Glossary: Assimilation

The process of integrating various external and internal contents into one’s conscious self (the ego) through psychotherapeutic practices.

Assimilation is the approximation of a new content of consciousness to already constellated subjective material… Fundamentally, [it] is a process of apperception, but is distinguished from apperception by this element of approximation to the subjective material… I use the term assimilation… as the approximation of object to subject in general, and with it I contrast dissimilation, as the approximation of subject to object, and a consequent alienation of the subject from himself in favour of the object, whether it be an external object or a “psychological” object, for instance an idea.

- Jung, “Definitions,” CW 6, pars. 685f