“The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it.” — Carl Jung
The Ego is an internal structure staring out behind the mask of our outer Persona. It centers around “I”, it is a representation of the depths of our identity, ideas, principles, visions, judgements, defenses, actions — basically how we makes sense of the world lies in our ego. As Jung would say, “a complex of ideas which constitutes the center of my field of consciousness and appears to possess a high degree of continuity and identity”.
The Ego according to Jung constitutes of 4 vital ego functions in perceiving and interpreting reality;
2 Perceiving Functions — Sensation & Intuition
2 Judging Functions — Thinking & Feeling
We develop 1 of these 4 ego functions, and the rest at other stages in our lives. The first function having the more dominant impact on our cognition, the second more defined development in adolescence, the third accounts for mid-life crises and the fourth inferior function more apparent in dealing with the “stressor grip”. These functions are further broken down into attitude types of extraversion and introversion and thus in 8 psychological types;
- Extraverted sensation
- Introverted sensation
- Extraverted intuition
- Introverted intuition
- Extraverted thinking
- Introverted thinking
- Extraverted feeling
- Introverted feeling
These functions can be further merged in MBTI into different personality types but that’s a post for another day.
Influences of the Unconscious in the Ego
The main principal here to note is, the Ego is not the Self. To Jung the hierarchy of the psyche is as follow;
- Ego
- Personal Unconscious (Complexes) & Collective Unconscious (4 Archetypes of Persona, Self, Anima Animus & Shadow)
The Ego is conscious and may allow traits of the unconscious that influences one’s personality to be presented. The personality rooted in us resonate from deep within the unconscious. These are theoretical items of common references mapping out core patterns of emotions, memories, perceptions that is centered around a common theme, like success or power. These Complexes in the personal unconscious operate autonomously and may interfere with the will, triggering memories and affecting the conscious.
Certain complexes may cause psychological disturbances and mental disorders/neurosis, thus undermining the Ego. An example of this would be;
An individual may be born with a learning disability and despite overcoming it and achieving success in adulthood, they may form — thoughts, emotions, memories, feelings of bitterness and determinations centering on that one area of their life. If this concerns/plagues the individual, Jung would identify it as the individual has a complex about their learning disability.
In every and any case, each and everyone of us do have a complex in us.
The Importance of a Strong and Healthy Ego
“Sasha Fierce is the fun, more sensual, more aggressive, more outspoken side and more glamorous side that comes out when I’m working and when I’m on the stage.” — Beyonce
A healthy Ego will also be able to face any issues stemming from the Complexes in the unconscious. If the Persona is an outer layer that assists us in inserting ourselves into the social matrix, the Ego reigns over any hardships or trials and tribulations in our life.
This is not to be confuse with an over inflation of ego, over-identification with the ego or megalomania, therefore it is important to always reassess our Ego in each stages of our lives and built it to our benefit depending on which circumstances we are in life and what our priorities are. The Ego is NOT rigid and unchangeable, it can be altered and redefined to better serve us.
A healthy Ego will contain traits of;
- Confidence & Personal Power/Strength
- Take a learning approach to life
- Having Purpose & Goals to achieve
- Positive Affirmations & Mindset
- Resilience, Acceptance & Adaptive towards tough times
- Self-respect & Self-leadership/management
- Capacity to regulate difficult emotion
- Strength to display emotional intimacy
- Realistic expectations of self, others & life
- Healthy Boundaries
- Treat self & others as having inner resources to take ownership in solving own problems
An Unhealthy Ego would caused the individual to falter in circumstances of hardships and tough times.
It may cause them to fall into a mindset of and contain traits such as;
- Thoughts of Negativity & Inferiority
- Poor judgments
- Poor Self-image, Self-respect & Self-management
- Stuck in bad habits & addictive patterns
- Refusal expansion & development of self
- Poor regulations of Emotions
- Fearful of Emotional Intimacy
- Personalize remarks by others
- No/lack of boundaries between self & others
- Fighting &, or hating reality
- Reject or deny the necessity of facing fears &, or challenges
- Defense mechanism as an escapism
- Unrealistic expectations on self & others
- Cross-ownerships into others problems
If you struggle with such negative traits presented, don’t be discouraged. You are still able to slowly built into a healthy ego and look into the traits you believe would serve you well. When building your ego, form it from a place of realistic foundations and stages you can achieve so you can cultivate the self-confidence and ownership. Remember the ego is not solidified and restricted, it is flexible and can be constantly nurtured.
The reason this is an essential skill to be able to build and foster a healthy ego is, a grounded sense of personal power will promote better cooperation throughout the conscious and unconscious layers of the psyche.
This is also known as ego transcendence or following the path of individuation. The wisdom to integrate with the unconscious and understand that everything in life is interconnected. To understand that existence is not a fragmented reality but a vast dimension that transcends beyond you.
I will further explore ego transcendence in a future post.
The Dangers of Ego Over-Identification
Over identification of the Ego may results in traits of egoism, narcissism, superiority complex and in extreme cases megalomaniacs. Examples of megalomaniacs in history are;
- Adolf Hitler — Responsible for the Holocaust killings
- King Henry VIII — Ruled as a tyrant & murdered his wives gruesomely
- Alexander the Great — Pressured his followers & soldiers to perform “proskynesis” a ritual act of prostration reserved in Greek culture for the gods
and many other examples in the history books.
“An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.” — Carl Jung
Regulation of Ego to prevent Over-Identification
Therefore, it is vital to always regulate the ego and maintain awareness that the Ego is not the same as the Self which is the unified unconsciousness and consciousness of an individual. We can work on the path of individuation to the Self, to understand the role of the unconscious within our Ego.
Remember a healthy Ego will be in service of you and in tolerance & understanding towards others.
“Only by discovering alchemy have I clearly understood that the Unconscious is a process and that ego’s rapport with the Unconscious and its contents initiate an evolution, more precisely, a real metamorphosis of the psyche.” — Carl Jung
Thanks guys for reading and for supporting me in my articles. Much loves ISA VAUCLAIN.
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