Individualism
Individualism means deliberately stressing and giving prominence to some
supposed peculiarity rather than to
collective considerations and obligations.
But individuation means precisely the
better and more complete fulfilment of the collective qualities of the human
being, since adequate consideration of the peculiarity of the individual is more
conducive to a better
social performance than when the peculiarity is neglected
or suppressed.
Individuality
is indeed an
a priori
datum, but it only exists unconsciously as a
specific “pattern” or “predisposition” determined by the genes.
The realization of individuality does not come about
eo ipso,
since it unquestionably requires a coming to terms with the environment, with
which the individual often feels unable to cope. A degree of
adaptation, however, is absolutely indispensable, since man is not only a
solitary and isolated creature but also a collective being who requires
relationships with others. He is already by nature attuned to
such relationships. For this reason the true individual
personality consists of a
union of these two
opposing tendencies. The conflict between them and their
reconciliation requires the development of
consciousness. The process of psychological
individuation is,
for that reason, also a process of becoming conscious, a process which evolves
conjointly with the confrontation of the individual
with the outer world on the one hand and of the individual with the objective
inner world (the unconscious) on the other. TGL
85
Cont’d
… In reality, the
process of individuation begins at birth with the physical separation from
the mother. The development of consciousness progresses with
increasing encounters with the outer world. Normally this
adaptation to the surroundings is the task and content of the first half of
life. In the second half, the problem is that of becoming
aware of the inherent individuality and its realization (…).
TGL 85
Since
the individuality of the psychic system is infinitely variable , there must be
an infinite variety of relatively valid statements. But if
individuality were absolute in its particularity, if one individual were totally
different from every other individual, then psychology would be impossible as a
science, for it would consist in an insoluble chaos of subjective opinions.
Individuality, however is only relative, the complement of human
conformity or likeness; and therefore it is possible to make statements of
general validity, i.e., scientific statements. These
statements relate only to those parts of the psychic system which do in fact
conform, i.e., are amenable to comparison and statistically measurable; they do
not relate to that part of the sstem which is individual and unique.
The second fundamental antinomy in psychology therefore runs: the
individual signifies nothing in comparison with the universal, and the universal
signifies nothing in comparison with the individual.
There are, as we all know, no universal elephants, only individual elephants.
But if a generality, a constant plurality, of elephants did not exist, a
single individual elephant would be exceedingly improbably.
TPoP 5
When,
as a psychotherapist, I set myself up as a medical authority over my patient and
on that account claim to know something about his individuality, or to be able
to make valid statements about it, I am only demonstrating my lack of criticism,
for I am in no position to judge the whole of the personality before me.
I cannot say anything valid about him except in so far as he approximates
to the “universal man.” But since all life is to be found
only in individual form, and I myself can assert of another individuality only
what I find in my own, I am in constant danger either of doing violence to the
other person or of succumbing to his influence. If I wish to
treat another individual psychologically at all, I must for better or worse give
up all pretensions to superior knowledge, all authority and desire to influence.
I must perforce adopt a dialectical procedure consisting in a comparison
of our mutual findings. But this becomes possible only if I
give the other person a chance to play his hand to the full, unhampered by my
assumptions. In this way his system is geared to mine and
acts upon it; my reaction is the only thing with which I as an individual can
legitimately confront my patient. TPoP 5
…
since there are countless people who are not only collective in all essentials
but are fired by a quite peculiar ambition to be nothing but collective.
This accords with all the current trends in education which like to
regard individuality and lawlessness as synonymous. On this
plane anything individual is rated inferior and is repressed.
In the corresponding neuroses individual contents and tendencies appear as
psychological poisons. There is also, as we know, an
overestimation of individuality based on the rule that “the universal signifies
nothing in comparison with the individual.” Thus, from the
psychological (not the clinical) point of view, we can divide the psychoneuroses
into two main groups: the one comprising collective people with underdeveloped
individuality, the other individualists with atrophied collective adaptation.
The therapeutic attitude differs accordingly, for it is abundantly clear
that a neurotic individualist can only be cured by recognizing the collective
man in himself – hence the need for collective adaptation. It
is therefore right to bring him down to the level of collective truth.
On the other hand, psychotherapists are familiar with the collectively
adapted person who has everything and does everything that could reasonably be
required as a guarantee of health, but yet is ill. It
would be a bad mistake, which is nevertheless very often committed, to normalize
such a person and to try to bring him down to the collective level.
In certain cases all possibility of individual development is thereby
destroyed. TPoP 7
Since individuality, as we stressed in our introductory argument, is
absolutely unique, unpredictable, and uninterruptable, in these cases the
therapist must abandon all his preconceptions and techniques and confine himself
to a purely dialectical procedure, adopting the attitude that shuns all methods.
TPoP 8
However, the great characteristic of Europe is recognition of personality, of
the individual. There is no culture in the world with a tradition of
portrait art comparable to that of the West - think of Rembrandt. There is
a deep meaning in the individual.