PERSONA
Social Mask, Social Armor
Social Mask, Social Armor
"Man needs axioms for the mind and ecstasy for the psyche as he needs food for the body: ecstasy and axioms can come only from the world of archetypes. [...] Everywhere and always, every individual has his particular myth, a solo recitation, which puts him in ecstatic communication with the archetype that torments him." --Elemire Zolla
We have probably been telling stories to each other ever since we as a species first
devised language. From there it was a short step and, in all likelihood, a short time only before it was discovered that one could carry on a conversation almost as well with oneself as with another and, in so doing, fashion a world through the stories told to oneself. One could even convince oneself, perhaps more easily than another, that such stories were true. We have lived until now equating our stories with the truth about reality. In a postmodern world the truth claims of all such stories have been cast in doubt. Will a species so enchanted by stories that it surely cannot live without them be content to live by stories embraced as personal and social fictions?
Wallace Stevens urged us to do just this: "The final belief is to believe in a fiction which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else. The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe it willingly" (quoted in Hillman, 1983, p. ix)
The narrated identity is the portion of the soul accessed to achieve the most advantageous social presentation. It is the part of the soul that gives us the illusion we are in control of ourselves. It is more likely that while self proposes soul disposes. As an expression and extension of our embodiment it is self-organizing. Walt Whitman (1855/1954) said, “Oh I say, these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul. Oh I say now these are the soul!” (1855/1954, p. 105).
We have probably been telling stories to each other ever since we as a species first
devised language. From there it was a short step and, in all likelihood, a short time only before it was discovered that one could carry on a conversation almost as well with oneself as with another and, in so doing, fashion a world through the stories told to oneself. One could even convince oneself, perhaps more easily than another, that such stories were true. We have lived until now equating our stories with the truth about reality. In a postmodern world the truth claims of all such stories have been cast in doubt. Will a species so enchanted by stories that it surely cannot live without them be content to live by stories embraced as personal and social fictions?
Wallace Stevens urged us to do just this: "The final belief is to believe in a fiction which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else. The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe it willingly" (quoted in Hillman, 1983, p. ix)
The narrated identity is the portion of the soul accessed to achieve the most advantageous social presentation. It is the part of the soul that gives us the illusion we are in control of ourselves. It is more likely that while self proposes soul disposes. As an expression and extension of our embodiment it is self-organizing. Walt Whitman (1855/1954) said, “Oh I say, these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul. Oh I say now these are the soul!” (1855/1954, p. 105).
Given the profound dependency and helplessness of the human child it seems doubtful that a fundamental sense of primal insecurity is ever fully overcome. We could go so far as to say that, without a sense of identity in family and community, he is in a state of terror. His soul is naked. The self-image he begins to form, therefore, constitutes his protection from a dread of abandonment. Small wonder the self-image is defended as a matter of life and death. It is a matter of social survival which, as with most social animals, is a life and death issue. Every effort will be made, once an identity narrative is in place, to protect the naked soul in its acute sense of vulnerability from attack. A veritable labyrinth in the form of self-justifying stories will be thrown up for its protection. Such stories will support the sense of the world that they illustrate and serve to interpret, but they inevitably lead back to their importance in reinforcing the self-image which Minotaur-like guards the vulnerability of the soul.
http://www.familytherapy.org/documents/WhyWeTellStories.pdf
How expansive and inclusive the storied world is will be an extension of how firmly the I or narrator seeks its own confirmation in its self-appointed work of protecting the soul by means of the image it has created of itself. Left to its own devices the I would create a strong, confident and persuasive identity narrative. Alas, although the I is adept at convincing itself of whatever it seeks to convince others, it is highly susceptible to the capacity of others to convince it of the “truth” of their stories about itself. If those stories are disparaging, invalidating or discounting, and if they happen to be delivered amid intense emotions when the I is vulnerable, they are very likely to be believed. Once believed they too will be absorbed into the I’s identity narrative. Thus, that identity is apt to wind up as a character at war with itself as self-enhancing attributions and disparaging ones are argued by the confused I. Further complicating the picture is the fact that, although the me or identity narrative is a figment of the I’s imagination the psyche itself and
the various givens of the person-sex, race, body, appearance, intelligence, temperament, genetic limitations--are all subject to the laws of nature. They do not necessarily do the I’s bidding. They may not measure up. Or they may be capable of doing much more than a deflated self-image would lead the I to expect. No matter. The I, once it believes its own image, is likely to become upset at any discrepancy between performance and expectations.
The formation of the self-image is no more intentional than are the narratives we dream or the catastrophic scenarios we imagine when anxious. It emerges as a necessity of social living, protecting our vulnerability before others, giving ourselves and others a sense of our identity amidst the demands implicitly placed upon us by others who also need to know who we are. This process influences the ways we go on to story the world based on our identity narrative as the
interpreter that selects what we perceive and fail to perceive in the world outside ourselves and in our own motives. It cannot be an intentional activity for the capacity to convince ourselves in order to convince others depends upon the capacity to do it so well that we become Nietzsche’s (1887/1956, p. 149) knowers who are unknown to ourselves.
None of this is new to transactional analysts. The pursuit of interpersonal advantage is the very core of the psychological game which depends on keeping the ulterior motive outside awareness. This is best accomplished by the adoption of an unimpeachable social position, whether of virtue (Rescuer), righteousness (Persecutor) or innocence (Victim). The game emerges at the point at which a socially advantageous position is sought that cannot be admitted. Social advantage is most advantageously pursued by convincing oneself and the other of one’s moral superiority. An egalitarian situation, by contrast, is best achieved through
conversation which involves the sharing of stories in the quest of a shared world.
Alan Parry, Ph.D
.
http://www.familytherapy.org/documents/WhyWeTellStories.pdf
How expansive and inclusive the storied world is will be an extension of how firmly the I or narrator seeks its own confirmation in its self-appointed work of protecting the soul by means of the image it has created of itself. Left to its own devices the I would create a strong, confident and persuasive identity narrative. Alas, although the I is adept at convincing itself of whatever it seeks to convince others, it is highly susceptible to the capacity of others to convince it of the “truth” of their stories about itself. If those stories are disparaging, invalidating or discounting, and if they happen to be delivered amid intense emotions when the I is vulnerable, they are very likely to be believed. Once believed they too will be absorbed into the I’s identity narrative. Thus, that identity is apt to wind up as a character at war with itself as self-enhancing attributions and disparaging ones are argued by the confused I. Further complicating the picture is the fact that, although the me or identity narrative is a figment of the I’s imagination the psyche itself and
the various givens of the person-sex, race, body, appearance, intelligence, temperament, genetic limitations--are all subject to the laws of nature. They do not necessarily do the I’s bidding. They may not measure up. Or they may be capable of doing much more than a deflated self-image would lead the I to expect. No matter. The I, once it believes its own image, is likely to become upset at any discrepancy between performance and expectations.
The formation of the self-image is no more intentional than are the narratives we dream or the catastrophic scenarios we imagine when anxious. It emerges as a necessity of social living, protecting our vulnerability before others, giving ourselves and others a sense of our identity amidst the demands implicitly placed upon us by others who also need to know who we are. This process influences the ways we go on to story the world based on our identity narrative as the
interpreter that selects what we perceive and fail to perceive in the world outside ourselves and in our own motives. It cannot be an intentional activity for the capacity to convince ourselves in order to convince others depends upon the capacity to do it so well that we become Nietzsche’s (1887/1956, p. 149) knowers who are unknown to ourselves.
None of this is new to transactional analysts. The pursuit of interpersonal advantage is the very core of the psychological game which depends on keeping the ulterior motive outside awareness. This is best accomplished by the adoption of an unimpeachable social position, whether of virtue (Rescuer), righteousness (Persecutor) or innocence (Victim). The game emerges at the point at which a socially advantageous position is sought that cannot be admitted. Social advantage is most advantageously pursued by convincing oneself and the other of one’s moral superiority. An egalitarian situation, by contrast, is best achieved through
conversation which involves the sharing of stories in the quest of a shared world.
Alan Parry, Ph.D
.
The persona is a complicated system of relations between individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual.
"The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious" (1928). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P.305
Whoever looks into the mirror of the water will see first of all his own face. Whoever goes to himself risks a confrontation with himself. The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it; namely, the face we never show to the world because we cover it with the persona, the mask of the actor. But the mirror lies behind the mask and shows the true face.
"Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious" (1935). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P.43
Every calling or profession has its own characteristic persona. It is easy to study these things nowadays, when the photographs of public personalities so frequently appear in the press. A certain kind of behaviour is forced on them by the world, and professional people endeavour to come up to these expectations. Only, the danger is that they become identical with their personas-the professor with his text-book, the tenor with his voice. Then the damage is done; henceforth he lives exclusively against the background of his own biography. . . . The garment of Deianeira has grown fast to his skin, and a desperate decision like that of Heracles is needed if he is to tear this Nessus shirt from his body and step into the consuming fire of the flame of immortality, in order to transform himself into what he really is. One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.
"Concerning Rebirth" (1940). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P.221
I once made the acquaintance of a very venerable personage - in fact, one might easily call him a saint. I stalked round him for three whole days, but never a mortal failing did I find in him. My feeling of inferiority grew ominous, and I was beginning to think seriously of how I might better myself. Then, on the fourth day, his wife came to consult me.... Well, nothing of the sort has ever happened to me since. But this I did learn: that any man who becomes one with his persona can cheerfully let all disturbances manifest themselves through his wife without her noticing it, though she pays for her self-sacrifice with a bad neurosis.
"The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious" (1928). In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P.306
Since the differentiated consciousness of civilized man has been granted an effective instrument for the practical realization of its contents through the dynamics of his will, there is all the more danger, the more he trains his will, of his getting lost in one-sidedness and deviating further and further from the laws and roots of his being.
"The Psychology of the Child Archetype" (1940) In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P.276
When there is a marked change in the individual's state of consciousness, the unconscious contents which are thereby constellated will also change. And the further the conscious situation moves away from a certain point of equilibrium, the more forceful and accordingly the more dangerous become the unconscious contents that are struggling to restore the balance. This leads ultimately to a dissociation: on the one hand, ego-consciousness makes convulsive efforts to shake off an invisible opponent (if it does not suspect its next-door neighbour of being the devil!), while on the other hand it increasingly falls victim to the tyrannical will of an internal "Government opposition" which displays all the characteristics of a daemonic subman and superman combined. When a few million people get into this state, it produces the sort of situation which has afforded us such an edifying object-lesson every day for the last ten years.* These contemporary events betray their psychological background by their very singularity. The insensate destruction and devastation are a reaction against the deflection of consciousness from the point of equilibrium. For an equilibrium does in fact exist between the psychic ego and non-ego, and that equilibrium is a religion a "careful consideration" of ever-present unconscious forces which we neglect at our peril.
"The Psychology of Transference" (1946). In CW 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy. P.394 *The years 1935-1945
Nothing is so apt to challenge our self-awareness and alertness as being at war with oneself. One can hardly think of any other or more effective means of waking humanity out of the irresponsible and innocent half-sleep of the primitive mentality and bringing it to a state of conscious responsibility.
"Psychological Typology" (1936). In CW 6: Psychological Types. P. 964
Hidden in the neurosis is a bit of still undeveloped personality, a precious fragment of the psyche lacking which a man is condemned to resignation, bitterness, and everything else that is hostile to life. A psychology of neurosis that sees only the negative elements empties out the baby with the bath-water, since it neglects the positive meaning and value of these "infantile' i.e., creative-fantasies.
"The State of Psychotherapy Today" (1934). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P.355
We yield too much to the ridiculous fear that we are at bottom quite impossible beings, that if everyone were to appear as he really is a frightful social catastrophe would ensue. Many people today take "man as he really is" to mean merely the eternally discontented, anarchic, rapacious element in human beings, quite forgetting that these same human beings have also erected those firmly established forms of civilization which possess greater strength and stability than all the anarchic undercurrents. The strengthening of his social personality is one of the essential conditions for man's existence. Were it not so, humanity would cease to be. The selfishness and rebelliousness we meet in the neurotic's psychology are not "man as he really is" but an infantile distortion. In reality the normal man is "civic minded and moral"; he created his laws and observes them, not because they are imposed on him from without-that is a childish delusion-but because he loves law and order more than he loves disorder and lawlessness.
"Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious" (1935). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P.442
The true genius nearly always intrudes and disturbs. He speaks to a temporal world out of a world eternal. He says the wrong things at the right time. Eternal truths are never true at any given moment in history. The process of transformation has to make a halt in order to digest and assimilate the utterly impractical things that the genius has produced from the storehouse of eternity. Yet the genius is the healer of his time, because anything he reveals of eternal truth is healing.
"What India Can Teach Us" (1939). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. P. 1004
The genius will come through despite everything, for there is something absolute and indomitable in his nature. The so-called "misunderstood genius" is rather a doubtful phenomenon. Generally he turns out to be a good-for-nothing who is forever seeking a soothing explanation of himself.
"The Gifted Child" (1943). In CW 17: The Development of Personality. P. 248
Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthrals and overpowers, while at the same time he lifts the idea he is seeking to express out of the occasional and the transitory into the realm of the ever enduring. He transmutes our personal destiny into the destiny of mankind, and evokes in us all those beneficent forces that ever and anon have enabled humanity to find a refuge from every peril and to outlive the longest night.
"On the Relation of Analytical Psychology of Poetry" (1922). In CW 15: The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature. P.129
To be "normal" is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful, for all those who are still below the general level of adaptation. But for people of more than average ability, people who never found it difficult to gain successes and to accomplish their share of the world's work-for them the moral compulsion to be nothing but normal signifies the bed of Procrustes-deadly and insupportable boredom, a hell of sterility and hopelessness.
"Problems of Modern Psychotherapy" (1929). In CW 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy. P. 161
Nothing in us ever remains quite uncontradicted, and consciousness can take up no position which will not call up, somewhere in the dark corners of the psyche, a negation or a compensatory effect, approval or resentment. This process of coming to terms with the Other in us is well worth while, because in this way we get to know aspects of our nature which we would not allow anybody else to show us and which we ourselves would never have admitted.
Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955) CW 14: P. 706
The "other" in us always seems alien and unacceptable; but if we let ourselves be aggrieved the feeling sinks in, and we are the richer for this little bit of self-knowledge.
"Psychological Aspects of the Kore" (1941). In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. P. 918
If we do not fashion for ourselves a picture of the world, we do not see ourselves either, who are the faithful reflections of that world. Only when mirrored in our picture of the world can we see ourselves in the round. Only in our creative acts do we step forth into the light and see ourselves whole and complete. Never shall we put any face on the world other than our own, and we have to do this precisely in order to find ourselves. For higher than science or art as an end in itself stands man, the creator of his instruments.
"Analytical Psychology and Weltanschauung" (1928). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.737