Discovering the Destiny of the Self:
Individuation and the Social Soul
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Jungian psychoanalysis focuses on individuation, with the implication that individuation is a private journey, albeit with the assistance of an analyst. Individuation has to do with the soul’s journey and the destiny of the Self. The work is to discover and fulfill that destiny.
Experts in Jungian psychology, however, are expanding beyond this implication of the solo journey. Analysts like Stuart Potter have focused on the critical experience of a primary relationship to the individuation journey, which implies a realm we could call the relational soul. “Relationship tests your actual values and principles,” Potter says, thereby providing the insight one needs for individuation. Alchemically, the relationship is a kind of hermetic vessel within which the transformation unfolds.
Through analysis, I considered the challenges my relationship offered (i.e., the reflections back, the questions I would not ask, the embracing of parts of myself I would have ignored), and I realized that there is yet another element — what we might call the social soul. The social soul operates in a third realm to challenge the individual and aid individuation in ways similar to individual and relational realms. The social realm is often more harsh and certainly more public than self-reflection or intimate relationship; it is also more varied. How could there not be a social soul? We are, after all, social animals. People need each other. We connect, serve, assist, think, act, and feel in various levels of community — one-to-one friendships, small groups, larger groups, even community organizations. Our destiny is tied up with how our communities respond to the enactment of our destiny. This is why writers and artists need to take into account their audience — that, too, is part of the social soul.
As a writer, fulfilling my destiny is not simply a work of self-expression. I have always said that writing is a way to discover myself. It is also a way to participate in what I call the Great Conversation — the cultural conversation that has been going on since at least Socrates and Homer. In that conversation, the history of expressions and ideas, along with your reflections upon them, shape you and your experience on this earth — that is, they shape your Self as well as the soul. When my ideas are published, their reception by readers tells me something. It’s not that everything needs to be popular or successful, any more than every move one makes in a relationship will be. Rather, the audience reaction, like a partner’s engagement with you, teaches you something — your blind spots, your shadow areas, your hot buttons, your unseen gifts and joys. Just as a relationship will reflect a central tenet of who you are, so will your audience, the public, critics, friends, and acquaintances. Even in their silence, they are saying something. This is part of what it is all about.
The social soul is important to the extent that one’s art, or practice of any kind, is central to individuation. Such art becomes a service to the community. For some, the world you are influencing is large, for others it is small but far-flung. The conversation mostly revolves around the art or practice itself, and such conversation becomes a way of weaving connection more closely, often beneath the content of the conversation.
An example is what I wrote to my partner the other night. She and two of her sons were having a discussion that turned to politics. She gave me an “Ick!” sign via text message. I wrote back: “Politics is just the field; the real game is a contest of values and principles.” I could have gone further: “It is a method for defining oneself, finding one’s footings, testing one’s beliefs and perceptions. It is a thing that young men must do if they are to enter the world and stand on their own feet without being taken by some ideological program.” In other words, these discussions are part of the individuation process. They help young men come into their being and discover in themselves who they are. The topic — politics — is just code. The action is going on in the soul; they are discovering their greater Self.
But there are other levels to the social soul. People need to build out their social lives. For many, their village emanates from their youth. Grow up, go to school, make friends, and that’s the world you live in. As one acquaintance said to me in a new town I had recently moved into: “Yeah, I made all the friends I will ever need in high school.” To the extent that a strong village identity is an aspect of one’s individuation, this statement is likely true. A social circle so circumscribed is necessarily insulated and limiting from a certain perspective, but from an alchemical perspective, possibly not. The social limits define the container. The container heats up and inside, the transformation happens. Or it may explode because the soul is just too large for those limitations — but that, too, is a certain kind of transformation.
What I am suggesting is that social connection is essential to soul-making. Someone once said that only two things will make your life different in a year from what it is today: the books you read and the people you meet. Noting that there are other things, like death, disease, or desperation, the comment emphasizes the importance of social connection. In books, you connect through the author’s words. Meeting people produces connection. It may deepen or not, but it is there.
These connections are essential to soul-making because they enable us to imagine different paths and outcomes, different feelings, different experiences of life. Without such connections, empathy is hard to come by. You cannot feel or experience what another may be experiencing, and therefore you cannot see yourself clearly without such imagination. Empathy begins in empathy for others, but in soul-making, it comes around to empathy for self. Same with compassion. The Buddha had it right.
Empathy for self means the ability to see and accept the wildness of one’s imagination, the plethora of selves inside you, and the competing claims these beings make. Empathy honors the inner conflicts that never resolve, as well as the synchronicity that carries us forward. But empathy is learned in relationships with others — both your primary relationship and the social relationships with which we surround ourselves. Individuation is an opening to all these other aspects of the Self. It is a release from the fantasy of being one person, consistent, never changing, only one value, all the time. Individuation is the ability to hold in the imagination the many possibilities of one’s being, and all the conflicts within oneself. When you can do that, life becomes an enriched experience. Rather than fighting to keep the inner urges under control, the individuated Self embraces them for what they are — aspects of the self — and insists on not cutting off or repressing any aspect of who one is.
This is not to say that one simply follows one’s impulses; far from it. The impulsive person is often driven by unacknowledged or repressed parts of oneself. Such repression is a violence to the soul, and those parts so violated can impose themselves over the will of the ego. Individuation is about knowing the aspects of the soul, accepting all of it as part of the Self, and then choosing the actions.
The key to individuating with the social self is nonjudgmental acceptance of interests, claims, and images of the inner beings. “Who am I?” — a central question of individuation, is answered simply — “I am all of this; all these people inside.” These beings have complex reactions, but interestingly, the reactions do not turn into imperatives of compulsions. They can’t drive one’s behavior anymore because they are all noted and accepted. And they can be seen more clearly through the social soul.
What I am saying here is that social connection is essential to the discovery of forces within the soul. You can only know a limited part of yourself in a vacuum of isolation. You can add to that when you have a primary relationship. You can add to it again with a social community that allows connections and a laboratory in which you can observe yourself, your desires, and your compulsions in yet another context.
Social connection pricks the imagination. It keeps you moving and on your toes. It serves soul-making best when you are out there meeting people of all kinds. Each person has their own style, much like the Greek pantheon is a collection of gods with psychological styles, and when you encounter them, you test your style, habits, and practices. The individuating man observes himself and his reactions, and from those, learns and individuates.
There are many questions about this social soul. What is its essence? What does the social sphere contribute to soul-making and individuation? How does it test you? And so on. I will be exploring this in my newsletter, so if this interests you, feel free to sign up.
You can find my newsletter Intertwine: Living Better in a Worsening World here.
Anthony Signorelli
Ideas, insights, and imagination to help you live better in a worsening world.