DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

“I’ve stopped allowing myself to be hijacked, so I feel in control of what’s going on.”
(Interview 2, p.10)
Laing also suggested that a person may experience “derealisation” when living
behind a false self as the actual self lives at one remove from reality, unable to interact
with other people and with the world because it is hidden behind a façade.
Correspondingly, after shedding his hard-nosed banker persona, Guy has the
experience of suddenly feeling “real” after the crisis:
“I was real, I knew that I was real, even though that looked to be surreal to
everyone else within X Bank.” (Interview 2, p.11)
Masculinity, Anima and Crisis
A renegotiation and reconsideration of gender identity was a clear
developmental transition for Guy over his crisis. His pre-crisis identity had become
masculinised, while after crisis a new feminine side to identity emerged. In Jung’s
theory, the persona construct cannot be considered independently of the issue of
gender, for the persona is an inherently masculine part of the mind, constructed along
masculine criteria of impressiveness, successfulness and strength (Jung, 1966). For
Jung all human beings have both masculine and feminine dispositions, and a key
psychological task during adult development is to balance the masculine and feminine
within the single personality. The female side of personality he called the anima,
while the masculine side he called the animus.
The anima is a hypothetical category that subsumes all those motives, interests
and preferences that are considered “female” in a conventionally accepted sense.
Qualities that Jung associated with the anima are spontaneity, sensitivity, emotional
awareness, caring, a sense of gentleness and a sense of intuition (Jung, 1959; Jung,
1966; Jung, 1968). He suggested that repression and suppression of the anima is
necessary for younger men, as its qualities may be inimical to developing a socially
approved masculinity in early adult life. As adulthood progresses, the results of
repressing the feminine side become more problematic, particularly with the onus of
rearing children and the emotional needs that this responsibility brings. If a man’s
anima is kept behind a purely masculine persona, the result is “premature rigidity,
crustiness, stereotypy, fanatical one-sidedness, obstinacy, pedantry, or else
resignation, weariness, sloppiness, irresponsibility, and finally a childish petulance
with a tendency to alcohol” (Jung, 1959, p.146). Jung placed a high developmental
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