April 2026
I’d just entered the water at South Beach, South Fremantle and saw a man with a metal detector scouring the seabed. I asked him what sort of things he finds and he said, rings and coins. He paused, and then said that he has yet to find himself. I said something along the lines of, “Just keep on looking.” Naturally this conversation got me thinking, once again, about life and coming to know oneself. After all, it’s all a bit of a mystery.
Do we ever find ourselves? What are we referring to when we ask the question? Is there a thing called ‘self’ or, maybe, it in the searching that we are a self?
C. G. Jung, the founder of Analytical Psychology, called the process of discovering the self, individuation. But is that a thing? Let’s examine more closely what he was referring to. For Jung, individuation was the process of becoming a self-actualized person, distinct from the collective psychology of society (family and the broader community), distinct from what he called ‘the collective unconscious’. It was the process of becoming conscious.
It is interesting that Jung’s concept actually doesn’t refer to the thing called ‘self’ in the way it is often depicted: that is, a thing to be found, as one might find a golden treasure, but a process of growing clarity around the assumptions of community psychology. But this I’m referring to assumptions about gender, race, size, age, social status, money, etc that all communities around the world have about people.
The substance of myths, of which Jungians are very attached to, can lead us up the garden path to misconceptions about the individuation process. And to get caught up in an idea, rather than understand it all as an ongoing process of discovery. The search for the Holy Grail is a classic example. The Grail is a sacred vessel of legend. It is traditionally thought of as the cup or chalice used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper and used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch Christ's blood at the crucifixion. The image comes from 12th century French literature and is an Arthurian motif symbolizing a, usually unattainable, object of quest, divine grace, or immense power. In other words, it is a symbol of something never to be found, only sought.
The Grail cannot be found because it isn’t a thing; it’s an idea, an image powerful enough to attract us to search for it. All the metal detectors in the world won’t, however, find either the Grail as metal object nor an object called ‘the self’.
So, what is the purpose of looking? Why bother? Such a question inevitably ties to the purpose of psychotherapy. Yes, for sure, people seek therapy because something in their lives isn’t working, and they are not happy. We can certainly treat symptoms of discontent, but is this enough? The whole school of cognitive behaviour therapy is all about symptom control, and that’s perfectly alright if that’s all a client is interested in. Psychiatry, likewise, manages symptom control with medication. Most clients, however, in my experience are searching for something much more profound, and I get it. Like the man with the metal detector scouring the sea bed, we want more than a few coins. We search for more.
Identifying, selecting, deciding, rejecting, sorting, feeling happy about this versus that, and finding comfort and peace within ourselves is part of this process. It’s also sorting through family and cultural expectations about what constitutes a good life versus how I feel about it and why do I search for more? There is something very essential, something very fundamental about the drive for our own authenticity. Hindu philosophy has the phrase neti neti (not this, not that) which is a foundational method of self-inquiry used to uncover one’s true self. The method systematically negates all transient illusions of body, mind, thoughts, and emotions to find an unchanging self. What it boils down to is witnessing awareness: we are not this, nor that, but we are that which witnesses. In other words, here, is consciousness which is process, not a thing.
