Lonesome Heroes: Individualism and Individuation in America

Abstract

Utilizing Jungian theories of individuation as a critical perspective, this qualitative depth psychological study researched the distorting influence of the American cultural complex of individualism on psychospiritual development, with a focus on the exaggerated split between the individual and the community and its manifestations in the American psyche. Specifically, this research inquired into how the latter stages of individuation, which center on communal integration, or what Joseph Campbell (2008) called the “return arc” in the hero’s journey, fare under American hyper-individualism. This study amplified and reimagined this “return” aspect of individuation in order to tend meaningfully to the psychological and cultural tensions that isolate the individual from the collective when the national mythology valorizes the lone hero at the expense of communal belonging, social engagement, and connection.