The Qualities and Functioning of the Ego (According to Carl Jung)

Key points from Carl Jung’s model of the ego to aid in understanding the self in its totality.

Whether you’re looking to dismantle the false or separate sense of self or simply yearning to understand the self in its totality, it’s vital you understand the ego and its functioning. Although the ego’s ultimate concern with the progression of an individual within society seems beneficial, this concern often manifests in ways that are more than detrimental.

With an over-obsessive tendency towards self-image and addiction to progression at any cost, the ego leaves one feeling depleted in energy and trapped within an endless cycle of clinging and aversion.

Again, the first step in escaping this matrix is understanding its creator, the ego. The following are takeaways from Carl Jung, the prominent Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and his tried and tested theory of the ego and its functioning.

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” — Carl Jung

• Unless an individual has unearthed the Truth of self-realization and lost the personal sense of self, the ego is that which sits at the very center of…