Assessment Log – Individuation to Crisis Scale by HERMAN ONG

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Assessment Log – Individuation to Crisis Scale Herman Ong Upper Iowa University

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Abstract Same as other hypothetic concepts in psychoanalytical therapy, individuation has always being neglected in psychometric assessment due to its weak construct validity. However, psychoanalytical therapy is one of the most popular therapies in helping profession. A reliable and valid assessment to individuation will help practitioner on effective diagnosis. Therefore, this study aimed to demonstrate the possibility and procedure of assessing psychoanalytical theory – “Individuation”. 67 male and female were required to complete an Individuation to Crisis Scale (ICS) test. The quantitative analyses of random 30 completed samples were conducted through point biserial correlation. The result showed that ICS had a weak to moderate correlation (.24) to Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). Interestingly, it also showed that ICS might have an implication on life-span development. ICS had a high correlation (.78) with SWLS in young adulthood while it showed a negative correlation (-.26) in late adulthood. The framework of life-span development with social readjustment rating scale (SRRS) will also be discussed. Conclusively, despite the numerous limitations, this study intended to recall the attention of scholars on the relationship between abstract classical theory and empirical psychometric assessment. This would also provide more scientific ground to the development of psychology in future.

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Assessment Log – Individuation to Crisis Scale For many years, assessment has viewed as an effective tool to validate the psychological theory. However, some constructs are easier to be assessed, such as depressive disorder or school achievement but some don’t. It was because they lack of “construct validity” in which no consensus about its definition. The concept of “Individuation” is one of the most abstract psychological concepts developed by Carl Jung in his article “The relations between the Ego and Unconscious” (Jung, 1993). Like other concepts in psychoanalysis, “Eros”, “Thanatos” and “Archetypes”, “Individuation” has no position in experimental psychology. Besides, many scholars criticized psychoanalysis lacks of scientific ground and evidence (Haberman, 1914; Eagle, 1988; Holzman, 1994). Nevertheless, psychoanalysis therapy, such as “Talk therapy”, “Free association” and “Dream analysis” is still one of the most popular methods to examine personality and behavior in the helping profession, its concepts are worthy to get our attention and formatted as valid assessment to enhance the effectiveness of practitioner. Therefore, this study attempts to validate the concept of “Individuation”. An invented “Individuation to Crisis Scale (ICS)” will be introduced to examine the correlation between individuation and other criterions. According to Jungian theory, the tendency of individuation shall be a good predictor to assess one’s mental well-being. Therefore, we deliberately add two pre-established scale as the criterion evidences to assess the predictive value of ICS, one

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is “Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS)” (Diener, Emmons, Larsen & Griffin, 1985) and another is “Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)” (Holmes & Rahe, 1967). Despite the predictive power, this study will also cover its internal validity, reliability, limitation and implication too. Literature Review “…The word “happiness” would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness…” quoted by Jung. The most important concept of individuation lies on the word – “Balance” (Jung, 1993). To Jung, people encountered the mid-life crisis because they didn’t balance their “self” – their unconscious and conscious self, their dark and bright self and even their masculine and feminine self. Midlife crisis was a dramatic personality change of people when they aged 50 something. They felt worthless, hopeless and life suddenly lost its meaning to them (Schultz and Schultz, 2009). When Jung examined this circumstance, he realized that in order to overcome this crisis, one need to embrace his personality as a whole, integrate his unconsciousness into consciousness, balances his dichotomy of personality. Thus, people would not manipulated by any single aspect of self anymore and entirely individuated themselves. This process was called “Individuation”. Therefore, the construct of individuation we assess in this paper is based on this definition and attempts to assess how well people aware of their multiple selfs and universal unconsciousness. Unlike skill, knowledge or behavior, ICS was constructed by theoretical approach in

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which the interpretation of answer was based on the definition of concept “individuation” explained by Jungian theory rather than logical sense or observation. Therefore, its construct might not have the good face validity and logical content. In fact, it was relevant and closer to another criterion test of personality – The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (Quenk, 2000). MBTI used sensing, intuition, feeling and thinking to assess the construct of personality. It also took account of individuation into content to validate the construct of personality, such as one item of MBTI asked as “You think you will miss the opportunity when following the rule”. This item was assessing the conformity of people. Higher people conform to the norm of social expectation, higher possibility they failed to follow their real self and unconsciousness. As long as one can allow himself more spontaneous and limitless, embrace his ever-experience, then he is individuated (Johnston, 2001; Lyons, 2002). Some studies also found that individuation may relate to the emotional and behavioral change. Johnson (1981) conducted a longitudinal research which reveals most individuated people tended to show higher degree of stable emotion, flexibility and assertiveness of self. Eventually, we found conformity, archetype (Shadow, Persona, Anima and Animus), collective unconscious; defensive mechanism and polarization of personality may theoretically correlate with individuation. All of these should take into account as the constructs of ICS we need to assess. Although the term “individuation” was originally developed to describe the mid-life

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crisis (Schultz & Schultz, 2009), individuation was widely implemented in the contemporary clinical setting, especially for the analytical psychotherapy. It was ideally viewed as the therapeutical goal of therapy as leading people to the well-being of mental and social life (Langendorf, 1994; Dodson, 2005). Besides, the term “crisis” here was defined as the dramatic change of personality. We believed that the personality would be impact in anytime of life-span if one was less individuated with high stress of life event at that particular moment. Thus, ICS should not be limited to assess the mid-life crisis only; it is also valid to assess the crisis of entire life-span as well. Methodology and item As mentioned above, ICS was formulated by four constructs, thirty questions in total. Item of construct “archetypes” had twelve questions (item-4, 5, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 18, 21, 23, 26 and 27). It was theoretically based on the concept of archetypes developed by Carl Jung which assess how well one aware of his shadow archetype, flexible to persona archetype and reunite the characteristic of animus and anima archetypes. Six questions (item-1, 2, 7, 12, 19 and 29) for “defense mechanism”, such as the tendency of one to repress or project his desire. Six questions (item-3, 6, 8, 16, 17 and 24) for “awareness of universal unconscious”. It aimed to assess how well one adapts to the collective unconscious, such as sex drive and aggression. Lastly, two questions (item-10 and 20) for “personality polarization” in which assessing the rigidity of one with extreme value and belief. Schematize their personality will lead to less

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awareness of different selfs as well as less individuation. In addition, four questions (item-22, 25, 28 and 30) were set as the infrequent scale to detect the acquiescence response set who deliberately answers all questions in random act. For example, item-28 was only the paraphrase of item-5. If one answers correctly to item-5, he shall answer correctly to item-28 too. If all items of infrequent scale failed, that sample will be invalidated. As we were assessing a concept related to unconscious mind, it may not appropriate to use the long and scenario question. Longer the item is, more time for the subject to guess and use the logical mind to answer. Therefore, we set the question as short and simple as possible. For example, item-6 was written as “Crime is necessary to the world” instead of “Do you think the world will become better if there had no crime”. The word of “better” was abstract and would confuse test taker. In addition, test instruction which limited the test taker to answer within five seconds was administrated. This limited time led the test taker performed their heuristic judgment to answer the items as well as validating our purpose of assessing unconsciousness. Due to the complexity of individuation with several constructs involved, instead of using confusing long-worded item to represent different constructs, we broke down the item into set question. There had 2 set questions in ICS, one set was item-10 and item-20 while another set was item-4, 13, 21 and 26. Item-10 and item-20 were intended to assess the polarization of personality. Item-4, 13, 21 and 26 were intended to assess two constructs, shadow and anima/

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animus archetypes. Test tester was required to answer correctly for all items in set question in order to score. For instance, item-10 (Human is “kindness” in nature) and item-20 (Human is “evilness” in nature) were a set question. Test taker would only be scored mark when he answered both true or both false to item-10 and item-20. If one answered all true or all false in this set question, it reflected he has no fixed or polarized self as considering both positive and negative aspects of life. It was a sign of individuation. By referring to the MBTI, polychromous or Likert scale might be too complicated which hindering the unconsciousness. We chose true dichotomous instead of polychromous or Likert scale as item format for this ICS. Test taker was simply required to answer true or false to each question and no magnitude between true and false answer. Apart from the content item, we also included the demographical scale, such as sex (male/female) and age group (from age 17 to age 65) in order assess the correlation between individuation and developmental crisis in life-span as well as gender difference. Result Item analysis Total seventy ICS tests were distributed out to test takers. Due to the close monitoring and effectiveness of tester administration, only three out of seventy were incomplete. The completed percentage was approximate 95%. For the result of ICS, 30 marks of total thirty items represented as the highest individuation degree while 0 marks represented as lowest

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degree of individuation. We randomly selected thirty completed samples from the total sixty-seven completed samples for further result analysis. Mean score of the ICS (30-items) was 11.3, median was 12 and mode was 8. The problem we seen was the score accumulated at the range from 7-point to 17-point. None of test taker was found to score from point-0 to 6 or point-18 to 30 in the frequency distribution graph (see figure 1.1). This implicated that some questions might not effective enough to discriminate and validate the construct in real. In order to assess the internal consistency of ICS, we performed the discriminability analysis of items. The result was affirming to the frequency distribution. For example, we randomly selected ten samples from the completed thirty samples to analyze the discriminability of item 18. First we calculated that the standard deviation (s) of these 10 scores was 3.16. And the mean score was 12.2. Then we used the point biserial correlation method and found that the correlation of item-18 with total score was extreme weak, r=.0825. The similar result was also applied to other items as well, such as item-1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 14-18 and 29. These invalid questions might affect the reliability and validity to our subsequent analysis. Therefore, we deliberately revised the ICS (30-items) to ICS (14-items) (see Appendix) and re-analyzed the result again. Interestingly, we found that the internal validity and reliability of ICS (14 items) were significantly higher than ICS (30 items) version (see figure 1.2). For example, after the revision, the correlation of item-4 (included in version 14-items) to the total score was .519. We believed that other items in version ICS (14-items) would get the similar result as well.

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Besides, the scatter graph of 14-items version also apparently showed a linear relationship of the data (see figure 1.3). Thus, we used ICS (14 items) version for examining the criterion validity and reliability by correlated it with SWLS and SRRS. Validity and Reliability Same as other hypothetical constructs, such as intelligence, creativity or love, the individuation scale had no pre-established criterion to correlate concurrently and weak in construct validity. However, we could prove its predictive validity by correlating ICS with the well-being of people. It served as predictive validity evidence to predict the criterion variable which is Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). SWLS was proved to have a good validity (positive correlation to Oxford Happiness Inventory) and reliability (.83) to assess the wide range of age group (Huebner, 1991; Bayani, Koocheky & Goodarzi, 2007). People who scored total 7-point of mean represented as highest satisfaction with life while 0-point represented as lowest satisfaction of life. The mean of SWLS of random-selected thirty subjects was 3.91. By using the point biserial method, we found the correlation between the ICS (14 items) and SWLS was only weak to moderate, r=.24. However, when we categorized the scores into demographical scale, such as age groups, interestingly, we found a total different correlation rate. In age group 17-24, the correlation between ICS and SWLS was .018, very weak correlation. But the correlation significant increased in age group 25-35, it was approximate .73 and also negatively showed as -.26 in age group 36-45. In fact, the

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average score of ICS in age group 17-24 was 4.5, 25-35 was 6.31 and 36-45 was 5.22 respectively. It showed an age difference in individuation index. Nevertheless, there had no evidence to show the gender difference to individuation degree, the average score of ICS of male and female was very similar, the mean was 5.53 and 5.47 respectively. In terms of reliability, we planned to use the “test-retest” method in which calculating the correlation between the scores obtained at first time and second time test. The second time test would carry out after 4 weeks of the first test in order to reduce the carryover and practice effect. Due to an insufficient time and resource, we hadn’t conducted the test-retest for ICS (14 items) at this time. However, when we compared the discriminability between ICS (30-items) and (14-items), we could find that this revision might help to increase the reliability of the ICS by eliminating the items with weak correlation to the total score. But the actual reliability rate of test-retest has to be examined in the future study. Discussion Although the overall correlation between ICS and SWLS was not strong enough (.24), the result of correlation between ICS and SWLS differed in age groups revealed that there might have developmental change of individuation throughout the life-span. People have low individuation in teenager may be due to the adolescent egocentrism (Elkind, 1978). In adolescence, teenagers are the formal-operational thinker who focused on the absolute and polarization of value or belief, less tolerance to others due to the unreached post-formal stage

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(Perry, 1970). However, when people entered adulthood, they possess the ability of post-formal thinking. They are more likely to have a flexible cognition as well as balancing the different selfs. It tends to become relativism in young adulthood. This may increase their individuation score in ICS. Nevertheless, it is not necessary for all people to obtain the post-formal thinking ability. Some studies found that most American adults never complete the stage of formal operational, not mentioned to the post-formal stage (Byrnes, 2008). This may explain part of the difference of individuation between adults. Interestingly, the individuation index dropped when people entered late adulthood. We believed that this may relate to one of our concurrent evidence – Social readjustment rating scale (SRRS) which assessing one’s severity of life event. Supposedly, when one encounters more changes and events in life, it should impact his well-being as well as life satisfaction. In late adulthood, people should encounter more life events and changes than adolescence or young adulthood. As showed by the data, the average score of SRRS in adolescence was approximate 166, young adulthood was 195 while late adulthood was 224. Therefore, we predict the SRRS acts as the moderating agent to result the negative correlation between ICS and SWLS in late adulthood. However, due to the insufficient resource, we couldn’t assess the moderating role and effect of SRRS in this test. This hypothesis will also be examined in the future. Limitation and implication As mentioned above, time and resource was very limited for this test. There had many

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limitations and procedures that we can refine in the future. For example, the sampling size was not representative enough to present the domain. More than 50% samples came from age group 25-35 while age group 56-65 got only one completed sample. This limited our assessment on correlation between ICS and developmental crisis in life-span. Second, some items might have the problem of “double-barreled”. For example, item-19 “I fear of drunk and I won’t let myself get drunk”, people might get confused as some would agree the fear of drunk but they don’t agree to refuse drunk. Thus, we should refine the problematic items in the future in order to increase the content validity. Third, the dichotomous nature of item format might give less information about the magnitude of individuation tendency of people. Since individuation might not a result of all or none, it would be better to include the magnitude scale to the items as Likert scale. Fourth, it was less convincing if the test lacks of construct validity. In order to overcome this, we should break down our construct of individuation into pieces of trait, such as tolerance, flexibility, openness or rigidity. As mentioned before, traits and personality should take account into individuation as MBTI did. Therefore, by assessing the correlation with other personality tests, such as Big-Five and MMPI, we will know more about the characteristic of individuated person. Fifth, although we found that life satisfaction was correlated with ICS, it might not good enough to represent the well-being of people due to its subjective and self-report nature. Therefore, we should use clinical depressive scale as the criterion in the future. Lastly, we found that most test taker

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were denial to the sex-related questions, such as item-18, “I know I am bisexual in nature” the rate of answering true was only .1. This meant only one over ten person admitted the bisexuality. However, according to the Kinsey report published in 1953, most people were lie on the middle between heterosexuality and homosexuality as bisexuality. The low answering rate and dishonesty might be due to the presence of tester and defense mechanism as denial through heuristic judgment. Conclusion In general, this study may not serve as a criterion finding to assess individuation due to its numerous limitations. Nevertheless, this study may show the possibility to conduct a scientific research of abstract hypothetical concept. Like individuation, Eros and Thanatos (Freud, 1961; 2005), self-actualization (Rogers, 1961), crisis in developmental stages (Erikson, 1950), these concepts have usually being neglected in the academic. However, by this study, we set up a scientific way to assess individuation, constructed its operational definition as several constructs, and correlated it with other criterions, such as SWLS and SRRS. We found it was possible to validate the concept of individuation, thus it should also valid to apply on other hypothetical concepts as well. Lastly, we hope this study can re-shed a light on those valuable concepts developed by the former scholars but abandoned by contemporary psychometric assessment in which their concept is worthy for us to deeply examine and assess.

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Reference Bayani, A., Koocheky, A., & Goodarzi, H. (2007). The reliability and validity of the Satisfaction with Life Scale. Journal of Iranian Psychologists, 3(11), 259-265. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Byrnes, J. P. (2008). Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. Diener, ED., Emmons, R. A., Larsen R. J. & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment. 49(1). Dodson, L. (2005). A system approach to family therapy with emphasis on the individuation process. Dissertation Abstracts International, 65, Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Eagle, M. N. (1988). How accurate were Freud’s case histories? NY: Academic Press.Freud, S. (1961; 2005). Civilization and Its Discontent. NY: Norton. Elkind, D. (1978). Understanding the Young Adolescent. Adolescence. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Erikson, E. (1950). Childhood and Society. NY: W. W. Norton. Holmes, T., & Rahe, R. (1967). Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS). Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Holzman, P. S. (1994). Hilgard on psychoanalysis as science. Psychological Science, 5(4), 190-191. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1994.tb00498.x

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Huebner, E. (1991). Further validation of the Students' Life Satisfaction Scale: The independence of satisfaction and affect ratings. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 9(4), 363-368. doi:10.1177/073428299100900408. Johnson, M. P. (1981). Adult Male Individuation: An Examination. Dissertation for Doctor of Social Welfare degree of University of California. Johnston, D. (2001, July). The evolution of consciousness and the individuation process (Carl G. Jung, Sri Aurobindo, Jean Gebser, Erich Neumann). Dissertation Abstracts International, 62, Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Jung, C. (1993). The Basic Writings of C.G. Jung. Modern Library. Kinsey, A. C., Pomeroy, W. B., Martin, C. E., & Gebhard, P. H. (1953). Sexual behavior in the human female. Oxford England: Saunders. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Langendorf, U. (1994). 'Selbst ist der Mann': Individuation als Ideal: Muss die Jungsche Theorie der Individuation revidiert werden?. Analytische Psychologie, 25(98), 262-277. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Lyons, D. (2002). Freer to be me: Development of executives at midlife. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 54(1), 15-27. doi:10.1037/1061-4087.54.1.15 Perry, W. I. (1970; 1999). Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years: A Scheme. Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

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Quenk, N. L. (2000). Essentials of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment. NY: Wiley. Rogers, C. (1961; 1995). On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. Mariner Books. Schultz, D.P., & Schultz, E.S. (2009). Theories of Personality. Wadsworth.

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Figure 1.1. The graph of frequency distribution to ICS (30-items) version

Figure 1.2. The graph of frequency distribution to ICS (14-items) version

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Y axis (Mean score L ‐/ Life Satisfaction)

Scatter Diagram of Score I ‐Re and Score L 7 6 5 4 3 數列1

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X‐axis (Score I ‐ Re / Total Score of Individuation)

Figure 1.3. The scatter graph of ICS (14-items) to SWLS

Y axis (Mean score L ‐/ Life Satisfaction)

Scatter Diagram of Score I (30 Items) and Score L 7 6 5 4 3

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X‐axis (Score I / Total Score of Individuation)

Figure 1.4. The scatter graph of ICS (30-items) to SWLS