Self in Jungian

psychology

The central dot is the Ego whereas the Self is both

the whole and the centered dot

The Self in Jungian psychology is one of

the Jungian archetypes, signifying the
unification of consciousness and
unconsciousness in a person, and
representing the psyche as a whole.[1]
The Self, according to Carl Jung, is
realized as the product of individuation,
which in his view is the process of
integrating one's personality. For Jung,
the Self is symbolized by the circle
(especially when divided in four
quadrants), the square, or the mandala.

Twin centers
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 center of the
circle contained within the whole, the Self
can be understood as the greater
circle.[2]

Emergence from the Self

Jung considered that from birth every
individual has an original sense of
wholeness - of the Self - but that with
development a separate ego-
consciousness crystallizes out of the
original feeling of unity.[3] 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. [4]

Return to the Self:

individuation
Once ego-differentiation had been
successfully achieved and the individual
is 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. Marie-Louise von
Franz states that "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".[5] 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".[6]
Under the Self's guidance, a succession
of archetypal images emerges,[7]
gradually 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 - something
which is at the same time the first
representative of the total personality,[8]
and which may indeed be at times
conflated with the Self.[9] Next to appear
would be the Anima and Animus, the
soul-image, which again, by a kind of
psychological short-cut, may be taken as
identical to the whole Self.[10] Ideally
however, the animus or anima comes to
play a mediatory role between the ego
and the Self.[11] The third main archetype
to emerge is the Mana figure of the wise
old man/woman[12] - a representative of
the collective unconscious still closer to
the Self.[13]

Thereafter comes the archetype of the

Self itself - the last point on the route to
self-realization of individuation.[14] 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".[15]
Alternatively, he stated that "the Self is
the total, timeless man...who stands for
the mutual integration of conscious and
unconscious".[16] Jung recognized many
dream images as representing the self,
including a stone, the world tree, an
elephant, and the Christ.[17]

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
other delusionary fantasies that catch
them up", so that the victim "thinks with
mounting excitement that he has
grasped the great cosmic riddles; he
therefore loses all touch with human
reality. [18]

In everyday life, the Self may be projected

onto such powerful figures as the state,
God, the universe or fate.[19] 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.[20]

Criticism of the Jungian

concept of Self
Fritz Perls 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'.[21]

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'.[22]

See also
Self (psychology)
Socialization
References
1. Josepf L. Henderson, "Ancient Myths
and Modern Man" in C. G. Jung ed., Man
and his Symbols (London 1978) p. 120
2. Zweig, Connie (1991). Meeting the
Shadow. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher.
ISBN 0-87477-618-X. p. 24.
3. Henderson, "Myths" p. 120
4. Henderson, "Myths" p. 120
5. M-L von Franz, "The Process of
Individuation" in Jung ed., Symbols p. 169
6. von Franz, "Process" p. 161-2
7. Jolandi Jacobi, The Psychology of C. G.
Jung (London 1968) p. 40
8. Barbara Hannah, Striving towards
Wholeness (Boston 1988) p. 25
9. von Franz "Process" p. 182-3
10. C. G. Jung, Alchemical Studies
(London 1978) p. 268
11. von Franz "Process" p. 193 and p. 195
12. J. Jacobi, The Psychology of C. G.
Jung (London 1946) p. 115
13. C. G. Jung, The Archetypes and the
Collective Unconscious (London 1996) p.
183 and p. 187
14. Jacobi (1946) p. 118
15. C. G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis
(London 1963) p. 108n
16. C. G .Jung, "Psychology of the
Transference", Collected Works Vol. 16
(London 1954) p. 311
17. 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]
18. von Franz, Process, p.234.
19. Anthony Stevens, On Jung (London
1990) p. 41
20. von Franz, Process, p. 238.
21. Fritz Perls, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim
(Bantam) p. 8
22. Polly Young-Eisendrath/James Albert
Hall, Jung's Self-Psychology (1991) p. 5
External links
Jung on the Archetype of the Self

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