Me, My Self, and I
Who are you? That’s easy! I am me. I am myself. Ok. And who is yourself? Myself is what I think and how I feel.
What do you think? That depends. Sometimes I think this and sometimes I think that. And sometimes I reflect and change what I think. So, what you think isn’t fixed. It is changing all the time.
And how do you feel? Well, sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m sad and most of the time I just am. Ok, so at different times you think and feel differently? Yes. And at different times you think and feel more like yourself than at others. Yes, ok. Now and again, I do something I didn’t expect. This can be really good or, unfortunately, it can be really bad. But usually it is ok. What about when you feel tired? Yes, I don’t feel like my usual self. And sometimes you may feel unwell or be suffering from an illness. Yes, then I don’t feel like my usual self. But what is ‘my usual self’? And aren’t you changing all the time? In some good ways I would very much hope that I am.
From this you could say that there isn’t one fixed thing that is myself or indeed any one thing that is The Self. In other words, there isn’t one set of thoughts and feelings that defines who I am. Yes, there are the thoughts and feelings that I have and those that I don’t have. Some are desirable, some are distressing. Some are fleeting and some can last pretty much a lifetime.
These are the sort of responses we come up with when we consider who we are. Theorists go further talking of a Self that explains who we are and how we come to think and to feel as we do. This Self varies from theory to theory. There can, for example, be A True Self and A False Self (Winnicott, 1960), or an Authentic Self (Joseph, 2016) and a Shadow Self (Jung, 1951).
Further terms are introduced to describe how our Self exists in the world around us. Acting Out (Freud,1920), for example, may be used as a way to achieve something we desire while clearly not fitting with our actual thoughts and feelings. And Masking (Goffman, 1956) may enable the person to fit in with who they are with and the circumstances they are in without showing how they actually are in that situation.
Let’s follow this lead and say, at least for now, that the True Self is the desirable state: the way we want to be, doing the things we want to do, being with the people we want to be with. Would anything that deviates from this state be evidence of falsity and, perhaps, the presence of a False Self? At least from the theory this would seem so. And this covers a pretty big range of behaviours that on this reading would need to line up if we are to truly be ourselves.
From this you can begin to see why both in theory and in practice the emphasis has been on the false, the inauthentic, the mask and on whatever it is that lurks in the shadows.
Now surely the purpose of therapeutic enquiry is to bring about healing through understanding what has gone wrong. So, it’s hardly a surprise to find that therapy often begins with questions as to how and why things have gone wrong for the person. And the usual, the commonplace and the satisfactory are marginalised or, worse, left unconsidered.
This would suggest that the literature and the subsequent practice focusses on the exceptional and perhaps takes the usual as a given. And I’m not sure that such theorists and practitioners would be entirely happy with such an assessment of their work.
For example, The False Self is often presented as a defence to keep out the undesirable or what is harmful. This results in you having to put up with the current situation in order to fit in or to comply. In other words, to meet our needs in difficult circumstances and to take care of ourselves where others are absent or are not fulfilling their relational role. It’s not great but it’s the least bad option.
Often such adaptation works. It keeps you functioning. The people around you may even think you’ve got it all together. This however can lead to you feeling as if you are wearing a mask that dampens spontaneity, reduces your enthusiasm and can result in feelings of emptiness and thoughts of pointlessness. All while giving an appearance of you being your True Self. And over time, maintaining such a false position can lead to feelings of emptiness, low self-worth, disconnection, burnout, and the sense that life is passing you by without you being able to live it fully.
So, if you don’t know already, what are the signs that you may be living your life from a position that may be described as false? Well, maybe you don’t say what you truly think or feel. Sometimes, you aren’t even sure what that is. Perhaps you constantly try to get everything right in your life, in relationships, and in your work and never stop. To do this you tune in to what others expect from you and adjust your behaviours accordingly. While everything looks fine on the outside, you feel flat or numb, or even, invisible.
Yet still you cannot get rid of the feeling that something is missing. If only you knew what it was then you could get it and then life would be all right. And you are constantly people-pleasing and feeling anxious about getting things right for them and hence, you believe, you.
However, such feelings don’t reflect what actually exists, and what in fact happens, does it? Maybe we do what we choose to do most of the time and maybe that’s as true and authentic as we are going to get. Maybe our Real Self is what it is and maybe it just gets on with living. And maybe our Real Self sometimes gets it wrong. We have all made poor choices. We have all felt differently about certain people and about particular places over time.
Professionals may say ok but why should we waste our time talking to people about how their life is ok for them? We want to know what’s wrong so we can use our professional skills to help them fix it. This may seem very reasonable. Thing is, how do I come to find out what a good or satisfactory life would be for me if I am spending all my time fixated on what’s wrong with it. An exaggeration perhaps but where is the balance between analysing and supporting what is both good and true while examining what is bad or false or inauthentic or hidden?
Maybe the balance is there. Maybe it’s just not expressed explicitly, at least not as much as it could be. Well, I’m not sure I’ve ever come across a consultation where the client simply says how normal things are or one where the therapist asks them to say more about their normality. It’s far more usual for professionals to focus on the problems their clients or patients may be having and to work on understanding the issues they are having and the problems that are arising from these issues.
And maybe the idea of a True Self and a False Self just gets in the way of what is actually there; you, me, us, alive in the world together. Maybe the task we all have is to create ourselves as we wish to be, not as we happen to be and not as others tell us be. If so then we would be able to appreciate what is good about ourselves and seek the company of people who can nurture us and situations that will allow us to grow. And maybe that’s what every single one of us should know and should do.
References
Michel Foucault – The History of Sexuality 3: The Care of the Self (1984)
Sigmund Freud – Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920)
Erving Goffman – The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956)
Stephen Joseph – Authentic: How to be yourself and why it matters (2016)
Carl Jung – Aion: Researches into the phenomenology of the self (1951)
Donald Winnicott – Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self (1960)
