The presenter offers a new perspective on early individuation, seeing, e.g. nightmares of preschoolers as an expression of a first individuation crisis and part of the child’s ongoing separation from the symbiosis with the containing mother/motherly. Focusing on the girls, I argue that the daughter archetype, the Female Hero, plays an underexposed and vital role in early individuation. In a patriarchal culture, the hero has been commonly assumed to be the source of support at this stage. But it is the hero's female counterpart, the Female Hero, that enables girls - supported by father and Imaginatio - to liberate themselves and meet the demands for adjustment to the fatherly world while gendering their ego in a feminine way with an openness to the opposite sex - in themselves and in the world.
Based in classical and new Jungian theory, I present empirical material from my anthropological fieldwork in a Danish primary school, including dreams, drawings and narrative to show how the Female Hero emerges and becomes an important element in resolving the developmental and individuation crisis girls encounter as they enter into the educational system and venture further out into the world.
The Danish analyst Pia Skogemanns’s daughter archetype inspires me as a concept for the autonomous feminine, that addresses the female psyche without defining the feminine as such. My material shows how the Female Hero gives the coup de grace to patriarchal fantasies about the masculine nature of self and intellect. Just as the male hero in boys' dreams does with the fantasy of emotions and empathy as something particularly feminine. Children's dreams are their contribution to the gender debate.
Gender identity is essential in the child’s liberation from the symbiotic relationship with Mother. The boys can say Me and Dad. It is more complicated for the girls. They need Dad just as much, but their awakening sexual impulses may create problems – unless the natural awakening of the Female Hero is supported.
My findings may benefit clinical work with women who struggle to liberate themselves also from patriarchal fallback solutions, having gendered their ego as male or as the desired object of the male gaze. Awareness of the Female Hero may help adult women repair and solve the riddle of liberation on the female's terms.
My material shows how preschoolers insist on holistic solutions to their individuation crisis. Jung's insights into our double-gendered nature and Imaginatio’s goal, the mutual integration of conscious and unconscious, are still timely. Jungians may offer valuable support for today’s children in their individuation process.