Life In Two Acts
What is The Shape of a Life?
On of the distinguishing features of Jung’s psychology is it’s developmental focus. Jung believed that dreams and other happenings in the mind can be looked at from the standpoint of what they are trying to accomplish and lead towards in addition to considering their past causes1. He would ask questions like, “What is the purpose of this dream? What effect is it meant to have?”2
Just about everyone is in agreement that there are clear psychological and biological purposes to what our bodies and minds go through in infancy and childhood. Importance things grow and change so we can (ideally) develop into healthy, biologically mature adults.
Jung’s interest in the purpose of what went on in the minds of his adult patients implies that a belief that the psyche maintains at least some of its developmental character in adulthood. He felt many of the things that happen in the adult psyche are still aimed at something developmental. This became a foundation of his theory of individuation.
Jungian Analyst Daryl Sharp defines individuation as:
“A process of psychological differentiation, having for its goal the development of the individual personality. In general, it is the process by which individual beings are formed and differentiated; in particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology3.”
To wildly oversimplify, my sense is individuation is the big purpose to which our psyches are aimed at, and then there a lot of smaller things our psyches are impelled towards or away from in service of that big goal of individuation4.
I find this story of purpose and opportunity to keep growing and becoming more of myself compelling. It’s a big reason I’ve gone the Jungian route in my studies and in my writing. The big, general idea of individuation calls to me, but I struggle with some specifics of the frameworks Jung puts forward around what the journey towards individuation looks like across a lifetime.
Two Halves of a Life?
Broadly speaking, Jung divides a life span into a first and second half of life. He believed the first half of life is best spent focusing on external achievement and ego-development. We should get out there and be somebody in a conventional sense. Careers should be built, nest eggs accumulated, families started, and respect earned from the outside world.
The second half then flips this all around. Having become somebody through the accumulation of titles, accolades, a role in the economy, and society’s respect, in the second half of life a person must then turn inward and discover who they are beneath what they have constructed to show the world. The halves are not necessarily divided by a particular age or into equal spans of years. The first half of life ends when it starts to feel empty and hollow and this pivot is often marked by a mid-life crisis. That’s when the inward turn should begin. Some people, even some who live a long time, never begin their second half of life in this sense.
This is an elegant theory in its balance and symmetry, and Jung’s own life followed its contours (or Jung’s theory follows the contours of his life). For him, the pivot and crisis were his split with Freud in his late 30s. I think it’s far too narrow and prescriptive, though, and I struggle to get the story of my life so far to fit it.
I don’t want to jump to conclusions; I’m open to the possibility that I may not have lived long enough yet to have an informed opinion on Jung’s map of a life. I’m about to turn 40 soon, so it’s possible that my pivot is looming. We’ll see. So far, what I’ve experienced has been many alternating periods switching between inner and outer focus. There have certainly been periods of ego development and outward accomplishment of the kind Jung would predict and recommend:
Graduations → summer jobs → a first career → a second career.
Dates → girlfriends → marriage.
Living at home → going away to school → renting → home ownership.
But all it takes is a little zooming in to see how oversimplified these straight lines extending in only one direction right are. I moved in and out of my parents’ place three times in 12 years. That arrow between “first career” and “second career” was almost a year and a half of helping with palliative care, living off savings, and figuring out what I wanted to do with myself. All of this “progression” has been punctuated, interrupted by, and supported by lengthy periods of introverted withdrawal and reflection. Some of those quiet periods were a depressing grind. Others I looked forward to and enjoyed.
I wonder if all of us, to some degree, can alternate between periods of introversion and extroversion, between a primary focus on attending to our inner worlds and outward accomplishment. I suspect that even what we would consider introverting vs. extroverting is different for each person. I’ve found that my inner work has allowed for more meaningful and sustained outer accomplishment while my outer strivings are sometimes the most helpful way of uncovering what matters and what’s still left to be done inside. I tend to do better when they are somewhat integrated and supporting each other.
This is one way I know I’ve found something to write about: when I find a theory compelling, but my experiences argue against it. This will be an ongoing project. I’ve given only a very high-level version of what Jung and his students have written about individuation and the two halves of life, but even what I have read in-depth on the subject is crying out for more nuance.
I’ve written before about my desire to work with lost young men in my future practice. If I’m going to do that effectively and with care, it would help to have a better framework of what growing up and growing into one’s self actually looks like. If such a framework is not possible—if the growing up process is too individual for any framework—then I should start getting some practice picking apart one of the frameworks floating around out there.
He was, by no means, the only psychologist who thought this way. Alfred Adler comes to mind, for example.
C. G. Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, trans. R. F. C. Hull, vol. 8 of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed. Herbert Read et al., Bollingen Series XX (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960), par. 462.
Daryl Sharp, Jung Lexicon: A Primer of Terms & Concepts (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1991), 39.
Whether someone is in a good place socioeconomically, mentally, or emotionally to pay attention to the call of individuation is another matter.