ABSTRACT
This chapter defines ego development, and establishes and articulates the ontological parameters of the self according to Jung, and presents Heidegger's analysis of Dasein. Inevitably, several overlapping themes have been mentioned without having received sufficient attention. The chapter outlines the self's transformation in individuation in terms of gathering and appropriation. Ego development involves the appropriation of the world, into which one is thrown and with which one is already engaged, as mine. There are, of course, vicissitudes and rhythms of appropriation and disappropriation over time, changes that, especially in the early years, are largely concomitant with maturation. However, by and large, the ego comes to appropriate as mine and those metaphors that are dominant within one's culture. It is these metaphors that shape one's cultural identity.
