Talk:Individuation

Older comments
Gilbert Simondon needs a mentionon this page. His work is where Brian Massumi and Gilles Deleuze ultimately derive their conceptions of individuation from. Glen fuller 01:31, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It was there before someone deleted it... Santa Sangre 18:04, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Summary/Disambiguation Needed
This page does absolutely nothing to tell me what individuation is. It uses a bunch of loaded, obfuscated language used by the psychologists that came up with the terms used. It should have a summary with an example that a layperson in psychology can understand(someone like me). Also the comment on individuation wrt economics seems like it should be disambiguated. If it does relate to the concept in psychology, it should be explained how it relates.


 * I definitely agree with this. This article doesn't explain what individuation is. A simple example alone would vastly reduce this problem. — metaprimer (talk) 01:24, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

- Completely lacking in a straightforward account of what individuation means, is there not someone out there who can present a simple account? Not my area of expertise, although I do feel qualified to comment on the economics para - I suspect the editor of this has in mind "specialization" and not "individuation". This para should be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.181.162 (talk) 12:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I hope that after the addition of the section "Carl Jung on individuation", it is a bit clearer. I could add examples and make it even clearer. But those examples would seem unbelievable to the average reader and I do not have proper documentation to back them up. Leontaurus (talk) 18:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

modification of summary
I rewrote the opening to try to give a clearer statement of p.i., in answer to the comments in the talk. Making effort to distinguish, up front, the two related concepts of p.i.: the philosophical, and the analytical. I eliminated most of what was there, but kept that one sentence about the analytical concept. I eliminated the reference to and link to “true self” as it is a misrepresentation. The Winnicott idea of true self is not Jungian, but an independent idea. The Jungian idea is simply the Self. One can speak of a kind of true and false self out of analytical psychology, but the term “true self” is not Jung’s but Winnicott’s.

I also grouped Jung, Simondon, and Stiegler under a subheading, “Examples.” Previously, it gave a false impression of priority and development. Really, the three examples are only that, examples.

I am currently doing some heavy research that includes p.i., out of Jung, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, and hope to be able to put up fully documented explications of the first two, at least, in the near future.A.E.M. Baumann (talk) 18:46, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Addition of Media Industry's Usage of Term
Because the term individuation has begun to be used within the media industry to denote new technologies that allow mass customization of editions or programs, I've added a paragraph about that and a reference. by Vcrosbie 03:35, 4 July 2008 (UTC) 02:50, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

-- The link to what appears to be a book to support Marshall McLuhan's view of media doesn't work, however, I do have some books and another source that might be helpful for flushing out and expounding upon what is already written. The two books are called "The Future of the Library: From Electric Media to Digital Media By Marshall McLuhan and Robert K. Logan and "Laws of Media: The New Science" By Marshall McLuhan and Eric McLuhan. There is also an article that mentions Marshall McLuhan and his theories 'Banerji, Debashish (2015). Individuation, cosmogenesis and technology: Sri Aurobindo and Gilbert Simondon. Integral Review, 11"(1), 8-10. https://integral-review.org/issues/vol_11_no_1_banerji_individualtion_cosmogenesis_and_technology.pdf

Jung's Individuation
''' Aphill66 (talk) 23:39, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

The original meaning of the word stands. If media borrow it to describe making individual setup's on a device which connects them to a crowd, they should be stopped from using it. It is an insult for this to happen to all who studied and already had a name when using it to describe a process and its symptoms, in particular to Carl G. Jung. The modern-day media cudgelling of the word is an affront to the psychoanalysts of our times who made names for themselves by spending years analysing patients and themselves! Outrageous in fact!2A00:23C7:598A:B300:85D5:2849:16AA:A20A (talk) 13:33, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I removed some ambiguous wording such as: "It may however also include physical health too but not necessarily". This statement for example is contradicting itself and reference#2 (= Jung, C. G. (1962). Symbols of Transformation: An analysis of the prelude to a case of schizophrenia (Vol. 2, R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). New York: Harper & Brothers). It seems the author is just skeptic to the effect of individuation, but does not have knowledge/experience with it and ignores the documentation. Leontaurus (talk) 18:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Jung's Individuation 2
I don't think this wiki page correctly defines the process it is meant to describe. Jung described individuation as: Individuation is a process of psychological integration. "In general, it is the process by which individual beings are formed and differentiated [from other human beings]; in particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology. The description talk of "thing's being different/distinguished from one another. This is incorrect if Individuation is about personalities as opposed to objects. The description I feel is overly simplified to lead people away from the process of becoming individuals again. One group of people described in the article all mean the same thing with Individuation. They are C. G. Jung, Alan Watts, Friedrich Nietzsche, Dr. David Bohm. They were all talking about the person, not objects. -- This implies it is not merely how individual things are distinguished from 'other things' but specifically different from the collective mind. A mind which develops from the views of others is a crowd mind. Those who are in that state can be taken from that environment, kept in an individual state until that mind goes through stages, not unlike mental illness (dissociation for example, which is very normal when creating an individual distinct from the crowd) which are the result of no longer identifying with the psychological feedback-loops of the crowd. The description at the beginning has been stripped of vital information to avoid people recognizing the majority have not made the final step of their own personal evolution as long as they continue to identify and follow 'the crowd'. I have been through the process myself and am fully aware of the states of mind it leads to, and the revelation that the individual needs to pass through to become distinct from the crowd. Buddhism, Sufi, Esoteric Christians are all processes of Individuation. Religion is describing Individuation processes.2A00:23C7:598A:B300:85D5:2849:16AA:A20A (talk) 12:57, 11 April 2020 (UTC) -- Still the same commenter here. Thanks for adding The "..some theorists.." part at the end of the Jung section. But why don't you just add how Jung himself described it, rather than misleading "the crowd". His description is: In general, it is the process by which individual beings are formed and differentiated [from other human beings]; in particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology. - Stop trying to mislead people about a simple process. Anyone can reach that state of being. We're educated in crowds for a reason.2A00:23C7:598A:B300:91EF:D648:1589:78D3 (talk) 17:31, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

archetypes info
The presentation of archetypes into the question on individuation is very weak: if you don't know what archetypes are to begin with, the section offers little knowledge.

Also, I question the rhetorical veracity of the sentence sourced from Rowan (beginning at "Thus, there is," though perhaps beginning at "Some would interpose"). It is very loose language, so much so as to create more false knowledge than it offers answers. A.E.M. Baumann (talk) 14:17, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

archetypes 2
Concerning true Individuation, which is the process of separation of crowd-members, psychologically, from their crowd, archetypes are the initial character-forming ideas of self as filling a role as part of the crowd, forced on the individual during primary school years. In that environment, the child is ushered towards filling that crowd role by subjecting him or her to a crowd environment in the playground. School's main function is to create crowd members as opposed to free thinkers.2A00:23C7:598A:B300:85D5:2849:16AA:A20A (talk) 13:18, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Multiple, unconnected Wikipedia articles masquerading as one
"The word individuation occurs with different meanings and connotations in different fields."

That sentence from the article sums up two major problems with this article:

1) Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and its job is not to define words whether they have multiple meanings or not.

2) When multiple uses of a term each have their own meanings and connotations, they are properly the subject of separate Wikipedia articles (i.e. they are homonyms but on different topics); or they aren't Wikipedia material at all, just dictionary entries.

The article, in short, needs to be broken up. Individually individuated, perhaps. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:30, 19 August 2020 (UTC)