Individuation and Liberty in a Globalized World

<p>What is the best way to understand the narratives of self-identity at the beginning of the 21st century? This interdisciplinary collection brings together perspectives from analytical psychology, sociology, psychiatry, psychosocial studies, and psychoanalysis to consider questions about individuation and freedom in our unhinged world. </p><p>The contributors discuss the meaning of, and need for, individuation in individualized and liquid societies. The book begins with a comparison of three approaches: C.G. Jung’s individuation, Ulrich Beck’s individualization, and Zygmunt Bauman’s liquidity. This sets the tone for further consideration of topics including guilt, social media, global nomads, and surveillance. Theoretical reflections are enhanced by clinical material, and the book emphasizes the connections between sociology and psychoanalysis, offering significant insights into the importance of psychosocial approaches. </p><p>This timely work will be of great interest to academics and scholars of psychosocial studies, Jungian studies, sociology, and politics.</p> <p>Preface Introduction: Absolute Freedom is 'Freedom After Freedom' 1 Dreaming Your Future. Dreaming Your Freedom 2 In Defense of the Freedoms of the Self 3 The paradox of metaphor 4 The Fall of the Berlin Wall: Complex Theory and the Numinous in the Development of History (A neo-Jungian approach) 5 The Impossibility of Freedom: From Psychoanalytical Conceptions to Political Objections 6 Individuation, Textuality, and Sexuality in Ursula Le Guin’s <em>Lavinia</em> 7 Mysterium Dissociationis: The masculine in crisis towards new forms of thought and relationship. 8 False Start: A neo-Jungian Critique of Self-Help 9 Natality, Individuation and generative social action: From <em>amor mundi</em> to social generativity 10‘Roots in a pot’: The identity conundrum in global nomads. 11 The Necessity of Guilt: a Freeing Movement of the Soul Towards Individuation 12 Floating and Taking root: individuation and floating in contemporary traumatic conditions 13 Paranoia, politics and the tyranny of the identical: Is there civilization in the transitions we are crossing? 14 The applicability of analytical psychology in China: how a Western psychological lens might be adapted in the East </p>