What is Carl Jung’s view on “personality”?
Personality defines uniqueness. Jung writes in The Development of Personality of “that fullness of life which is called personality” (CW 17, par. 284). He augments later by saying that, “Personality is the supreme realisation of the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being. It is an act of high courage flung in the face of life, the absolute affirmation of all that constitutes the individual, the most successful adaptation to the universal conditions of existence coupled with the greatest possible freedom for self-determination” (Ibid. par. 289). Personality is all but typical and is unclassifiable. Jung is crystal clear on this point where he says: “… the individual as a personality is always distinct from the collective. The essence of personality consists precisely in this distinction” (CW 6, par. 88). Personality relates to essence, distinction and uniqueness. It is atypical. For Jung, there is no such thing as personality types.

