Individuation

Individuation in Development

In 1953, Carl Jung proposed individuation as an important part of normal human development. Later, Hungarian physician and psychoanalyst Margaret Mahler drew on Jung's work to develop a sequence of phases, now referred to collectively as the Separation-Individuation Theory, that guides children's psychological development from birth to age 3. The third phase, called the separation-individuation phase, begins at 4 or 5 months of age. The early part of this phase is marked by gradual sensory development, known as hatching, which gives rise to increased alertness and goal-directed awareness. Infants venture farther from their mothers as their mobility increases, and they begin to experience great joy in performing autonomous tasks while still keeping mother within sight. The child begins to share these new discoveries with mother and seeks social interaction with her and others. Infants first experience stranger anxiety during this stage, indicating internal conflict between curiosity about new sources of stimuli and the need to check back to mother for security. Love and emotional availability of the mother are key at this stage as the concept of separateness becomes more salient for the child. Late in the separation-individuation phase, the child develops a definite sense of individuality, self-boundaries, and gender identity.

Individuation is also an important goal of late adolescence. Peter Blos claims that a second and higher level process of individuation takes place during adolescence. Like Mahler's conception of early individuation, this second phase is characterized by weakening dependency on and disengagement from family, which allows for the possibility of extrafamilial love and relationships within a broader social framework. At the same time, physical maturation demands the acceptance of an adult sex role. The goal of this process, achieved in normal development at the end of adolescence, is to obtain a clear, stable sense of the self. For some adolescents, failure to achieve successful individu-ation can result in learning disorders, lack of purpose, procrastination, and emotional shallowness. These psychologically unindividuated adolescents may seek to distance themselves physically from their families, which helps them to avoid confronting their failure to achieve this necessary goal. This represents an unhealthy regression toward the early childhood separation-individuation phase that Mahler described.

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