Individuation is a term developed by Carl Gustav Jung but used by many other psychoanalysts of differing orientations.

The individuation process leads to a more conscious awareness of one's strengths and limitations. It begins with a recognition of one's own neuroses and shortcomings. It then continues through an awakening of one's own conscious and unconscious nature to an ultimate acceptance of that nature.

It is thought that individuals feel a need to go through this process when they reach middle age. Yet much younger people can and do enter the process very successfully. Through achieving awareness, a new balance of wholeness and internal harmony is reached.