Is Becoming Yourself Enough, or Must You Also Learn to Govern Yourself?
Few ideas developed by Carl Gustav Jung resonate as deeply with contemporary readers as individuation. The concept possesses an almost instinctive appeal because it suggests that every human being carries within themselves unrealized possibilities, hidden dimensions of personality, and a unique potential waiting to be discovered, integrated, and gradually brought into conscious life.
For Jung, psychological maturity is not achieved merely through social adaptation, external success, or the pursuit of pleasure. Rather, it emerges through a lifelong process of integration in which individuals become increasingly capable of recognizing unconscious patterns, confronting inner conflicts, and ceasing to live under the automatic influence of impulses they do not fully understand.
Yet once Jung’s theory is placed alongside older philosophical and spiritual traditions, an intriguing question begins to emerge.
Is becoming who you are enough?
Or does authentic human flourishing also require learning how to govern oneself?
This article does not attempt to attribute Christian ascetic practices to Jung, nor does it seek to transform Aristotle into a psychoanalyst or reinterpret Christian spirituality through the language of analytical psychology. Instead, it proposes a dialogue between three traditions that differ significantly in their methods, assumptions, and goals, yet seem to converge around a remarkably similar insight:
Human beings become genuinely freer when they learn to govern their impulses rather than allowing their impulses to govern them.
Jung and the Challenge of Not Being Ruled by Unconscious Forces
At the center of Jungian psychology lies the conviction that much of human life unfolds outside conscious awareness. Individuals often believe they are acting freely while remaining profoundly influenced by emotional habits, unresolved conflicts, fears, desires, projections, and psychological tendencies that operate beneath the surface of consciousness.
Individuation, in this context, cannot be reduced to self-expression, authenticity, or the pursuit of personal fulfillment. It is better understood as a movement away from fragmentation and toward greater psychological unity, allowing the person to become less reactive, less divided, and less controlled by forces that have never been examined.
Jung believed that many forms of suffering emerge precisely because people remain estranged from important dimensions of themselves. The Shadow is ignored, unconscious contents remain hidden, and patterns acquired throughout life continue to shape decisions without ever becoming objects of reflection.
Individuation therefore implies more than discovering one’s inner potential. It presupposes an increasing capacity to cease living automatically and to establish a more conscious relationship with the forces that influence behavior.
However, Jung was primarily describing a psychological process. He was not explicitly constructing a theory of moral virtue, nor was he proposing a systematic program of discipline designed to train the will.
And this is precisely where Aristotle enters the conversation.
Aristotle: Freedom Requires the Education of Desire
If Jung asks, “Who are you becoming?”, Aristotle introduces another question that is equally important:
“Toward what end are you becoming?”
For Aristotle, self-knowledge alone is not sufficient for human flourishing. A person may understand themselves deeply, possess extraordinary insight into their own motivations, and recognize their strengths and weaknesses with remarkable clarity, yet still fail to live well.
Because understanding oneself and governing oneself are not identical achievements.
Aristotle’s ethical framework rests upon the idea that virtue consists in ordering human desires according to reason. The virtuous person is not someone who lacks appetites, passions, or impulses, but someone whose appetites have learned to follow what reason recognizes as genuinely good.
Freedom, in this perspective, does not consist in satisfying every desire that emerges. Freedom consists in possessing the ability to choose what is worthwhile, even when comfort, pleasure, or immediate gratification suggest another path.
This distinction becomes especially interesting when considered alongside Jung’s theory of individuation.
If individuation requires that a person cease being governed by unconscious tendencies, and if Aristotle argues that virtue requires the proper ordering of desires, then it becomes possible to ask whether certain habits or practices may help create the conditions necessary for both psychological integration and moral development.
Because someone incapable of resisting even minor impulses may struggle not only to cultivate virtue but also to achieve the degree of interior freedom necessary for genuine self-knowledge.
Christian Asceticism as Training Rather Than Punishment
At this point, the Christian ascetic tradition offers an intriguing contribution to the discussion.
Historically, practices such as fasting, abstinence, and voluntary renunciation emerged within Christianity not because suffering was considered inherently valuable, but because human beings were understood to possess a tendency toward attachment, dependency, and disordered desire.
The goal was never pain for its own sake.
The goal was education.
More specifically, the education of the will.
Perhaps the most illuminating comparison is that of the athlete.
An athlete willingly embraces discomfort, postpones gratification, and accepts demanding routines not because they despise the body, but because they wish to equip it to respond effectively when genuine challenges arise. Temporary discomfort becomes meaningful because it prepares the person for greater freedom of action in the future.
Classical Christian asceticism follows a remarkably similar logic.
Its purpose is not to destroy human nature but to strengthen it. It does not seek to produce suffering, nor does it encourage hostility toward the body. Rather, it attempts to cultivate the capacity to say no to immediate pleasures whenever those pleasures conflict with higher goods.
Because the person who becomes incapable of enduring small frustrations often becomes increasingly dependent upon comfort, increasingly vulnerable to impulsivity, and increasingly limited in their ability to pursue what they genuinely believe to be meaningful.
The issue, therefore, is not pleasure itself.
The issue is dependence.
And dependence always diminishes freedom.
Thomas Aquinas and the Training of the Will
This understanding appears clearly in the work of Thomas Aquinas.
In the Summa Theologica (II-II, q.147, a.1), Aquinas asks: “Whether fasting is an act of virtue?”
His answer is affirmative.
According to Aquinas, fasting traditionally serves three purposes:
- To restrain disordered appetites.
- To elevate the mind toward spiritual realities.
- To function as an act of penitence.
For the purposes of our discussion, the first objective deserves particular attention.
The issue is not hostility toward the body.
The issue is strengthening the will.
From a contemporary perspective, one might describe fasting as an exercise in self-regulation, a voluntary practice that trains individuals to tolerate discomfort, delay gratification, and become less dependent upon immediate satisfaction.
In this sense, ascetic discipline appears less as a rejection of human nature and more as an attempt to restore its proper order.
Saint Paul and the Idea of Interior Freedom
The foundations of Christian asceticism reach back to the earliest Christian writings.
Saint Paul writes: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” — Romans 8:13
Throughout Christian history, this passage has generally been interpreted not as a condemnation of embodiment itself, but as an invitation to resist attachments and habits that compromise interior freedom.
The emphasis falls upon mastery.
Upon liberation.
Upon the capacity to choose what one judges to be good, even when immediate impulses suggest otherwise.
This perspective would later be articulated by ascetical theologians such as Adolphe Tanquerey, who argued that mortification should be understood primarily as an effort to weaken excessive attachment to pleasure and strengthen the person’s ability to remain faithful to higher aims.
As Tanquerey explains: “Mortification does not destroy nature; it elevates it. It kills the disease of the soul in order to restore its true life.”
Perhaps surprisingly, this language sounds remarkably close to contemporary discussions about impulsivity, delayed gratification, and self-regulation.
An Unexpected Dialogue with Modern Psychology
The central thesis of this article is not that psychology has somehow proven Christian spirituality, nor that neuroscience has finally validated Aristotle.
Such claims would be historically simplistic and intellectually imprecise.
Yet it is difficult not to notice certain points of convergence.
Long before laboratories existed, philosophers and theologians were already proposing that voluntary acts of renunciation could strengthen character, increase self-mastery, and reduce dependence upon immediate pleasures.
Modern psychology has explored similar questions through different methods.
Walter Mischel’s Marshmallow Experiment examined the capacity to postpone immediate rewards in favor of larger future benefits.
Angela Duckworth’s research on grit highlighted the importance of perseverance and sustained commitment despite discomfort.
Roy Baumeister’s work on self-control repeatedly found associations between greater self-regulation and outcomes such as improved health, financial stability, academic success, and reduced impulsivity.
None of these findings prove Christian doctrine.
Nor do they establish Aristotle’s ethics as scientific theory.
But they do suggest something intellectually fascinating.
“The Christian ascetic tradition suggested many centuries ago that voluntary renunciations could strengthen the will. Interestingly, contemporary research on self-regulation and delayed gratification points in a similar direction: individuals capable of enduring immediate discomfort for the sake of larger goals tend, on average, to display greater perseverance, self-control, and long-term consistency. This does not prove theological doctrines, but it does reveal a noteworthy convergence between ancient philosophical intuitions and modern psychological findings.”
Perhaps this is the most elegant way to frame the relationship.
Science does not validate theology.
Theology does not replace science.
Yet different traditions occasionally illuminate similar dimensions of human experience.
Mortification Reconsidered: A Forgotten Practice of Freedom?
The word mortification often evokes images of severe bodily practices associated with earlier periods of Christian history. However, contemporary Catholic teaching places much greater emphasis on ordinary acts of self-denial integrated into everyday life.
In Paenitemini (1966), Pope Paul VI explicitly states that Christian penance is: “Far removed from every form of stoicism.”
Its purpose, he explains, is not condemnation of the body but the liberation of the person.
Understood in this way, mortification may simply involve practices such as moderate fasting, limiting unnecessary stimulation, delaying gratification, embracing small inconveniences patiently, remaining faithful to difficult responsibilities, or voluntarily renouncing a legitimate pleasure for a greater good.
Viewed through this lens, mortification appears less as punishment and more as training.
Less as suffering.
More as preparation.
Less as repression.
More as freedom.
Because the ultimate purpose is not to diminish human life, but to increase the individual’s capacity to act according to what they recognize as meaningful, worthwhile, and good.
Can Ascetic Discipline Support Individuation?
Jung never recommended fasting.
He never proposed mortification.
He never suggested that Christian ascetic practices should become part of analytical psychology.
To claim otherwise would be historically inaccurate.
Yet this does not prevent us from asking a legitimate philosophical question.
If individuation requires that a person cease being governed automatically by unconscious tendencies, and if Aristotle argues that flourishing requires the rational ordering of desire, then practices aimed at strengthening self-mastery may provide conditions that facilitate both projects.
The Christian ascetic tradition therefore enters the discussion not as a Jungian concept, but as a practical resource developed within another intellectual tradition.
A possible bridge.
A complementary tool.
A way of removing obstacles that may hinder both virtue and psychological integration.
Seen from this perspective, voluntary discipline becomes less about denying oneself and more about equipping oneself.
Because perhaps true freedom does not consist in saying yes to every impulse.
Perhaps true freedom begins when we discover that we are finally capable of saying no.
Final Thoughts
Jung teaches us that becoming whole requires confronting what remains unconscious.
Aristotle reminds us that becoming whole also requires virtue.
The Christian ascetic tradition contributes yet another insight: freedom grows stronger when the will learns, voluntarily, to endure small sacrifices in pursuit of greater goods.
Perhaps these traditions are not answering precisely the same question.
But perhaps they illuminate different dimensions of the same human challenge.
Jung asks: Who are you becoming?
Aristotle asks: What kind of person should you become?
Christian asceticism asks: Are you truly free enough to become that person?
And perhaps genuine human maturity requires taking all three questions seriously.
References
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica, II-II, q.147, a.1.
The Holy Bible. Romans 8:13.
Paul VI. Paenitemini (1966).
Tanquerey, Adolphe. The Spiritual Life: A Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology.
Duckworth, Angela. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.
Mischel, Walter. The Marshmallow Test: Understanding Self-Control and How To Master It.
Baumeister, Roy F., and Tierney, John. Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.
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