Floating and taking root: Individuation in contemporary traumatic conditions

This chapter attempts to look deeper at traumatic conditions of contemporary world in relation to the sociological concept of liquid identity. An argument develops that in traumatic conditions floating on the surface of the self or the world can be an effective survival strategy in times of predicament. Key processes of this strategy are illustrated, as well as how it is possible to pass, in psychotherapy, from that survival mode to a more rooted way of living. Two very different clinical cases will be discussed as exemplifications of these dynamics between internal and external fluidity: a severely traumatized refugee man struggling with his inner difficulties due to torture within a culturally and socially alien world, and a lesbian girl dealing with her childhood family abuses and her present sexual identity issues. Both struggle to define their identity using the floating strategy in response to trauma, but also prompting their own search for a significant internal point to which they might anchor themselves to gain a more rooted sense of self. The Jungian idea of individuation is helpful for thinking of a way out of the toxic and disintegrating effects of social liquidity to promote personal integration and true self development.