When you read the word " self "After all, this is a foreign word that, even when translated, doesn't seem to tell us much. Anyway, the term "self", the way Psychology names the "self" in our language, is very important. Understand!

What is the meaning of self?

"Self-Self": why would the study of the self be so important for Psychology? Speaking like this, it is not very difficult to understand, is it? Understanding the human mind has always been the desire of researchers in this area of knowledge and several of them developed very important studies that are the basis for the research that is currently being carried out.

Understand self in Psychology

When we use the term "self", we are talking about a concept that is very dear to the field. It names what is in the human being that helps him to make decisions, to seek meaning in life, to understand feelings and behavior. Thus, understanding it is fundamental to understanding how the human being functions.

What is self for Jung

To simplify the understanding of this subject, we will approach it from the perspective of Carl Gustav Jung, an important 20th century psychiatrist. From his theory, it is possible to clearly understand the structure of the human psyche. As a result, this understanding allows the cure of many ills that concern our mind.

Who was Jung

Carl Jung was a very important intellectual for Psychology, who developed important concepts for the area such as personal unconscious e collective (which is formed by archetypes e instincts ); ego e self ; persona e shadow; animates e animus ; individuation e synchronicity.

What Jung advocated in his theory

Jung argued that one of the instances of the psyche is the unconscious. The contents of it such as dreams, fantasies, defenses, resistances and symptoms have a creative function for the psychologist.

He states that These contents are not just ways for a person to react to what happened in the past, but means that the psyche uses to stimulate them to achieve their personal development.

Therefore, for Jungian theory, if a person manifests a symptom, asking why it appears is no more important than asking what it appeared for. One must ask what is the purpose of the psyche in sending this signal. After all, the answers to these questions can be very productive for that person to return to well-being.

What is the difference between "ego" and "self

With these questions in mind, we can now explain the concepts "ego" and "self". To do this, it is necessary to introduce what consciousness is and what dynamics occur in the human psyche.

For Jung, the part of our mind that we actually recognize is consciousness. Only because of it, we are able to understand thoughts and feelings, as well as interact with the world around us.

The organizing center of consciousness is called the "ego". We will talk more about it later, but understand right now that this ego is only a part of the totality of a person's mind. The set of all conscious and unconscious processes that take place in the human psyche is called the "self".

What is "ego"?

Let's explain what the ego is to make it easier to understand the self. As we were saying, the ego organizes the part of our mind that we know. It is he who filters what will remain in our consciousness and what will follow into our unconscious. He who bars information that he does not want to come to light and who accesses that which he wants to release.

But it is important to understand that the ego, being part of the self, is subordinate to it, so, when the "self" sends signals that it is necessary to seek changes in view of the subject's personal development, the "ego" ends up being driven to seek them We will show how this happens more clearly in the course of this text.

What is "self

Now that we have talked about the ego, let's finally talk about the self, which, as we said, is the totality of all the processes that take place in the human mind. To understand how Jungian theory develops this concept, it is necessary to go back to the creative function that Jung attributed to the unconscious.

We said that, for the psychiatrist, a person's unconscious uses means to encourage his personal development. Not by chance, The Jungian perspective is called finalist, since it identifies in the psychism a purpose, an aim.

In this sense, a person's self has the goal of integrating the opposites that exist within him, both the beautiful and the dark. This search for integration is the individual's quest to become himself, a process called individuation. It is not a process that has an end, since it develops throughout the individual's life.

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Importance of Jungian psychotherapy

In view of this search for the self, one can understand how Jungian theory explains neuroses. These would be sufferings of a soul that could not find meaning. So in order for this person to have wellness again, he would need to go through the process of integrating the self.

In this sense, psychotherapy is very important. After all, through it, a person can realize if he is looking for meaning in places that are not appropriate for his life. P erceptions like this help the voice of the self to become stronger, motivating a person to make significant changes.

The dynamic between ego and self

It is also important to say that the individuation process only occurs through the ego. After all, we can only operate in this world through it. He is responsible for our conscious choices.

Still, he is resistant to change, so, When the self seeks transformations, it ends up encountering as an obstacle an accommodated ego that is unwilling to face them. In view of this, psychotherapy helps the individual to strengthen the voice of the self and to make the individuation process more fluid and smooth.

Yes, it will not always be difficult to change. But with time, the ego begins to come up with practical solutions for life in a much simpler way. We need to emphasize, however, that this process does not happen overnight. In the beginning, it will take a good measure of effort to overcome the ego's resistance to allowing these transformations.

Final considerations about the concept of self

We hope you have realized how dear the study of the psyche is to the field of psychology, so if you would like to learn about other equally important subjects, we recommend that you take our Clinical Psychoanalysis course.

In this way, you will learn about what is said about self Don't miss this opportunity we are giving you and enroll today! Besides gaining knowledge, you will also get the certificate you need to start practicing. This is an opportunity not to be missed!