Self in Jungian psychology

{{Short description|Psychological concept}} right|thumb|The central dot represents the Ego whereas the Self can be said to consist of the whole with the centred dot. The '''Self in Jungian psychology''' is a dynamic concept which has undergone numerous modifications since it was first conceptualised as one of the ''Jungian archetypes''.<ref name="J.W.T.">{{cite book|author=Redfearn, J.W.T.|title=My Self, My Many Selves|publisher=Academic Press|date=1985|page=25|isbn=0-12-584555-3}}</ref>

Historically, the Self, according to Carl Jung, signifies the unification of consciousness and unconsciousness in a person, and representing the psyche as a whole.<ref>Josepf L. Henderson, "Ancient Myths and Modern Man" in C. G. Jung ed., ''Man and his Symbols'' (London 1978) p. 120</ref> It is realized as the product of individuation, which in his view is the process of integrating various aspects of one's personality. For Jung, the Self is an encompassing whole which acts as a container. It could be symbolized by a circle, a square, or a mandala.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Research in the social scientific study of religion|publisher=Brill|others=Village, Andrew, Hood, Ralph W., Jr.|year=2017|isbn=9789004348936|location=Leiden|pages=74|oclc=994146016}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Carl Jung, Darwin of the mind|last=Lawson|first=Thomas T.|date=2008|publisher=Karnac|isbn=9781849406420|location=London|page=161|oclc=727944810}}</ref>

==Two center hypothesis== The idea that there are two centers of the personality distinguished Jungian psychology at one time. The ego has been seen as the center of consciousness, whereas the Self is defined as 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 center of the circle contained within the whole, the Self can be understood as the greater circle.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite book | last = Zweig | first = Connie | title = Meeting the Shadow | publisher = J.P. Tarcher | location = Los Angeles | year = 1991 | isbn = 0-87477-618-X | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/meetingshadow00abra }} p. 24.</ref>

==Emergence of the Self== Jung considered that from birth every individual has an original sense of wholeness{{snd}}of the Self{{snd}}but that with development a separate ego-consciousness crystallizes out of the original feeling of unity.<ref name="Henderson 120">Henderson, "Myths" p. 120</ref> This process of ego-differentiation provides the task of the first half of one's life-course, though Jungians also saw psychic health as depending on a periodic return to the sense of Self, something facilitated by the use of myths, initiation ceremonies, and rites of passage.<ref name="Henderson 120"/>

==Return to the Self: individuation== Once ego-differentiation had been more or less successfully achieved and the individual is somewhat 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. Marie-Louise von Franz states that "The actual processes of individuation – the conscious coming-to-terms with one's own inner center (psychic nucleus) or Self – generally begins with a wounding of the personality".<ref>M-L von Franz, "The Process of Individuation" in Jung ed., ''Symbols'' p. 169</ref> The ego reaches an impasse of one sort or another; and has to turn for help to what she termed "a sort of hidden regulating or directing tendency...[an] 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".<ref>von Franz, "Process" pp. 161–62</ref>

Under the Self's guidance, a succession of archetypal images emerges, gradually bringing their fragmentary aspects of the Self increasingly closer to its totality.<ref>Jolande Jacobi, ''The Psychology of C. G. Jung'' (London 1968) p. 40</ref> The first to appear, and the closest to the ego, would be the shadow or personal unconscious – something which is at the same time the first representation of the total personality, and which may indeed be at times conflated with the Self.<ref>Barbara Hannah, ''Striving towards Wholeness'' (Boston 1988) p. 25</ref><ref>von Franz "Process" pp. 182–83</ref> Next to appear would be the Anima and Animus, the soul-image, which may be taken as symbolising the whole Self.<ref>C. G. Jung, ''Alchemical Studies'' (London 1978) p. 268</ref> Ideally however, the animus or anima comes into play in a mediating role between the ego and the Self.<ref>von Franz "Process" pp. 193, 195</ref> The third main archetype to emerge is the ''Mana'' figure of the wise old man/woman<ref>J. Jacobi, ''The Psychology of C. G. Jung'' (London 1946) p. 115</ref> – a representative of the collective unconscious akin to the Self.<ref>C. G. Jung, ''The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious'' (London 1996) pp. 183, 187</ref>

Thereafter comes the archetype of the Self itself – the last point on the route to self-realization of individuation.<ref>Jacobi (1946) p. 118</ref> In Jung's words, "the Self...embraces ego-consciousness, shadow, anima, and collective unconscious in indeterminable extension. As a totality, the self is a ''coincidentia oppositorum''; it is therefore bright and dark and yet neither".<ref>C. G. Jung, ''Mysterium Coniunctionis'' (London 1963) p. 108n</ref> Alternatively, he stated that "the Self is the total, timeless man...who stands for the mutual integration of conscious and unconscious".<ref>C. G .Jung, "Psychology of the Transference", ''Collected Works'' Vol. 16 (London 1954) p. 311</ref> Jung recognized many dream images as representing the self, including a stone, the world tree, an elephant, and the Christ.<ref>On this last, see "Christ, a Symbol of the Self" in ''Collected Works'' Vol. 9ii, p. 36ff. He explicitly says, "''Christ exemplifies the archetype of the self.''" [italics his]</ref>

==Perils of the Self== Von Franz considered that "the dark side of the Self is the most dangerous thing of all, precisely because the Self is the greatest power in the psyche. It can cause people to 'spin' megalomanic or fall into other delusionary fantasies that catch them up", so that the subject "thinks with mounting excitement" that he has grasped the great cosmic riddles. He therefore risks losing all touch with human reality. <ref>von Franz, ''Process'', p. 234.</ref>

In everyday life, aspects of the Self may be projected onto outside figures or concepts such as the state, God, the universe or fate.<ref>Anthony Stevens, ''On Jung'' (London 1990) p. 41</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://psychcentral.com/lib/becoming-whole-jungs-equation-for-realizing-god/|title=Becoming Whole: Jung's Equation for Realizing God|last=Stein|first=Leslie|date=2016-05-17|website=Psych Central|language=en-US|access-date=2019-04-29|archive-date=2019-04-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190430032243/https://psychcentral.com/lib/becoming-whole-jungs-equation-for-realizing-god/|url-status=dead}}</ref> When such projections are withdrawn, there can be a destructive inflation of the personality – one potential counterbalance to this being however the social or collective aspects of the Self.<ref>von Franz, ''Process'', p. 238.</ref>

==Evolution of the Jungian concept of Self== Young-Eisendrath and Hall write that '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'.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kouri |first=Scott |date=2010-07-30 |title=Claiming the Self |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.18357/ijcyfs13/420102085 |journal=International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies |volume=1 |issue=3/4 |pages=234 |doi=10.18357/ijcyfs13/420102085 |issn=1920-7298|doi-access=free }}</ref>

In 1947 Michael Fordham proposed a distinct theory of the ''primary self'' to describe the state of the psyche of neonates, characterised by homeostasis, or 'steady state' in his words, where self and other (usually the mother) are undifferentiated. It predicates that there is no distinction between the internal and external world, and there are as yet no different components in the internal world. Fordham derived his hypothesis partly from the Jungian concept of the archetype of the self, and the psychoanalytic idea of internal 'objects'. The ''primary self'', taken as the original totality of each person, with its 'archetypal' tendencies to develop aspects, such as language, complexes etc., enters into relation with the external world through a continuous dual process of ''de-integration'' and ''re-integration'', a process said to be characteristic of the first half of life.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Fordham, Michael|title=Integration, disintegration and early ego development|date=1947|journal=Nervous Child, 6 (3)|volume=6|issue=3|pages=266–77|pmid=20254527}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Fordham, Michael|title=The Self and Autism|date=1976|publisher=The Society of Analytical Psychology|page=16|isbn=0-433-30882-6}}</ref>

Redfearn, for instance, who has also synthesised the classical archetypal theory with a developmental view based on years of clinical observation, sees the self as probably consisting of a range of subpersonalities over a lifetime.<ref>{{cite journal|author=J.W.T. Redfearn|title=The Self and Individuation|journal=Journal of Analytical Psychology|volume=22|issue=2|pages=125–41|date=1977|doi=10.1111/j.1465-5922.1977.00125.x|pmid=873855|author-link=J.W.T. Redfearn}}</ref><ref name="J.W.T."/>

According to Peter Fonagy the connections between "post-Freudians" and "post-Jungians" have been further strengthened after the advent of contemporary neuroscience in this connection, as outlined in his foreword to Jean Knox's update on the "formation of internal working models", which he describes as a milestone.<ref>{{cite book|author=Knox, Jean|title=Archetype, Attachment, Analysis|url=https://archive.org/details/archetypeattachm00knox|url-access=limited|date=2004|place= Hove and New York|publisher=Routledge|isbn=1-58391-129-4|pages=[https://archive.org/details/archetypeattachm00knox/page/n58 40]–69}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author = Knox, Jean|title=Self-Agency in Psychotherapy: Attachment, Autonomy, and Intimacy|date=2010|place=New York|publisher=W.W. Norton}}</ref>

===Objection=== Fritz Perls 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'''.<ref>Fritz Perls, ''Gestalt Therapy Verbatim'' (Bantam) p. 8</ref>

==See also== {{Columns-list|colwidth=30em| * Self (psychology) * Socialization }}

==References== {{Reflist|30em}}

==External links== * [http://www.jung.org/page-18178 Jung on the Archetype of the Self]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Self In Jungian Psychology}} Jungian Category:Analytical psychology Category:Jungian archetypes Category:Carl Jung