Introducing the idea of the soul and the importance of meaning as a critical factor in overcoming psychological stress, Jung recontextualized psychology as a sacred psychology and promoted a religious attitude, a relationship with God, and the cultivation of a spiritual life essential to a healthy personal development.
We must note, however, that on many occasions Jung insisted that he does not speak of God as an absolute being, since it is not accessible to our knowledge but affirms the experience and the psychodynamic image of the divine, and recalls how it was expressed by people in different cultural symbols and images. Jung is not a theologian. Jung p. By exercising the psychological functions of thinking, feeling and intuition, they gradually pass under the conscious control of the self, which constitutes the new, recent ego, so that the person attains self-realization, thus becoming an individual who feels the psychic fulfillment.
Jung can be called a precursor of transpersonal psychology as he confers the primordial role of the spirit in human actions and brings the soul and the spirit to the counseling room, offering invaluable concepts and techniques for the psychological work. This essential, but long, permanent and endless process that is the individuation, that crosses our life from the beginning to the end, is completed in two major stages; the first ends in mid-life 30 - 40 years , and the second in old age.
The first stage is defined by the adaptation of man to the external environment, accompanied by the establishment and maintenance of personal relationships in a broad social framework as well as by the development of an appropriate Persona. Once the Self is the central archetype, it means that the process of realizing the Self will have to be directed archetypally.
The self, therefore, has a double role in this process: on the one hand, it is the initiator of the process, on the other, is the goal it is aiming for. It becomes both process and finality, the way and the truth that comes to its end. Individuation is a continuous process of development, accumulation and resignation of meaning throughout life, a creative process: to the extent that we integrate and accept the unconscious part of us, we become more authentic, remodeling ourselves, and that brings us closer to perfection.
The permanent confrontation between conscious and unconscious in the form of a continuous dialogue in which their contents are unified in symbols, leads to individuation. Practically, the symbol of the Self can be anything and anyone, from Christ to Buddha, from a circle to a square. If they have to fight each other, then at least it should be a right fight and each side should have the same rights. Both are aspects of life. Conscience should defend reason and the possibility of self-protection, and the chaotic life of the unconscious should be able to follow its own path, as long as we can endure it.
It means open struggle and open collaboration at the same time. As the name indicates, it is a process or a development that comes from the conflict of the two basic soul realities.
Returning to oneself is a complex process that will be accomplished not only through introspection but also through education, by taking over and understanding spiritual and moral values in the history of mankind. This is the only way to move from child to adult stage.
A characteristic feature of this approach is the introduction of the soul idea and the re-contextualization of psychology sacred psychology. Individuation is a continuous process of accumulation and resignation of meaning throughout life, a creative process. To the extent that we integrate and accept the unconscious as a part of us, we become more authentic, remodeling ourselves, being closer to perfection.
If Jung appealed to the levels of consciousness, showing the importance of its abisal dimensions in the process of thought and creation, Maslow, in particular, brings into discussion the role of awareness and the will to become a fully-actualized being.
The known pyramid of needs, which presents the psycho-physiological causes of individual evolution, includes as a corollary, the stage of self-actualization, of personal perfection. Once we reach this level, we can say that the self-actualization process really starts. But what are the meta needs and how do they help us in self-realization? Starting from the premise that the motivation of healthy people with exceptional achievements is at least as interesting and valuable as that of people with mental disorders, Maslow has been concerned about understanding how these people become intrinsically motivated in their work, enrolling in an ascending spiral of self-improvement.
Self-actualization is a growth motivation that is found within each individual, a need to develop his own psychic potential, of the body itself Maslow, p. His study included eminent people from different areas of his contemporary social life, who accepted to participate in the research, subject to confidentiality, historical figures with extensive biographical data, cases studied by other psychologists. The common factor of all these personalities is of a motivational nature: all those subjects were animated by needs that Maslow will call them meta needs or B needs, Maslow: , p.
Broadly speaking, Maslow differentiates two categories of motivational forces:. This differentiation is maintained at the level of knowledge B-cognition and D-cognition and extends to the functioning of the whole personality affectivity, activity. The psychology of personality, as he proposes, is a psychology of becoming Being Psychology, Maslow, The failure of achieving the meta-needs produces a meta-pathology that is different from the disturbances which accompany the pathology associated with deprivation in the case of type D needs.
Meta-needs are present in people whose lives have been marked by peak experiences, through which these individuals have achieved the integrity of the self, the sense of identity and personal completeness. Self-actualization means courage, effort, risk-taking, and sometimes suffering.
Many people are afraid to risk, because every action in the direction of change can be successful or failing. And yet, these people make us feel embarrassed, anxious, confused, maybe a little jealous and envious, a little bit inferior and left-handed. Every individual is at a certain moment in life, in front of a choice between growth and stagnation.
First-time employment is risky and people who have not acquired the motivation, courage and the ability to take risks during their training will choose the way of stagnation they will never get out of the belly of the whale.
If we plan goals that are below our potential, we risk being unhappy and tense for the rest of our lives just because we have escaped from the trajectory of personal fulfillment Maslow, p. These needs should be understood not to be exclusive or unique to certain types of behavior.
An example can be found in any behavior that appears to be physiologically motivated, such as food, sexual play, or the like. Clinical psychologists have long found that any behavior can be a means by which different determinants are manifested.
Most of our behavior has a multiple motivation. The need to eat may be partly due to filling the stomach and partly for reasons of comfort and improvement of other needs. Analyzing a single act of an individual we can see in it the expression of his physiological needs, safety, love, self-actualization needs. This contrasts with the more naive idea of psychology of traits, where a feature or reason represents a certain type of act for example, an aggressive act is the result of an aggression trait.
If both physiological and safety needs are well-satisfied, then the needs of love, affection and belonging and the whole cycle already described will be repeated having this new center Maslow, p. Now, the person will feel—stronger than ever—the absence of friends or a lover, a wife or the absence of children.
In our society, alleviating these needs is the most common nucleus in more severe maladaptation and psychopathology. Love and affection, as well as their possible expression in sexuality, are generally viewed with ambivalence and are usually accompanied by many restrictions and inhibitions. In essence, all theoreticians of psychopathology have emphasized that the improvement of the need for love is essential in the image of individual inadequacy. Therefore, many clinical trials have been done on this need and we know more about it than any of the other needs Maslow, p.
In this analysis, love is not synonymous with sex. Sex can be studied as a purely physiological necessity. Regular sexual behavior is multidimensional, that is, determined not only by sexual needs, but also by other needs, including the needs of love and affection.
It should not be neglected that the need for love implies both giving and receiving love. All the people in our society with some pathological exceptions have the need or the desire for a stable, solid usually self-required assessment to gain self-esteem and respect from others. Through self-esteem, we understand the capacity and real respect for others. These needs can be classified into two subsidiary sets: the desire for power, achievement, suitability, trust in the world, independence and freedom.
Secondly, we have what we may call the desire for reputation or prestige defining it as respect or appreciation by other people , recognition, attention, importance or appreciation Maslow, p. These needs were relatively underlined by Alfred Adler and his followers and were relatively neglected by Freud and psychoanalysts. More and more today, they are considered to be of central importance. But the thwarting of these needs produces feelings of inferiority, of weakness and of helplessness.
These feelings in turn give rise to either basic discouragement or else compensatory or neurotic trends. Even if all these needs are met, we can still often if not always expect new discontent and anxiety to develop soon, if the individual does not do what is right.
A musician has to make music, an artist has to paint, a poet must write, if he wants to be, finally, happy. What a man can be, it must be. This need can be called self-actualization. This term, originally conceived by Kurt Goldstein quoted by Washburn, p. It refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely the tendency to become everything that someone is capable of becoming. The specific form of these needs will be very different from person to person. In one case, it may take the form of the desire to be an ideal mother, for another person it can be expressed in athletic performances, and for another may be expressed in making photos or inventions.
The clear emergence of these needs, Maslow believes, is based on the prior satisfaction of physiological, safety, love and esteem needs.
Such an affirmation is a partial solution to the general problems of curiosity, the search for knowledge, truth and wisdom, and the ever more persistent need to solve the cosmic mysteries. In fact, most members of our society who are normal are partially satisfied in all their basic needs and partly unsatisfied in all basic needs at the same time.
A more realistic description of the hierarchy would be in terms of lowering satisfaction rates as we ascend higher in the hierarchy. This kind of functioning is the sign of mental health. The psychological pathology is given by limiting and distorting the satisfaction of these needs of becoming B-values.
If we define the normal person as being adapted, in terms of the plenary development of his capacities, we do so by reference to an ideal man who, in fact, is the natural and healthy man.
Ultimately, the normal person is the mature personality, who is self-actualized. It is important to understand the relationship between parental education and children academic performance, as the results show that parents with professional degree and postgraduate have children with good academic performance, compared with the parents with lower grade studies Lanz et al.
Self-actualization to be fulfilled implies courage, effort, risk-taking, and sometimes suffering, frustration and isolation. Self-actualization is a growth motivation that is found within each individual, a need to develop his own psychic potential.
The needs to grow—bring a satisfaction that generates new tensions, thus propelling the being into an ascending process of self-improvement, a process that results in outstanding social or professional achievements.
Two other key-concepts of this theory are: the multiple motivation of most of our behavior and the relative satisfaction of our important needs. While Maslow emphasizes the idea of effort in self-actualization, Rogers quotes this process as a natural tendency in nature, which only acquires a specific characteristic in the case of man. Rogers , is a biological phenomenon, but it becomes an active tendency towards self-actualization in human beings. The general tendency towards self-actualization is the inherent contribution of the body in the development of all its capacities for maintaining or improving it.
This constructive biological tendency, the only postulated by C. Rogers , , is the central source of energy in the human body. The actualization tendency is expressed in a wide range of behaviors in response to a wide variety of needs. It has four significant features:. Rogers has postulated that the human tendency is naturally directed towards self-actualization. The tendency toward self-actualization is the whole process through which the individual achieves his potential, to become a fully functioning person.
What is actualized is the expression of the self-fulfillment of the human body—specific tendency to be what only what it can be. Rogers has associated the process of self-actualization with the stimulation of functioning in three areas:. All life experience is now without preconceptions.
They trust the freedom of decision, creativity, etc. The existence of the self seems to be clearly implicated in our daily language: I am in love; these books are mine etc.
In short, the importance of self is one that distinguishes humanist psychology from other currents. Individuation, on the other hand, is only vaguely stated, and it seems quite doubtful as to whether it is achievable at all. If people are encouraged, they can reach their maximal potentials, which is self-actualization. Self-Actualization needs — realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.
Transcendence needs — helping others to achieve self actualization. Human beings nurture the positive feelings of getting quality and consistent positive regard shown to them by others.
They become victims of this attitude, where this requirement becomes selective. This phenomenon is termed as, conditions of worth. Putting Positive Regard Into Practice. Is it really possible for therapists to offer unconditional positive regard to each and every client? Many suggest that the answer is no.
However, as John and Rita Sommers-Flanagan note, it is possible for therapists to try to feel such regard toward their clients. Jung concedes that yogis can achieve a remarkable state of extension of consciousness where subject and object are almost completely identical. However he also argues that individuation is an active on-going process and not a static state when he proclaims:. This means open conflict and open collaboration at once. Individuation can be seen as a process that is never fully completed but is one that can generate experiences, which feel, momentarily, as if it has been attained.
How widespread is individuation? Is it universal and commonplace or aristocratic — a vocation for the elite? Of course this depends upon what we mean by it. Jung calls individuation an unconscious natural spontaneous process but also a relatively rare one, something:. He also stated that it is a border-line phenomenon which needs special conditions in order to become conscious , para This is a different type of individuation from that described by Fordham.
Michael Fordham, perhaps more than any other post-Jungian, has contributed to our understanding of individuation as a process that starts in infancy and not just in the latter half of life. He claims that this basic underlying process of individuation is identical in childhood, adolescence and adulthood Fordham, However, Jung was also talking about something other than the normal day to day development of ego and self.
He adumbrates:. Uniform development exists, at most, only at the beginning; later everything points towards the centre. This is an important distinction.
Individuation requires the development of ego, but it is not synonymous with it. Although the process of deintegration and reintegration occurs throughout life, Jung argued that there is a functional difference in the underlying process of individuation in later life as opposed to childhood. Individuation requires the ego to enter into service of the Self to facilitate its expression and realisation. Jung has been criticised for an over-optimistic view of the self and of individuation.
Our clinical work reminds us that the Self is not always experienced as benign and positive. It can be self-regulating and yet the experience of it can also be very destructive. The ego needs to be sufficiently strong to withstand the coming into awareness of aspects of the unconscious, which is the greater part of the self.
Ego strength is dependent upon how successful mother and baby have been in creating a facilitating environment to manage anxieties, surrender omnipotent fantasies, form symbols, establish, mourn and repair object relationships.
We can find ourselves with those whose ego has been unable to successfully manage this emergence of the self. In these cases, individuation has become distorted or stuck. If there is an environmental or constitutional deficit, the primary self may feel under attack from outside and within. Defences of the self may be mobilised which can lead to narcissistic false self organisation.
Here we are confronted with anti-individuation forces. Instead of the formation and nurturing of relationships, the lifeblood of individuation, we see a psychic retreat into infantile omnipotence. It is then necessary for the analytic work to be focussed on creating conditions whereby the ego can be supported and facilitated in its development.
The ego, of both analyst and patient, acts as if it wants to remain in control, to expand and promote itself at the expense of other aspects of the personality. It has a quality which seems manufactured or man made. The Self, in its quest for consciousness, requires the surrendering of ego inflation — the narcissistic delusion that the ego is the self.
Although purposive, the Self can be experienced as violent and destructive if the ego is unable to facilitate its expression. This may result in an individuation crisis for both analyst and patient. Jung a saw the ego in service to the Self — its representative on earth.
The Self he called the Greater Personality, ultimately unknowable, linked to a universal sense of cosmic unity — not surprisingly he related to it as the image of God within us. Jung saw God, in psychological terms, as an archetype in that there has to be something in the psyche which resonates with the manifold images of God throughout history.
However, he qualifies himself by saying:. It can only establish that the symbolism of psychic wholeness coincides with the God-image, but it can never prove that the God-image is God himself, or that the self takes the place of God. Jung contends that we often mistake the ego for the Self because of that bias which makes us all live from the ego, a bias which comes from overvaluation of the conscious mind.
The ego has to suffer to allow the Self to express itself. Jung sees the hero myth at work in nearly all individuation processes.
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