Self (Jung)
Encyclopedia
The Self in Jungian theory is one of the archetypes
. It signifies the coherent whole, unified consciousness and unconscious of a person - 'the totality of the psyche'. The Self, according to Jung
, is realised as the product of individuation
, which in Jungian view is the process of integrating one's personality. For Jung, the Self is symbolised by the circle
(especially when divided in four quadrants), the square
, or the mandala
.
What distinguishes Jungian psychology is the idea that there are two centers of the personality. The ego is the center of consciousness, whereas the Self is the center of the total personality, which includes consciousness, the unconscious, and the ego. The Self is both the whole and the center. While the ego is a self-contained little circle off the center contained within the whole, the Self can be understood as the greater circle.
.
Under its guidance, 'a certain "order of sequence" of the archetypes' would then emerge, bringing their fragmentary aspects of the Self increasingly closer to its totality. The first to appear, and the closest to the ego, would be the shadow
or personal unconscious: 'the shadow is the first representative of the totality'. 'Sometimes the shadow is powerful because the urge of the Self is pointing in the same direction, and so one does not know whether it is the Self or the shadow that is behind the inner pressure'.
Next to appear would be the Anima and Animus, the soul-image - the danger here being that of 'a kind of psychological short-circuit, to identify the animus at least provisionally with wholeness...[with] the Self'. Where that is averted, the animus or anima 'takes on the role of guide, or mediator, to the world within and to the Self...a mediator between the ego and the Self'.
'After the confrontation with the soul-image the appearance of the archetype of the OLD WISE MAN, the personification of the spiritual principle, can be distinguished as the next milestone of inner development'. Jung sometimes referred to such archetypal figures as "Mana" personalities, supraordinate personalities, and treated them as equivalents to the Self: 'the mother ("Primordial Mother" and "Earth Mother") as a supraordinate personality...the supraordinate personality as the "self"'. At other times, he saw them as representatives of the collective unconscious - as bridging-posts to the totality.
Thereafter comes the archetype of 'the Self. It marks the last station on the way to individuation, which Jung calls self-realization. For Jung, 'the Self...embraces ego-consciousness, shadow, anima, and collective unconscious in indeterminable extension. As a totality, the self is a coincidental oppositorum; it is therefore bright and dark and yet neither'. Alternatively, he stated that 'the Self is the total, timeless man...who stands for the mutual integration of conscious and unconscious'.
may have had the Jungians in mind when he objected that 'many psychologists like to write the self with a capital S, as if the self would be something precious, something extraordinarily valuable. They go at the discovery of the self like a treasure-digging. The self means nothing but this thing as it is defined by otherness.
A more sympathetic, constructivist approach points out that, conflated together 'in Jung's work, self can refer to the notion of inherent subjective individuality, the idea of an abstract center or central ordering principle, and the account of a process developing over time'.
Jungian archetypes
Carl Jung created the archetypes which “are ancient or archaic images that derive from the collective unconscious” Also known as innate universal psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic symbols or representations of unconscious experience emerge...
. It signifies the coherent whole, unified consciousness and unconscious of a person - 'the totality of the psyche'. The Self, according to Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
, is realised as the product of individuation
Individuation
Individuation is a concept which appears in numerous fields and may be encountered in work by Arthur Schopenhauer, Carl Jung, Gilbert Simondon, Bernard Stiegler, Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, David Bohm, and Manuel De Landa...
, which in Jungian view is the process of integrating one's personality. For Jung, the Self is symbolised by the circle
Circle
A circle is a simple shape of Euclidean geometry consisting of those points in a plane that are a given distance from a given point, the centre. The distance between any of the points and the centre is called the radius....
(especially when divided in four quadrants), the square
Square (geometry)
In geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral. This means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles...
, or the mandala
Mandala
Maṇḍala is a Sanskrit word that means "circle". In the Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point...
.
What distinguishes Jungian psychology is the idea that there are two centers of the personality. The ego is the center of consciousness, whereas the Self is the center of the total personality, which includes consciousness, the unconscious, and the ego. The Self is both the whole and the center. While the ego is a self-contained little circle off the center contained within the whole, the Self can be understood as the greater circle.
Emergence from the Self
Jung considered that 'each human being has originally a feeling of wholeness, a powerful and complete sense of the Self'. Out of that sense of Self, 'the individualized ego-consciousness emerges as the individual grows up...differentiation of the psyche'. This process of ego-differentiation provides the task of the first half of life. 'And the ego must continually return to re-establish its relation to the Self in order to maintain a condition of psychic health', something facilitated by the use of myths, initiation ceremonies, and rites of passageRites of Passage
Rites of Passage is an African American History program sponsored by the Stamford, Connecticut US public schools. The program consists of an extra day of schooling on Saturday for 12 weeks, service projects, and a culminating educational trip to Gambia and Senegal. Gambia and Senegal are the...
.
Return to the Self: individuation
Once ego-differentiation had been successfully achieved, and the individual securely anchored in the external world, Jung considered that a new task then arose for the second half of life - a return to, and conscious rediscovery of, the Self: individuation. 'The actual processes of individuation - the conscious coming-to-term with one's own inner center (psychic nucleus) or Self - generally begins with a wounding of the personality'. The ego reaches an impasse of one sort or another; and has to turn for help to 'a sort of hidden regulating or directing tendency...[or] organizing center' in the personality: 'Jung called this center the "Self" and described it as the totality of the whole psyche, in order to distinguish it from the "ego", which constitutes only a small part of the psyche'.Under its guidance, 'a certain "order of sequence" of the archetypes' would then emerge, bringing their fragmentary aspects of the Self increasingly closer to its totality. The first to appear, and the closest to the ego, would be the shadow
Shadow (psychology)
In Jungian psychology, the shadow or "shadow aspect" is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. It is one of the three most recognizable archetypes, the others being the anima and animus and the persona...
or personal unconscious: 'the shadow is the first representative of the totality'. 'Sometimes the shadow is powerful because the urge of the Self is pointing in the same direction, and so one does not know whether it is the Self or the shadow that is behind the inner pressure'.
Next to appear would be the Anima and Animus, the soul-image - the danger here being that of 'a kind of psychological short-circuit, to identify the animus at least provisionally with wholeness...[with] the Self'. Where that is averted, the animus or anima 'takes on the role of guide, or mediator, to the world within and to the Self...a mediator between the ego and the Self'.
'After the confrontation with the soul-image the appearance of the archetype of the OLD WISE MAN, the personification of the spiritual principle, can be distinguished as the next milestone of inner development'. Jung sometimes referred to such archetypal figures as "Mana" personalities, supraordinate personalities, and treated them as equivalents to the Self: 'the mother ("Primordial Mother" and "Earth Mother") as a supraordinate personality...the supraordinate personality as the "self"'. At other times, he saw them as representatives of the collective unconscious - as bridging-posts to the totality.
Thereafter comes the archetype of 'the Self. It marks the last station on the way to individuation, which Jung calls self-realization. For Jung, 'the Self...embraces ego-consciousness, shadow, anima, and collective unconscious in indeterminable extension. As a totality, the self is a coincidental oppositorum; it is therefore bright and dark and yet neither'. Alternatively, he stated that 'the Self is the total, timeless man...who stands for the mutual integration of conscious and unconscious'.
The perils of the Self
Jungians recognised that 'every personification of the unconscious - the shadow, the anima, the animus, and the Self - has both a light and a dark aspect'. For von Franz, 'the dark side of the Self is the most dangerous thing of all, precisely because the Self is the greatest power in the psyche'. In everyday life, 'the Self is commonly projected onto figures or institutions perceived as possessing pre-eminent power...suprapersonal entities such as the State, God, the sun, Nature or the universe'. When such projections are withdrawn, there can be an inflation of the personality, whereby one 'thinks with mounting excitement that he has grasped the great cosmic riddles; he therefore loses all touch with human reality'. One potential counterbalance to this is 'the collective (or, we could even say, social) aspect of the Self'.Criticism of the Jungian concept of Self
Fritz PerlsFritz Perls
Friedrich Salomon Perls , better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent....
may have had the Jungians in mind when he objected that 'many psychologists like to write the self with a capital S, as if the self would be something precious, something extraordinarily valuable. They go at the discovery of the self like a treasure-digging. The self means nothing but this thing as it is defined by otherness.
A more sympathetic, constructivist approach points out that, conflated together 'in Jung's work, self can refer to the notion of inherent subjective individuality, the idea of an abstract center or central ordering principle, and the account of a process developing over time'.