Where does individuation collide?

In analytical (Jungian) psychology, individuation is the lifelong process by which a person integrates conscious and unconscious contents to become a distinct, whole self, differentiated from collective norms and from the undifferentiated psyche. Jung's Psychological Types treats it as the goal of psychological development. The referent is a developmental and therapeutic process of self-realisation, sharing only the word with a metaphysician's principle of individuation or an infant's separation from its mother.[1]

Unit

The degree to which conscious and unconscious contents are integrated into a differentiated self

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Appraised clinically over the course of analysis, through dream material, symbol integration, and differentiation from collective identification

In developmental psychology, separation–individuation is the early-childhood process, described by Margaret Mahler, through which an infant gradually differentiates itself from the mother and emerges as a separate psychological individual with its own sense of self. Mahler, Pine, and Bergman's The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant charts its subphases, from differentiation through practising and rapprochement. The referent is a specific maturational sequence in infancy, distinct from Jung's adult self-realisation and from the metaphysical principle.[2]

Unit

The infant's progressive differentiation into a psychologically separate self

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Characterised through observational study of infant–caregiver interaction across the proposed subphases

In metaphysics, the principle of individuation is whatever accounts for a thing's being the particular individual it is, numerically distinct from others that may share all its qualities; candidate answers include matter, form, spatiotemporal position, or a primitive "thisness" (haecceity). Gracia's Individuality: An Essay on the Foundations of Metaphysics frames and defends an account of individuality and its principle, a problem traced from Aristotle through Scotus and Leibniz. The referent is an abstract ground of numerical distinctness, not a psychological process of becoming a self.[3]

Unit

What makes an entity the unique individual it is, distinct from qualitatively similar others

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Addressed by philosophical argument over candidate principles: matter, form, haecceity, or spatiotemporal location