ABSTRACT
On the basis of what he observed in the course of his work as an analyst, Kohut has stated a few of the main results that narcissistic maturation seeks to achieve: empathy, creativeness, humour, and wisdom. Jung considers the prospective or teleological aspect of psychic processes to be of great importance, but as far as individuation is concerned ‘the goal is important only as an idea; the essential thing is the opus which leads to the goal: that is the goal of a lifetime’ (Jung, 1946, para. 400). Each individuation process is, nevertheless, guided by purposeful dynamic forces, aiming towards what we may call ‘the realization of a person’s specific wholeness’. In concrete reality, however, there exist no ‘individuated’ people, who have realized every bit of their wholeness; the main purpose of the individuation process is to achieve as conscious a harmony as possible with those forces in the unconscious that are seeking a centring of the whole personality. This implies getting in touch with one’s inner life, which, for the individual, may result in the discovery of a path towards self-realization. The centring forces from the unconscious are structured by the self and are often manifested through symbols conveying a ‘numinous’ element. Accordingly, the religious dimension, the self as God-image plays such a central role in Jungian psychology. In this respect, Jung’s writings differ from the overly painstaking formulations of a psychoanalyst such as Kohut. Jung was thus often accused of preaching and of advocating a ‘road to salvation’, of offering a substitute religion; he always rejected these charges: ‘I did not attribute a religious function to the soul, I merely produced the facts which prove that the soul is naturaliter religiosa, i.e. possesses a natural religious function’ (Jung, 1944, para. 14). By ‘facts’, Jung means the numerous archetypal images and symbols in dreams and fantasies that became, both for him and his analysands, the source of a numinous experience.
