C.G. Jung was a prominent figure in the newly emerging study of the psychology of the unconscious at the beginning of the 20th century. His influence in this realm reaches far beyond his contemporaries in the field (Freud and others), though this often goes unrecognized. He was an empiricist and a dreamer, a historian and a visionary, an intellectual giant and simultaneously an enduring apprentice of the psyche.

Early in his life, Jung understood that his nature was deeply divided. This division was the cause of both his severest suffering and also his deepest joy. His divided state cleared a path for him, long and arduous, but full of the numinosum. His psychology is dialogic. His journey is a journey into wholeness. Along his path, he discovered a way to create a space within which consciousness and the unconscious could approach one another more readily and with less hostility, and he suggested a manner in which the union of these, and of all pairs of opposites, might be contained, leading to a more creative, cohesive, and meaningful life.

This he named individuation.