Individuation
Simply stated, individuation involves becoming an individual, fulfilling one’s capacities, and developing one’s self. The tendency toward individuation is innate and inevitable,but it will be helped or hindered by environmental forces,such as one’s educational and economic opportunities and the nature of the parent-child relationship.
To strive for individuation, middle-age persons must abandon the behaviors and values that guided the first half of life and confront their unconscious, bringing it into conscious awareness and accepting what it tells them to do. They must listen to their dreams and follow their fantasies, exercising creative imagination through writing,painting or some other form of expression. They must let themselves be guided not by the rational thinking that drove them before but by the spontaneous flow of the unconscious. Only in that way can the true self be revealed.
Jung cautioned that admitting unconscious forces into conscious awareness does not mean being dominated by them. The unconscious forces must be assimilated and balanced with the conscious. At this time of life no single aspect of personality should dominate. An emotionally healthy middle-age person is no longer ruled by either consciousness or unconsciousness by a specific attitude or function or by any of the archetypes. All are brought into harmonious balance when individuation is achieved.
Of particular importance in the midlife process of individuation is achieved is the shift in the nature of the archetypes. The first change involves dethroning the persona. Although we must continue to play various social roles if we are to function in the real world and get along with different kinds of people we must recognize that our public personality may not represent our true nature. Further we must come to accent the genuine self that the persona has been covering.
Next we become aware of the destructive forces of the shadow and acknowledge the dark side of our nature with its primitive impulses such as selfishness. We do not submit to them or allow them to dominate us but simply accept their existence. In the first half of life we use the persona to shield this dark side from ourselves wanting people to see only our good qualities. But in concealing the forces of the shadow from others we conceal them from ourselves. This must change as part of the process of learning to know ourselves. A greater awareness of both the destructive and the constructive aspects of the shadow will give the personality a deeper and fuller dimension because the shadow’s tendencies bring zest spontaneity and vitally to life.