Jung believed that in the first half of life the ego needs to stabilize and adjust itself to family and society. Then, according to his theory, the ego is displaced at the middle of life, to allow for the greater Self to emerge. This idea has become popularised as the midlife crisis. Jung famously employs the metaphor of the rise and descent of the sun. The daily rise and fall of the sun occurred to him as a likely metaphor for the course of the ego. The ego must rise but then it must falter and fall, else the Self does not appear, or is inhibited in its appearance.

Individuation is similar to the ‘way of the Cross’ in Christianity, or the path of suffering. The paradoxical feature of this theory is that the ego needs the Self for its fulfilment, but the Self needs the ego for its expression and incarnation in the world. Without the ego, the Self has no purchase on life, no entry into time and space. But the ego can block the emergence of the Self unless it is relativised and reduced in importance. Nevertheless, the Self does not wish to crush the ego because without it the Self cannot begin its work of incarnation.

This talk follows on from the previous talk David Tacey gave to the Society last year, which was about individuation as a spiritual journey.

David Tacey PhD is a writer and public intellectual who works across the fields of spirituality, religious studies, analytical psychology, literature and philosophy.  He is a specialist in Jungian studies.  His books are published internationally and have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Turkish, Portuguese, Russian and French.  

His most recent book “The Postsecular Sacred: Jung, Soul and Meaning in an Age of Change” was published by Routledge in 2020. David is often invited to teach online courses at the CG Jung Institute, Zurich.