Adaptation

An essential aspect of individuation, adaptation refers to the relating of external and internal factors and the different demands they may make upon the individual. Failure to come to terms with or balance the needs of internal and external worlds may be considered as neurosis; similarly there may be excessive dependence on one particular mode of adaptation, or a neurotic concentration on satisfying the demands of the external or the internal world. A certain breakdown in the adaptation such an individual may appear to have achieved is part of the psychoanalytical process, since such adaptation may be spurious - it can then be replaced by a mode which better balances the individual's particular needs on the personal-collective spectrum, although perfect adaptation is seldom, if ever, achieved.