personality development · mana personality
Across the depth-psychology corpus, 'personality' refuses any single, stable definition; it is instead a contested site where questions of development, multiplicity, archetype, and individuation converge. Jung treats personality simultaneously as telos and burden: in 'The Development of Personality' he argues that its fullest realization is 'at once a charisma and a curse,' demanding the individual's conscious separation from the undifferentiated herd. His companion concept, the mana-personality, names a distinct inflation hazard — the condition in which the ego, believing it has conquered the anima, instead becomes adulterated with a collective archetype of superhuman authority, producing a dangerously godlike self-image. Rudhyar extends Jungian categories into a cosmological frame, treating personality as the 'front' the total being presents to the world, variable in its ruling center depending on the stage of individuation. Hillman's archetypal psychology radically pluralizes the concept, contesting developmental and stage-based models in favor of 'partial personalities' understood as daimones and mythic figures rather than fragments of a unified 'I.' Greene and Sasportas elaborate this plurality through the clinical language of subpersonalities. Across these positions, the fundamental tension is between personality as a singular, integrated achievement — the fruit of individuation — and personality as an inherently polyvalent, never fully unifiable field of psychic life.
the development of personality from the germ-state to full consciousness is at once a charisma and a curse, because its first fruit is the conscious and unavoidable segregation of the single individual from the undifferentiated and unconscious herd.
Jung defines personality-development as both gift and ordeal, its primary cost being the isolation of the individuating person from collective life.
, The Development of Personality, 1954thesis
I therefore call such a personality simply the mana-personality. It corresponds to a dominant of the collective unconscious, to an archetype which has taken shape in the human psyche through untold ages of just that kind of experience.
Jung defines the mana-personality as an archetypal dominant of the collective unconscious that the inflated ego misappropriates as its own power.
, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 1953thesis
In differentiating the ego from the archetype of the mana-personality one is now forced, exactly as in the case of the anima, to make conscious those contents which are specific of the mana-personality.
Jung argues that the therapeutic work following anima integration requires a parallel differentiation of the ego from the mana-personality archetype, which yields genuine individuality.
, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 1953thesis
All that has happened is a new adulteration, this time with a figure of the same sex corresponding to the father-imago, and possessed of even greater power.
Jung warns that apparent conquest of the anima does not transfer her mana to the ego but instead produces identification with a still more formidable archetypal figure.
, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 1953thesis
personality is conceived less in terms of stages in life and development, of typologies of character and functioning, of psycho-energetics toward
Hillman's archetypal psychology rejects developmental and typological framings of personality in favor of a pluralistic model grounded in mythic-imaginal figures.
, Archetypal Psychology, 1983thesis
The personality is therefore the human being as it appears from day to day, with its behavior, thoughts and feelings. It is the 'front' which the total man presents to the outer world.
Rudhyar defines personality as the outward-facing complex of the total human being, whose ruling center shifts from instinct or ego through to the Self in the course of individuation.
, The Astrology of Personality: A Re-formulation of Astrological Concepts and Ideals in Terms of Contemporary Psychology and Philosophy, 1936thesis
The mana-personality is on one side a being of superior wisdom, on the other a being of superior will. By making conscious the contents that underlie this personality, we find ourselves obliged to face the fact that we both know more and want more than other people.
Jung describes the mana-personality's dual structure of will and wisdom, and the uncomfortable self-knowledge that its conscious assimilation demands.
, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 1953supporting
We can, therefore, speak of an inner personality with as much justification as, on the grounds of daily experience, we speak of an outer personality. The inner personality is the way one behaves in relation to one's inner psychic processes.
Jung establishes the structural duality of personality into an outer face (persona) and an inner face (anima), each constituting a habitual functional complex.
, Psychological Types, 1921supporting
a change from one milieu to another brings about a striking alteration of personality, and on each occasion a clearly defined character emerges that is noticeably different from the previous one.
Jung observes that personality is not monolithic but shifts with social context, producing what he calls a duplication of character through habitually distinct attitudes.
, Psychological Types, 1921supporting
With the attainment of this goal it becomes possible to disengage the ego from all its entanglements with collectivity and the collective unconscious.
Jung frames the transformation of the anima from autonomous complex into a function of relationship as the prerequisite for genuine personality differentiation from the collective.
, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 1953supporting
Subpersonalities are not necessarily such powerful dissociations. 'Normal' people have different subpersonalities which they exhibit and identify with.
Greene and Sasportas extend Hillman's pluralism into clinical practice, treating subpersonalities as ordinary features of psychic life rather than pathological splits.
, The Development of Personality: Seminars in Psychological Astrology, Volume 1, 1987supporting
The ultimate aim and strongest desire of all mankind is to develop that fulness of li
Jung locates the development of personality at the apex of human striving, invoking Goethe to frame it as the deepest existential telos.
, The Development of Personality, 1954supporting
If there is anything that we wish to change in our children, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
Jung insists that the educator's own unresolved personality dynamics are the primary obstacle in any transmission of genuine development to the young.
, The Development of Personality, 1954supporting
If career success is based on schizoid retaliatory fantasy, or oedipal rivalry, then personality is diminished.
Samuels interrogates Jung's stage theory, arguing that the nature of a person's inner relationship to achievement — not achievement itself — determines whether personality is developed or diminished.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985supporting
This man's ego becomes identified with the anima personality, which is as a rule hypersensitive and soggy with emotionality.
Stein illustrates the pathology of anima identification as a particular failure of personality differentiation in which affect overwhelms ego functioning.
, Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction, 1998supporting
all personality patterns do at some point... It had become a way of continuing to deprive herself, a major obstacle to receiving love and caring, and a source of great suffering.
Welwood demonstrates how personality patterns formed adaptively in childhood inevitably become dysfunctional later, requiring conscious recognition and transformation.
, Toward a Psychology of Awakening Buddhism, Psychotherapy,, 2000supporting
any one subpersonality may be the distorted expression of an archetypal principle or planetary principle.
Greene links the clinical concept of subpersonalities to archetypal theory, arguing that their pathological forms represent degraded expressions of underlying mythic or planetary energies.
, The Development of Personality: Seminars in Psychological Astrology, Volume 1, 1987supporting
the concept of an addictive personality... is a major misconception, rooted in a socially constructed ideology that suggests someone is inherently flawed.
Dennett challenges the reification of personality as a causal explanation for addiction, arguing that the addictive personality concept conflates complex biopsychosocial factors into a stigmatizing essentialism.
, Individuation in Addiction Recovery: An Archetypal Astrological Perspective, 2025supporting
a new subdiscipline of personality psychology — narrative identity research — has emerged. Its organizing concern is how individuals employ narratives to develop and sustain a sense of personal unity and purpose from diverse experiences across the lifespan.
Singer situates narrative identity research as a contemporary extension of personality psychology, converging with depth-psychological concerns about unity, development, and meaning across a life.
, Narrative Identity and Meaning Making Across the Adult Lifespan: An Introduction, 2004aside
any backward looking is un-Jungian because, for Jung, the 'whence' is less essential than the 'whither'.
Samuels reports the post-Jungian debate over whether developmental-genetic accounts of personality formation are compatible with Jung's fundamentally teleological orientation.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985aside
just as it was essential for a man to distinguish between what he was and how he appeared to others, it was equally essential to become conscious of 'his invisible relations to the unconscious' and hence to differentiate himself from the anima.
The Red Book commentary traces the structural logic by which persona differentiation and anima differentiation are parallel requirements for personality development.
, The Red Book: Liber Novus, 2009aside