DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

“I know a lot of people are content with living in a village, getting married, living
near their mums. I don’t know, at a certain point I realised it wasn’t me, I was there
doing that, but there was something in the back of my mind telling me this is not my
life, this is not what I really want, its not me.” (p.4)
Victoria described this as a “façade” of being “nice”, and when I asked her what she
was hiding behind this façade, she said: “I was just hiding myself. I was just hiding
myself, the real me.” (p.18)
Lilly had also developed a public persona, which she referred to as a “shell.”
It was only Lilly’s boyfriend who had seen past that façade:
“It was like Quinn [her boyfriend] broke through this façade that I had around me,
and that’s another reason why it was so awful when we broke up, because he was the
only person that I told the innermost secrets to, for a long time.” (p.8)
She refers to the self behind the persona as the “underneath bit”:
“Quinn was my best friend as well as my boyfriend so it was quite hard because he
was the only person who had seen the underneath bit. (p.17)
She reflects that her façade was a self-protective device, and uses a metaphor of a
beetle’s shell to describe this:
“Its almost like beetles have shells. You can’t just go; here you go, have all of this,
until you know that they are not going to tread all over you. It’s like…it’s a selfprotection
thing.” (p.9)
b) The Over-Homogenising Dysfunction: Conformism at the Expense of Individuality
A persona develops in order to facilitate a socially typical and conventional
way of behaving (Jung, 1966). Therefore, in its very nature a persona promotes
similarity and lessens individuality. The conventional homogeneity that a persona
brings can become dysfunctional in the situation where it leads to extinguishing one’s
individuality and sense of unique personhood:
“So long as the persona persists, individuality is repressed, and hardly betrays its
existence except in the choice of its personal accessories – by its actor’s wardrobe,
one might say.” (Jung, 1966, p.297)
This repression of individuality can lead to a self that lacks autonomy and is merely a
passive reflection of cultural norms, rather than an agentic expression of personhood.
This is a condition that Jung referred to as “soullessness” (Jung, 1966, p.155).
Corresponding to this homogenising dysfunction, Frank described his time at
the law firm as one of rigid conformism where a standardised persona was essential:
“It was conformism. To be really good and to advance, you have to submit. You
absolutely have to submit to the ways of doing things – the dress code and so on. It’s
military, almost. You have to be, in a sense, an obedient soldier and you progress up
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