PSYCHOLOGICAL SELF

LESSON 4 of MODULE 1 (The Self from Various Perspectives)

INTRODUCTION
• Psychology gives emphasis on how humans
think, feel, and behave.
• The concern of Psychology is everything that
concerns human beings from consciousness,
memory, reasoning, motivation, personality, mental
health, and other human experiences.
INTRODUCTION
• The so-called Science of Self rooted from various
psychological theories and principles and the self
has been used as an object of several psychological
constructs.
• Perhaps, it is important to explore some
psychological theories of the self to further
understand it.
• So, let's begin.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
• Realize the difference of real and ideal self through a
Self-Assessment Test for Congruence
• Discover the influences of various psychological
constructs of the self.
• Appreciate the one’ unconscious mind
ACTIVITY
• Please refer in the module for the instructions & put
your answers on the worksheet provided.
• Self Word Cloud/Wordle
• True and False Self
ANALYSIS
• Again refer in the module.
• Please make sure that you are done with your
activities since the questions are based from the
activities.
ABSTRACTION
 Conscious and Unconscious Mind
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”-
Carl Jung

• One of the famous and most influential thinkers of

Psychology is Sigmund Freud.
• The most important contribution of Freud was
psychoanalysis, which was based on the theory
that behavior is determined by powerful inner forces
where most of which are buried in the unconscious
mind.
 Conscious and Unconscious Mind
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”-
Carl Jung

• This work of Freud became the first to answer the

questions about the human psyche.
• Psyche means the totality of the human mind that
includes conscious and unconscious in psychology
(Watson, 2014, Otig, 2018).
• He distinguished 3 levels of the human psyche and
used Iceberg as an analogy to describe it.
Three Levels of Human Psyche
1. Conscious Mind-consists of all
the mental processes of which you
are aware of and this is seen in the
tip of the iceberg.
2. Preconscious Mind-contains
thought and feelings that you are
currently aware of, but can easily be
brought to consciousness (1924).
This would refer to our "memory".
3. Unconscious Mind- comprises
mental processes that are
inaccessible to consciousness but
influences your judgments, feelings,
or behavior (Wilson, 2002).
Three Parts of Human Psyche
• According to Mcleod (2019), Freud further
structured the human psyche into three parts:
1. Id is the primitive and instinctual part of the mind
that contains sexual and aggressive drives and
hidden memories
2. Ego is the realistic part
3. Superego that operates as moral conscience
Two Systems of Superego
• Further the superego consists of two systems
namely: the conscience and the ideal self.
1. The conscience gives the guilt feelings to punish
the ego. For example, if the ego gives in to the id's
demands, the superego may make the person feel
bad through guilt.

2. The ideal self (or ego-ideal) is an imaginary picture

of how you ought to be, and represents career
aspirations, how to treat other people, and how to
behave as a member of society.
 Theory of the Self
Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with
which comes the inner voice which says, 'this is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow
it.
― William James
• William James is known as the father of American
Psychology and wrote the famous “The Principles of
Psychology”, a book that was considered as one of
the most important and influential in the history of
Psychology.
• In his theory of the self, he proposed that the self
has two elements: I-self and Me-self.
Theory of the Self
• The I-self is what he called the subjective self or
pure ego.
• This is part of the self that knows who you are and what you
have done in your life.
• This is further characterized as initiator of your actions, has
sense of identity (aware of being unique from others),
continuity ('I am the same self that I was yesterday,') and
awareness (aware of what is going on in the environment).
•
Theory of the Self
• The ME-self is the objective or empirical self, thus it
can be thought of as a separate object or individual
a person refers to when describing their personal
experiences.
• James conceptualized three different but interrelated aspects
of the Me self: the material self (all those aspects of material
existence in which we feel a strong sense of ownership, our
bodies, our families, our possessions), the social self (our
felt social relations), and the spiritual self (our feelings of our
own subjectivity).
 Real and Ideal Self
"The organism has one basic tendency and striving - to actualize, maintain, and enhance the
experiencing organism”-Carl Rogers

• Carl Rogers was a psychologist and one of the

pioneers of humanistic approach to psychology.
• He believed that human is motivated to fulfill one’s
potential and achieve the highest level of being-
ness, which he coined “actualizing tendency.”
• Also, he further divided the self into two categories:
the ideal self and the real self.
Real and Ideal Self
• The ideal self is the person that you would like
yourself to be; it is your concept of the” best me”
who is worthy of admiration.
• The real self is the person you actually are. It is how
you behave right at the moment of a situation. It is
who you are in reality-how you think, feel, or act at
present.
Real and Ideal Self
• For a person to achieve self-actualization, the
individual’s ideal and real self must be in a state of
congruence.
• This would mean that a person’s “ideal self” (who
yourself would like to be) is congruent with your
actual behaviour/real self (self-image), only then
you become a fully functioning person.
Real and Ideal Self
Real and Ideal Self
• For Rogers (1959), how you want feel, experience
and behave that is consistent with your self-image
is also a reflection of what you would like to be,
your ideal self.
• The closer your self-image and ideal self, the more
congruent you are, and the higher your sense of
self-worth.
Real and Ideal Self

• A person is said to be in a
state of incongruence if
some of the totality of
their experience is
unacceptable to them and
is denied or distorted in
the self-image.
Real and Ideal Self
• As we prefer to see ourselves in ways that are
consistent with our self-image, we may use defense
mechanisms like denial or repression in order to feel
less threatened by some of what we consider to be
our undesirable feelings.
• A person whose self-concept is incongruent with her
or his real feelings and experiences will defend
because the truth hurts (Mcleod, 2014).

• You want to know how congruent your own real and ideal self?
Take the Self-Assessment Test for Congruence and find out.
Please refer in your module
 True and False Self
Feeling real is more than existing; it is finding a way to exist as oneself. -Donald
Woods Winnicott
• To attain self-actualization one should be align with
the actual self or real or true self, as proposed by
Carl Rogers in the previous topic.
• But what is true and authentic self?
• How can you connect to such self?
• Dr. Donald Winnicott a British psychoanalyst and
prominent paediatrician proposed the theory of true
and false self in his paper in 1960.
• He asserted that a person has two selves the true
self and false self.
True and False Self
• The True Self refers to a sense of self; who you
really are; and the one who experience/feeling the
moment of being alive.
• The False self is the protective shield the
vulnerable true self. Its behaviors are leant and
controlled by the environment that surrounds you.
True and False Self
• But how did you develop the false self?
• According to Winnicott, developing false self starts
when you are a baby and highlighting the
importance of the “mother” as your primary
caretakers.
• As a baby, you cry, laugh and react to things
spontaneously and genuinely; you are simply being
you. However, as a baby you are being controlled to
be yourself by your mother or caretaker.
True and False Self
• Then, you start to feel that your need and desires
are unacceptable, thus, you now learn to be
“compliant,” to modify and adjust your impulses and
behavior, hiding your true self and start to construct
the false self.
True and False Self
• This theory would suggest that the sense of self
fosters within your earliest relationships with
parents or caretakers and family.
• And you will continue to adapt based on your
relationships as you grow and reach adulthood.
• But where you start is a crucial step in how you
move forward.
True and False Self
• For Winnicott, one can live successfully even with
really active false selves but you live deep inside
feeling unsatisfied. The more you act according to
your false self, the less authentic you become,
resulting to feeling empty that at times you have no
idea why you feel this way.
APPLICATION
• Please again refer in the module.
• Write your answers in the worksheets which will be
also sent to you.
• Deadlines again ideally will be next week but again
we will give consideration. No worries
Congratulations!

End of Module 1

Remember: A little
progress each day adds up
to big results
-Satya Nani