Dialogicality and culture of psychology in a study of individuation

Abstract

Viewing psychology as a cultural activity associated with technologies of the self, and noting the cultural phenomenon of the Jungian movement internationally, this paper presents a reading of Jung’s ‘A Study in the Process of Individuation’ through the lens of dialogism. Jung’s study pivots on the interpretation of paintings by a middle-aged American woman, ‘Miss X’, whom he treated in 1928. The present paper critically examines dialogical aspects of the Jungian text, such as Jung’s metaphor of a dialogue with the unconscious, how he and his patient co-constructed her ‘inner’ dialogue, and the text’s dialogue with its audience. It is concluded that the process of individuation described by Jung is fundamentally dialogical, evincing the human capacity to co-construct meanings of self-experience and thereby to change how we experience our own selves.