R. F. C. Hull, first published in Spring in 1970, now CW 18 §§1084-1106 as "Adaptation, Individuation, Collectivity". Not the only 1916 witness, and not the earliest: the lecture Jung gave early that year was published in 1916 in French as "La Structure de l'inconscient" (Archives de Psychologie, XVI, 152-79) and in English in 1917 as "The Conception of the Unconscious". CW 7 prints its rediscovered German MS as Appendix 2, §§442-521, where individuation stands unbracketed — and so in the 1916 text — at §§462-463 and §505. The term is first defined in print in Psychologische Typen (Rascher, Zurich, 1921), Definitions, ch. XI.

Jung's 1921 Definitions make individuation conditional on prior adaptation to collective norms. In 1916 he called whoever individuates without repaying society a deserter.

C. G. Jung, Psychological Types (Psychologische Typen, Rascher, Zurich, 1921), CW 6, trans. R. F. C. Hull; C. G. Jung, 'Adaptation, Individuation, Collectivity', CW 18 (The Symbolic Life) (1916).

Jung's term for the individual's development as a being distinct from collective psychology.

More context

Principium individuationis is a scholastic phrase. Schopenhauer wrote in 1818 that he had borrowed it from the old schoolmen and applied it to space and time. Nietzsche took it from him in 1872. It is Nietzsche quoting Schopenhauer that Jung reproduces in 1921. Jung was already using the word in 1916, in a lecture given early that year and in an October typescript. The 1921 Definitions attach the conditions. Individuation must lead to broader collective relationships and not to isolation. It cannot be taken as a goal before adaptation to the necessary minimum of collective norms is attained. Extreme individualism, Jung wrote, has nothing to do with it. The placing of the work in life's second half comes later, in 1931. His own 1928 gloss, self-realization, is the wording the popular sense reproduces.

Light

It gave psychology an aim beyond adjustment. Jung's 1921 wording binds it to other people: individuation ending in isolation has failed.

Shadow

Stripped of its conditions, it endorses whatever the reader wants. In 1916, whoever individuated without repaying society was a deserter.

Sources8 sources

Primary source

Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 1818, Book II, §23Schopenhauer says he calls time and space the principium individuationis, using an expression borrowed from the old scholastics — the route by which a medieval technical phrase entered nineteenth-century German thought.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, 1872, §1Nietzsche takes the principium individuationis from Schopenhauer, quoting his image of the mariner in the frail barque, and calls Apollo its glorious divine image — the passage Jung reproduces at CW 6 §876.
C. G. Jung, 'The Structure of the Unconscious' ('Die Struktur des Unbewussten'), CW 7, Appendix 2, trans. R. F. C. Hull, 1916, §§442-521; individuation unbracketed at §§462-463 and §505; editorial note to Appendix 2The second 1916 witness, and a published one. CW 7's editorial note records that the lecture was 'published the same year, in a French translation by M. Marsen, in the Archives de Psychologie (XVI, pp. 152-79) under the title "La Structure de l'inconscient"', and appeared in English as 'The Conception of the Unconscious' in Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology (2nd edn., 1917). The German MS, lost until after Jung's death in 1961, is translated here under a stated policy: later-hand additions that found their way into the 1928 version 'have not been included', and additions not represented there are 'given in square brackets' — so unbracketed text is 1916. Individuation stands unbracketed at 'individuation is an ineluctable psychological necessity' (§462), at the faculty of imitation being 'most pernicious for individuation' (§463), and at 'The dissolution of the persona is therefore an indispensable condition for individuation' (§505).
C. G. Jung, 'Adaptation, Individuation, Collectivity', CW 18 (The Symbolic Life), 1916, §§1084-1106; typescripts signed 'Oct. 1916', discovered 1964 in the archives of the Psychological Club, Zurich; first published, trans. R. F. C. Hull, in Spring, 1970The harshest statement of the term's conditions. Individuation incurs a guilt towards the collective which must be redeemed: 'Only to the extent that a man creates objective values can he and may he individuate' (§1095); society 'has a duty to condemn the individuant if he fails to create equivalent values, for he is a deserter' (§1096); without created value he 'remains an empty waster and windbag' (§1098); 'Only a few are capable of individuating' (§1099); and the persona 'must be extinguished or, in other words, restored to the unconscious' (§1102).
C. G. Jung, Psychological Types (Psychologische Typen, Rascher, Zurich, 1921), CW 6, trans. R. F. C. Hull, 1921, Definitions, ch. XI, §§757-762; Nietzsche and Schopenhauer at §§226-227 and §876; Editorial NoteThe 1921 definition and its conditions: individuation 'must lead to more intense and broader collective relationships and not to isolation' (§758); 'Under no circumstances can individuation be the sole aim of psychological education. Before it can be taken as a goal, the educational aim of adaptation to the necessary minimum of collective norms must first be attained' (§760); and, of extreme individualism, 'Naturally this aim is pathological and inimical to life. It has, accordingly, nothing to do with individuation' (§761) — a disclaimer of relation, not the individuation-versus-individualism contrast, which is 1928. At §876 Jung writes that in his picture of Apollo 'Nietzsche borrows the words of Schopenhauer' on the principium individuationis. The CW 6 Editorial Note records that the definition of the 'self' was written by Jung for the 1960 Gesammelte Werke edition, the 1921 original having treated it under the ego.
C. G. Jung, The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious (Die Beziehungen zwischen dem Ich und dem Unbewussten, Rascher, Zurich, 1928; 2nd edn 1935), CW 7, 1928, §§266-268Jung's own gloss, and the wording the popular sense reproduces: 'We could therefore translate individuation as "coming to selfhood" or "self-realization"' (§266). And the individualism contrast, which is stated here and not in the 1921 Definitions: 'Individualism means deliberately stressing and giving prominence to some supposed peculiarity rather than to collective considerations and obligations. But individuation means precisely the better and more complete fulfilment of the collective qualities of the human being' (§267). Whether this gloss is the channel by which the self-help sense arrived is not established here.
C. G. Jung, 'The Stages of Life' ('Die Lebenswende', Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart, Psychologische Abhandlungen III, Zurich, 1931), CW 8, 1931, §785; first published as 'Die seelischen Probleme der menschlichen Altersstufen', Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 and 16 March 1930, then, in the CW 8 editors' words, 'revised and largely rewritten' as 'Die Lebenswende' (1931); the CW translation follows the 1931 version by way of the Dell and Baynes English of Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933) — so the sentence quoted is 1931 wording, not 1930The placing of the work in the second half of life: 'For a young person it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.' The CW 8 editorial preface singles this essay out 'because of the influence of the ideas it contains on individuation as a phenomenon of the second half of life'.

The tradition itself

C. G. Jung, Psychological Types, 1921, Definitions, 'Individuation'The interpretation: individuation as the development of the individual differentiated from collective psychology, leading to wider collective solidarity and not isolation, with extreme individualism excluded.