The experience of the Self: individuation or perverse imitation

This paper contemplates different experiences of the self, on the one hand authentic and meaningful and on the other hand empty and without meaning, with reference to Jung’s ideas concerning a God-image. Jung’s views on Christ and Antichrist contained in his paper Christ a symbol for the self will be discussed, and the question of imitation will be reviewed in the context of his imitatio Christi as a symbol for the work of individuation and of certain clinical pictures involving imitative processes, including Winnicott’s “false-self”, Hester Solomon’s “as-if” personality, and Thomas Ogden’s “autistic-contiguous position”.