Jung believed that in the first half of life the ego needs to stabilize and adjust itself to family and society. Then, according to his theory, the ego is displaced at the middle of life, to allow for the greater Self to emerge. This idea has become popularised as the midlife crisis. Jung famously employs the metaphor of the rise and descent of the sun. The daily rise and fall of the sun occurred to him as a likely metaphor for the course of the ego. The ego must rise but then it must falter and fall, else the Self does not appear, or is inhibited in its appearance.  This talk challenges Jung’s model of the midlife crisis, and argues that the terms in which he put this crisis are dated and no longer viable.

Individuation is similar to the ‘way of the Cross’ in Christianity, or the path of suffering. The paradoxical feature of this theory is that the ego needs the Self for its fulfilment, but the Self needs the ego for its expression and incarnation in the world. Without the ego, the Self has no purchase on life, no entry into time and space. But the ego can block the emergence of the Self unless it is relativised and reduced in importance. Nevertheless, the Self does not wish to crush the ego because without it the Self cannot begin its work of incarnation.

David is a specialist in Jungian studies and is the author of sixteen books, including: How to Read Jung, 2009; Jung and the New Age (2000); Remaking Men (1997); Gods and Diseases (2012); Religion as Metaphor (2015); and The Darkening Spirit: Jung, Spirituality, Religion (2013). The Postsecular Sacred: Jung, Soul and Meaning in an Age of Change (2020). David’s latest book, published last year, is ‘Jung and Spirituality’ which is an exploration of spirituality in the modern world using Carl Jung’s insights.

David’s writing and research have been influenced by classical and archetypal traditions of Jungian psychology. He conducted postdoctoral work with James Hillman in Dallas. He taught courses at the summer school of the Swiss Jung Institute from 2001 to 2010.  His books are published internationally and have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Turkish, Portuguese and French. He is Emeritus Professor of Humanities at La Trobe University, Melbourne, where he taught Jung’s Cultural Psychology across three decades.  

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