The Individuation Process (An essay)
I’m sure psychologists have already come up with an interpretation of the psyche and the self such as the one I am explaining in this essay; probably using all sorts of psycho-lingo. Or maybe they haven’t… However, I felt like sharing my interpretation of some aspects of our psyche and what we call the self and its interactions with the psyche in my own words. “Who am I?” is probably the most popular philosophical question known to mankind, maybe right after “What is the meaning of life?” I’m going to go start by trying to answer the first question, while trying to be the least presumptuous possible. Within the complexity of our psyche and the personality it brings into manifestation for the world to see, is a governing part of ourselves. It could be called “our awareness”, “the observing self”, “The man in the machine” or what I will call here “the self”. The self is influenced by impulses of various strengths springing from a various number of internal and external stimuli. But really, the internal stimuli are the most important and are ultimately the factors that influence us the most. If we use the metaphor of the man in the machine, the psyche would be the operating system and the various software it works with, the brain would be the computer hardware, the body is the machine and the self would be the man in the machine. We go about our business every day, using our minds to tend to our daily activities and occasionally to solve a inner or outer conflict, but all the while I think most of us are aware that there are other forces within our psyche that influence the way we conduct our lives. We may glimpse at these forces if we shed some light on them, that is to say that we observe and pay attention to them. We (the self) are actually very simple in our functions, or what we can do. It helps if you regard the psyche as a psychic body in analogy to our physical (biological) body. Only this body is far more complex and we can actually live the rest of our lives without ever noticing the existence of “organs” and “members” that constitute it. What are the abilities of the self (you)?
1. We can illuminate. That is to say you can pay attention without altering or entertaining a process we are observing. We are therefore aware of the process. Example: You may catch yourself thinking about something and watch your mind engaged into a process of free association. It is important to realize that we are not our thoughts and our mind is a thought generating machine.
2. Or we can alter a process, but first you would illuminate it which is a prerequisite to all conscious actions that we can make. Example: the mind generates thoughts such as “I wonder how I’m going to pay my student loans” But then you decide “I don’t want to think about that right now” and so you consciously decide to think about something else, such as “I love my significant other… I wonder what he or she is doing right now” and hence the free associating machine that is your mind begins its thought generating process in a different direction. Of course it isn’t always this easy and there is a reason for this but explaining that would make my own free associating machine drift in a different direction than the one pertaining to this subject. (Maybe later)
3. We can entertain a process. Or one could say that we can fuel the process. This particular action gives energy to the process in addition to the initial momentum it received from mere awareness when it first started. Example: When we dwell on a thought process. “Why did he act like that with me?” “What a jerk!” “what is his problem anyway” and usually after a few more thought associations the mind runs out of ideas and returns to “Why did he act like that with me?” or it cleverly shifts in another similar direction like “My dad acted like that towards me too, what a jerk he is” then maybe the association about the dad is exhausted and the mind may turn to generalizing “All men are jerks” (now let’s talk about that for a few hours). The trouble here is that once the mind is ordered to fuel a process it gets so carried away and it takes a tremendous amount of willpower to stop it. This willpower is used not by ordering the process to stop which, ironically, will fuel it even more but by refusing to entertain it any further. This means going through the ordeal of being patient as a train of now undesired thoughts pass by and eventually become moribund.
4. We can actually block a process. The mind is the best artificial intelligence ever. When a process is entertained a significant number of times it begins to give rise to this process on its own; if caught early enough the process can be interrupted right away. But one must understand what process they are blocking so as not to avoid one that is painful or uncomfortable yet necessary. (This is another subject that if I commented more on, would distract us from the main topic).
As explained earlier the psyche can be compared to the body and its various organs and members but in a far more complex way. Sometimes the body does its own thing, such as when you scratch your head without being conscious of it. This is more the body organ which is the brain doing its own thing though. The psyche has been well explained by known psychologists such as Freud and Jung; however we must remember that these are but models of the psyche, because the psyche is so complex that we can only explain it through the use of models. A few components of these models include the super-ego, the collective consciousness, the anima, the animus and the persona, which are all aspects of the psyche. Here I don’t really introduce any new components or models, but more so make an interpretation based on these psychologists concepts of the psyche. You (the self) are, metaphorically, are endowed with a torch and supply of energy with which to allocate energy wherever you please. The catch is that few of us, and dare I say none of us, have total control over this energy. Through unconscious processes and habits that we developed since childhood our mind (maybe I can call it the ego) automatically allocates the energy to processes that we have decided to entertain time and again in the past. These automatic processes create tendencies or proclivities and eventually form a great part of our personality. Now I must explain a little about the personality. Many of us, especially those with very intelligent, curious and explorative minds end up having such complex personalities that, inevitably, conflicting processes begin to form and clash against each other. Not only does this cause a tremendous waste of energy but it results in an overwhelming feeling of unease and is the source of many intelligent people’s eventual neurosis. The thing about personalities is that they are not us though they use the ego to try to make us believe this. They become self preserving entities, if you will. (Now you probably think I’m crazy, but just stay with me please). There are not any sentient and independent entities hanging around in the psyche. That is not what I’m saying. But a personality is basically an artificial intelligence programmed by us, through the years. Of course their programming was not entirely our doing but that is especially because at a young age we are not aware of ourselves enough to deliberately shape the direction of our personality. They are mostly shaped by our environment, and biological peculiarities; so by nature and nurture. However when one reaches a certain level of awareness, he is then able to alter and create different parts of the personality, but it requires energy. One must not mistake this to mean that you can be whoever you want. It is practically impossible to completely form a whole new personality. But one can alter and reform a personality that is already programmed. The goal is to have as few clashing aspects of our personality as possible, so as to use our limited amount of psychic energy efficiently. Also I am not saying that we all have multi-personality disorders, although I suspect that this happens when the mind pathologically decides to organize each conflicting aspect of our personality and branch them out into two separate personalities that take their turn at controlling the ego; which I believe is extremely rare (Kind of like Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) . But how does one change their personality to one that works for them instead of against them? Because sometimes we can become prisoners of our personalities and become unable to do things we feel we need or want to, due to its influence on us.
First one must understand, once again, that we are not our personality. We are our “soul”, “the observing self”, or simply “the self”. By identifying ourselves with the personality, which is a major part of our ego, we provide it with too much energy which it uses for self preservation purposes. When in danger of losing energy it uses all the energy it has for its survival and influences the ego’s thought production capability to produce thoughts in that endeavor. This is when thoughts such as “I won’t be myself anymore” which instills the fear of the loss of self arise. But it is untrue that we will no longer be “ourselves” because we cannot completely rid ourselves of a personality anyway, we can only take away the energy it uses to control our actions unconsciously. Besides, we need a personality to function in this world but when its programs have aspects that we find undesirable we should be able to alter them. I am not speaking of “the persona” here, by the way, which is actually a part of our personality that is meant to temporarily suppress the aspects of our personality that are undesirable in specific social settings and also acts like artificial intelligence (acting out the way it has been programmed, but unconsciously as well). Second, when dealing with conflicting aspects of our personalities, we need to make a choice as to which conflicting aspect we want to entertain. Usually our unconscious with its self healing properties takes this task upon itself. Our idea of personalities have come to include likes and dislikes in addition to habits, this is why people begin to become afraid when their strong interests, likes or dislikes change. They feel like they are losing who they are. But a personality is ever changing; it is part of psychological growth. We usually accept this until the change is too dramatic to our liking. Sometimes knowledge that has been organized by the unconscious and is ready for delivery to the conscious mind is halted because it is incompatible with the person’s current personality. In this situation the unconscious which functions using emotions first and then dreams and then neurosis begins to actively attempt to coerce us to change. It uses emotions by making us feel uneasy about the aspects of our personality it seeks to change. If that doesn’t work it sends hints in the form of dreams to point us to the change we should be working towards. And finally it may push us into a neurosis which basically means it has decided to take the changing of the personality in its own hands and hence clashes with the resisting conscious mind. Of course at this point one feels gradually very uncomfortable with themselves until either they give in, or the overcome this desperate move of the unconscious.
The purpose of this is what Jung called “individuation” which is basically our individual path to self-realization, our own version of perfection and ultimate self-fulfillment. It is possible to resist this process and the ego will help in this endeavor. The consequences will be a stunted psyche however; one that has not reached the maturity that it was destined to. The problem is that once one has begun resisting the unconscious’ request for change, giving in becomes just as uncomfortable as resisting. Once the ego has been given a chance to take part in this “battle” It will not easily relinquish its role. It will begin to use various tricks and strategies to remain a factor. One of these strategies is projection. By projection I mean that it will target a person one is close to, usually a parent or authority figure with similar characteristics to the direction of this change in the personality, on which to project this desire for change. One begins to think and feel as if this parent, for example, is coercing them to change and hence reinforce their aversion to the process. Resistance becomes easier if it seems like one is resisting an exterior force as suppose to an inner urge. The ego will, of course, reinforce the fear of change and come up with rationalizations that support this fear. One may then either remains in conflict with oneself, causing all sorts of psychological nuisances, or actually succeed in suppressing the inchoate aspect of the personality that the unconscious seeks to bring about. In this case one is found, as mentioned earlier, stunted in their psyche’s development or at the very least slowed down until this aspect is reactivated somehow. If however one gives in to the unconscious’ signal to change, energy eventually becomes freed up once the personality’s integrity has been reestablished, and one finds himself or herself with more energy left for creative endeavors and other activities. Also the knowledge and the possibilities that were blocked become available and the person finds themselves with an increased level of peace and greater confidence and psychic integrity. All this will however follow the ordeal, which one is better of going through deliberately.
Disclaimer and Acknowledgments: I’m not a psychologist, but I am very interested in the subject. So this essay can simply be seen as an opinion of which some parts are subject to change in the future, given new information. I believe that the discipline is the most important field in academia, because it concerns the minds of people which are the foundation of everything created or that can be potentially created in this world. My ideas are based on my reading of a few of the many great minds of our time; that is Carl Gustav Jung, Sigmund Freud, Victor Franz, Arthur Deikman, Eckhart Tolle, etc…
1. We can illuminate. That is to say you can pay attention without altering or entertaining a process we are observing. We are therefore aware of the process. Example: You may catch yourself thinking about something and watch your mind engaged into a process of free association. It is important to realize that we are not our thoughts and our mind is a thought generating machine.
2. Or we can alter a process, but first you would illuminate it which is a prerequisite to all conscious actions that we can make. Example: the mind generates thoughts such as “I wonder how I’m going to pay my student loans” But then you decide “I don’t want to think about that right now” and so you consciously decide to think about something else, such as “I love my significant other… I wonder what he or she is doing right now” and hence the free associating machine that is your mind begins its thought generating process in a different direction. Of course it isn’t always this easy and there is a reason for this but explaining that would make my own free associating machine drift in a different direction than the one pertaining to this subject. (Maybe later)
3. We can entertain a process. Or one could say that we can fuel the process. This particular action gives energy to the process in addition to the initial momentum it received from mere awareness when it first started. Example: When we dwell on a thought process. “Why did he act like that with me?” “What a jerk!” “what is his problem anyway” and usually after a few more thought associations the mind runs out of ideas and returns to “Why did he act like that with me?” or it cleverly shifts in another similar direction like “My dad acted like that towards me too, what a jerk he is” then maybe the association about the dad is exhausted and the mind may turn to generalizing “All men are jerks” (now let’s talk about that for a few hours). The trouble here is that once the mind is ordered to fuel a process it gets so carried away and it takes a tremendous amount of willpower to stop it. This willpower is used not by ordering the process to stop which, ironically, will fuel it even more but by refusing to entertain it any further. This means going through the ordeal of being patient as a train of now undesired thoughts pass by and eventually become moribund.
4. We can actually block a process. The mind is the best artificial intelligence ever. When a process is entertained a significant number of times it begins to give rise to this process on its own; if caught early enough the process can be interrupted right away. But one must understand what process they are blocking so as not to avoid one that is painful or uncomfortable yet necessary. (This is another subject that if I commented more on, would distract us from the main topic).
As explained earlier the psyche can be compared to the body and its various organs and members but in a far more complex way. Sometimes the body does its own thing, such as when you scratch your head without being conscious of it. This is more the body organ which is the brain doing its own thing though. The psyche has been well explained by known psychologists such as Freud and Jung; however we must remember that these are but models of the psyche, because the psyche is so complex that we can only explain it through the use of models. A few components of these models include the super-ego, the collective consciousness, the anima, the animus and the persona, which are all aspects of the psyche. Here I don’t really introduce any new components or models, but more so make an interpretation based on these psychologists concepts of the psyche. You (the self) are, metaphorically, are endowed with a torch and supply of energy with which to allocate energy wherever you please. The catch is that few of us, and dare I say none of us, have total control over this energy. Through unconscious processes and habits that we developed since childhood our mind (maybe I can call it the ego) automatically allocates the energy to processes that we have decided to entertain time and again in the past. These automatic processes create tendencies or proclivities and eventually form a great part of our personality. Now I must explain a little about the personality. Many of us, especially those with very intelligent, curious and explorative minds end up having such complex personalities that, inevitably, conflicting processes begin to form and clash against each other. Not only does this cause a tremendous waste of energy but it results in an overwhelming feeling of unease and is the source of many intelligent people’s eventual neurosis. The thing about personalities is that they are not us though they use the ego to try to make us believe this. They become self preserving entities, if you will. (Now you probably think I’m crazy, but just stay with me please). There are not any sentient and independent entities hanging around in the psyche. That is not what I’m saying. But a personality is basically an artificial intelligence programmed by us, through the years. Of course their programming was not entirely our doing but that is especially because at a young age we are not aware of ourselves enough to deliberately shape the direction of our personality. They are mostly shaped by our environment, and biological peculiarities; so by nature and nurture. However when one reaches a certain level of awareness, he is then able to alter and create different parts of the personality, but it requires energy. One must not mistake this to mean that you can be whoever you want. It is practically impossible to completely form a whole new personality. But one can alter and reform a personality that is already programmed. The goal is to have as few clashing aspects of our personality as possible, so as to use our limited amount of psychic energy efficiently. Also I am not saying that we all have multi-personality disorders, although I suspect that this happens when the mind pathologically decides to organize each conflicting aspect of our personality and branch them out into two separate personalities that take their turn at controlling the ego; which I believe is extremely rare (Kind of like Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) . But how does one change their personality to one that works for them instead of against them? Because sometimes we can become prisoners of our personalities and become unable to do things we feel we need or want to, due to its influence on us.
First one must understand, once again, that we are not our personality. We are our “soul”, “the observing self”, or simply “the self”. By identifying ourselves with the personality, which is a major part of our ego, we provide it with too much energy which it uses for self preservation purposes. When in danger of losing energy it uses all the energy it has for its survival and influences the ego’s thought production capability to produce thoughts in that endeavor. This is when thoughts such as “I won’t be myself anymore” which instills the fear of the loss of self arise. But it is untrue that we will no longer be “ourselves” because we cannot completely rid ourselves of a personality anyway, we can only take away the energy it uses to control our actions unconsciously. Besides, we need a personality to function in this world but when its programs have aspects that we find undesirable we should be able to alter them. I am not speaking of “the persona” here, by the way, which is actually a part of our personality that is meant to temporarily suppress the aspects of our personality that are undesirable in specific social settings and also acts like artificial intelligence (acting out the way it has been programmed, but unconsciously as well). Second, when dealing with conflicting aspects of our personalities, we need to make a choice as to which conflicting aspect we want to entertain. Usually our unconscious with its self healing properties takes this task upon itself. Our idea of personalities have come to include likes and dislikes in addition to habits, this is why people begin to become afraid when their strong interests, likes or dislikes change. They feel like they are losing who they are. But a personality is ever changing; it is part of psychological growth. We usually accept this until the change is too dramatic to our liking. Sometimes knowledge that has been organized by the unconscious and is ready for delivery to the conscious mind is halted because it is incompatible with the person’s current personality. In this situation the unconscious which functions using emotions first and then dreams and then neurosis begins to actively attempt to coerce us to change. It uses emotions by making us feel uneasy about the aspects of our personality it seeks to change. If that doesn’t work it sends hints in the form of dreams to point us to the change we should be working towards. And finally it may push us into a neurosis which basically means it has decided to take the changing of the personality in its own hands and hence clashes with the resisting conscious mind. Of course at this point one feels gradually very uncomfortable with themselves until either they give in, or the overcome this desperate move of the unconscious.
The purpose of this is what Jung called “individuation” which is basically our individual path to self-realization, our own version of perfection and ultimate self-fulfillment. It is possible to resist this process and the ego will help in this endeavor. The consequences will be a stunted psyche however; one that has not reached the maturity that it was destined to. The problem is that once one has begun resisting the unconscious’ request for change, giving in becomes just as uncomfortable as resisting. Once the ego has been given a chance to take part in this “battle” It will not easily relinquish its role. It will begin to use various tricks and strategies to remain a factor. One of these strategies is projection. By projection I mean that it will target a person one is close to, usually a parent or authority figure with similar characteristics to the direction of this change in the personality, on which to project this desire for change. One begins to think and feel as if this parent, for example, is coercing them to change and hence reinforce their aversion to the process. Resistance becomes easier if it seems like one is resisting an exterior force as suppose to an inner urge. The ego will, of course, reinforce the fear of change and come up with rationalizations that support this fear. One may then either remains in conflict with oneself, causing all sorts of psychological nuisances, or actually succeed in suppressing the inchoate aspect of the personality that the unconscious seeks to bring about. In this case one is found, as mentioned earlier, stunted in their psyche’s development or at the very least slowed down until this aspect is reactivated somehow. If however one gives in to the unconscious’ signal to change, energy eventually becomes freed up once the personality’s integrity has been reestablished, and one finds himself or herself with more energy left for creative endeavors and other activities. Also the knowledge and the possibilities that were blocked become available and the person finds themselves with an increased level of peace and greater confidence and psychic integrity. All this will however follow the ordeal, which one is better of going through deliberately.
Disclaimer and Acknowledgments: I’m not a psychologist, but I am very interested in the subject. So this essay can simply be seen as an opinion of which some parts are subject to change in the future, given new information. I believe that the discipline is the most important field in academia, because it concerns the minds of people which are the foundation of everything created or that can be potentially created in this world. My ideas are based on my reading of a few of the many great minds of our time; that is Carl Gustav Jung, Sigmund Freud, Victor Franz, Arthur Deikman, Eckhart Tolle, etc…
posted by Albouri Ndiaye | 04:10
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