Being a very visual thinker makes it hard to fully grasp abstract ideas, and Jung’s theory of the psyche is no exception. So I decided to draw and visualise it in a way that makes it super simple to understand.
Jung believed the goal of life is individuation : becoming your whole, authentic Self by bringing all the hidden pieces of you together.
Usually, textbooks show this as a neat circle diagram:
But for us visual thinkers, let’s swap that circle for something more alive! I welcome you to the Jigsaw Puzzle model
We are the Self : The completed jigsaw puzzle. It includes every piece: Anima/Animus, the shadow, the persona. All fitted together into one big picture.
But here’s the twist: The Ego isn’t a puzzle piece at all. It’s more like a flashlight with hands. It decides (sometimes consciously, often unconsciously) which pieces to shine light on, and which parts stay in the dark.
And until all the pieces are seen and fitted together, the Self isn’t complete.
The Persona: usually the first piece the Ego lights up. It’s our social identity.
How we want to be seen by others.
When unexamined, the Persona is shaped mostly by outside forces: culture, family expectations, social roles, fears, and unconscious desires. This is why it can feel stiff and fake.
The Persona also connects to cultural archetypes, inspired by Jung’s ideas. Characters like the Hero, the Jester, the Sage, the Caregiver, and others in stories and myths all come from these archetypes. They are “masks” we can wear to play different roles in society.
Before individuation, the Persona feels like a stiff mask you can’t take off. After individuation, it’s like a costume you can choose to wear, while still knowing who you truly are underneath.
The Shadow: those puzzle pieces shoved under the table. They are the parts of us we’d rather hide: fears, guilt, anger, but also talents and power we’ve buried for reasons of avoiding discomfort. Facing the Shadow gives us the missing pieces of the puzzle.
The Anima/Animus: the puzzle pieces that connect us to our inner opposite. Jung believed we each carry an unconscious feminine or masculine dimension that shapes how we experience emotion, relationships and attraction.
The more the ego light explores and integrates these hidden parts, the more the whole picture (the Self) emerges.
Individuation, then, isn’t about completing the puzzle. The puzzle was always whole. It’s about the Ego’s flashlight gradually illuminating more of the pieces, even the ones hidden under the table, until more and more of the full picture of the Self becomes visible.
My next post on this topic will be about how we actually in real life fully integrate the self, in a practical sense.