“Individuation, therefore, can only mean a process of psychological development that fulfils the individual qualities given; in other words, it is a process by which a man becomes the definite, unique being he in fact is.”

What does it mean?

The process fulfils qualities that are given. It does not invent a self to impress anyone, and he says it is not egotism. The usual reading is a check on the previous paragraph: uniqueness is a coming into what one is, not a campaign of self-assertion. A competing reading still hears permission to ignore other people. He says the opposite in nearby lines, that individuation does not shut one out from the world. This sentence is paragraph 267 of volume 7. 'In fact is' matters. The being is not a costume chosen for the afternoon.

Did Carl Jung really say this?

The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Hull's English of paragraph 267, including the spelling 'fulfils' in editions that keep it. He goes on to say this is vastly different from egotism or individualism.

Where it comes from

Collected Works, volume 7, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, paragraph 267, R. F. C. Hull's translation

Approximate date: Collected Works text; the essay is earlier.

How to use it

When a decision in a Cardiff family is defended as 'just who I am', ask whether anything was fulfilled or only announced. The paragraph is a description of development. It is a weak excuse for refusing a cost.

A mindset reading

Given qualities are not a fate one must dramatise. He is distinguishing the process from individualism, the word he thinks people will confuse with it.

Understand the philosophy

Paragraph 267 qualifies paragraph 266. The key phrase is the definite, unique being he in fact is, set against egotism. Later he warns that people confuse individuation with the ego coming into consciousness. The shadow, in volume 9, is part of what a less divided person would have to include rather than project.

Related

• “The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort.”

  Paraphrase or translation

• “To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.”

  Paraphrase or translation

• “These resistances are usually bound up with projections, which are not recognized as such, and their recognition is a moral achievement beyond the ordinary.”

  Paraphrase or translation

Related bias. Confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, remember, and accept what supports a view you already like, and to skim past what would hurt it. It is not a claim that every belief is stubborn. It is a pattern in how attention is spent.

Practise the nine skills