Individuation

Individuation is the process by which something is constituted and distinguished as a particular being, set apart from others. In its broadest sense it is a philosophical concept that answers the question of what makes a thing itself and not something else, and of how a person is distinguished from other persons. From the seventeenth century onward, philosophers began to connect the question of individuation with that of identity, that is, with what allows something to remain the same over time.

In psychology, the term was systematized by Carl Gustav Jung within analytical psychology. For Jung, individuation is the lifelong process by which the self develops out of an undifferentiated unconscious, integrating into a functioning whole the innate elements of personality, the immature components of the psyche and the experiences of life. He describes it as a transformation in which the personal and collective contents of the unconscious, appearing in dreams, fantasies or free association, become conscious and are assimilated into the whole personality. Its aim is not perfection but becoming a complete and authentic person. Symbols and archetypes mark its stages, such as the persona, the shadow, the anima or animus, and the Self. Some later theorists understand it as the stage in which the individual moves beyond dependence on the group and narcissistic self-absorption.

A simple example would be someone who, after a crisis, recognises in their dreams traits they had rejected in themselves and gradually integrates them into their way of living, gaining inner coherence. The concept has spread to other fields, such as physics, information theory and data protection law, where it describes singling a person out from a group. In current psychology there is debate over whether individuation is a universal process or depends on cultural contexts, and over how far it can be described or measured with rigour.