What is Individuation

What does it mean to individuate?  How is it related to self-awareness?   Is it even necessary?

Individuation is a term used originally by Carl Jung.  According to Jung, it is a process in which the individual Self develops out of an undifferentiated (i.e. still connected to familial and social norms and conditioning) unconscious.  It is seen as a developmental psychological process during which innate elements of personality, the components of the immature mind, and the experiences of the person’s life become, if the process is more or less successful, integrated over time into a well-functioning whole.  It is a process that begins as early as the age of two and continues on throughout our lives.

In short, individuation is our ability to know our own minds.  To not be ruled by our unconscious (which includes our social and familial conditioning).  To be able to think for ourselves, to understand what motivates us to do the things we do, to be able to hold our own thoughts even when the…