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• Ideal Self Real Self And Actual Self
• Examples Of Ideal Self
• Ideal Self Vs Real Self
• Ideal Self And Actual Self

The real self is who we actually are. It is how we think, how we feel, look, and act. The real self can be seen by others, but because we have no way of truly knowing how others view us, the real self is our self-image.The ideal self, on the other hand, is how we want to be. The ideal self is created when our caregivers teach us that there is something wrong with our real self. It’s what develops when our immature emotional development is not encouraged, supported and treated with love and understanding, but is instead fed a healthy dose of shame. Current or actual view of self and the ideal view of self serves as an important gauge of self-esteem: the larger the gap, the lower one’s self-esteem, while the closer people are to their ideal the better off they should be. He considered that awareness of a gap between one’s current and ideal view of self often plays a major role. Carl Rogers believed that for a person to achieve self-actualization they must be in a state of congruence. This means that self-actualization occurs when a person’s “ ideal self ” (i.e., who they would like to be) is congruent with their actual behavior (self-image). The Real Self (howperson really is). And the Ideal Self (how person would like to be). In Rogers' triangle, the ideal serves as the base of the triangle which supportsthe two other more external elements of the self - the perceived and the real.This demonstrates that Rogers thinks that the ideal self is at the core in whichall else is built from.

Fundamentals of Self-Discrepancy Theory

Self-Discrepancy Theory is based on the notion that individuals experience psychological distress when a psychological distance exists between their actual and their ideal self. The theory was developed by Higgins in the 1980s.

Over the years many different facets of the self or self-images have been identified. One finds descriptions of two “actual” selves—the kind of person an individual believes he or she actually is and the kind of person an individual believes that others think he or she actually is. The “others” can be significant others or the generalized other.

The notion that people who hold conflicting or incompatible beliefs are likely to experience discomfort has had a long history in social psychology, for example, various early theories proposed a relation between discomfort and specific kinds of “inconsistency” among a person's beliefs. Self-discrepancy theory has close ties to this historical tradition. But its construction was based on the specific kinds of discomfort or emotional problems associated with particular types of belief incompatibility.

In addition to the actual selves, a variety of different potential selves have been identified. Markus and Nurius (1987), for example, distinguished between the “spiritual” self, which included one's own moral sensibility and conscience, and the “social” self, which included the self that is worthy of being approved by the highest social judge.

Rogers (1961) distinguished between what others believe a person should or ought to be (i.e., the normative standard) and a person's own belief about what he or she would “ideally” like to be. Elaborating on Freud's basic “superego”/“ego ideal” conceptions, some authors distinguished between the superego representing the moral conscience and the ideal self representing hopes and goals.

Cooley (1964) also described a social “ideal self” built up by imagining how a “better I” of aspiration would appear in the minds of persons we look up to. In his programmable theory of cognition and affect, Colby (1968) distinguished between “wish-beliefs” such as “I want to marry Tom”, and “value-beliefs”, such as “I ought to help my father”.

Although a variety of aspects of the self have been distinguished across different theories, there has been no systematic framework for revealing the interrelations among the different self-states. In an attempt to do so, self-discrepancy theory postulates two cognitive dimensions underlying the various self-state representations:

• Domains of the self and
• Standpoints on the self.

Domains of the Self

According to self-discrepancy theory, there are three basic domains of the self:

1. the actual self, which is the self-state representations of attributes someone (yourself or another person) believe you actually possess;
2. the ideal self, or the self-state representations of attributes you or others would like you, ideally, to possess (i.e., a representation of someone's hopes, aspirations, or wishes for you); and
3. the ought self, or the self-state representations of the attributes that you or others believe you should possess or ought to possess (i.e., a representation of someone's sense of your duty, obligations, or responsibilities).

A classic literary example of the difference between the ideal self and the ought self is the conflict between a hero's “personal wishes” and his or her “sense of duty.” A current real-world example is the conflict some women have between their own wishes to be successful professionals and some other persons' beliefs that they ought to be housewives and mothers.

Standpoints on the self

Self-discrepancy theory considers two basic standpoints on the self, which significantly impact on the domains of the self. According to Turner (1956) standpoint on the self is defined as a point of view that reflects a set of attitudes or values from which you can be judged.

The two standpoints on the self are:

1. your own personal standpoint, and
2. the standpoint of some significant other, e.g., mother, father, sibling, spouse, closest friend (A person can have self-state representations for each of a number of significant others).

Self-State Representations and Their Motivational Significance

Combining each of the domains of the self with each of the standpoints on the self yields six basic types of self-state representations:

• actual/own,
• actual/other,
• ideal/own,
• ideal/other,
• ought/own, and
• ought/other.

The first two self-state representations (particularly actual/own), i.e., your own and others’ beliefs about your “actual self” constitute the basis of your self-conceptOpens in new window.

The four remaining self-state representations (ideal/own, ideal/other, ought/own, ought/other) are self-directive standards or acquired “self-guides” that motivate and direct our behavior. As Higgins states, “Self-discrepancy theory postulates that we are motivated to reach a condition where our self-concept matches our personally relevant self guides.

Propositions supporting the self-discrepancy theory indicate that discrepancies between one’s actual and ideal self are better predictors of self-esteemOpens in new window (feelings of worth) than global self-conceptOpens in new window (how we define ourselves). In this view, affective reactions to self-evaluations that yield discrepancies between what we are and want to be are primary determinants of motivation to achieve our self-goals.

Types of Self-Discrepancies and Quality of Discomfort

In Higgins’s (1987) self-discrepancy theory, each type of discrepancy between aspects of the self reflects a particular type of negative psychological situation that, in turn, is associated with specific emotional or motivational problems.

When people believe that they have lost or will never obtain some desired goal, they feel sad or disappointed. When people believe that something terrible is going to happen they feel apprehensive or threatened.

More generally, there are two basic kinds of negative psychological situations that are associated with different kinds of emotional states, they are:

• the absence of positive outcomes (actual or expected), which is associated with dejection-related emotions (e.g., dissatisfaction, disappointment, sadness); and
• the presence of negative outcomes (actual or expected), which is associated with agitation-related emotions (e.g., fear, threat, edginess).

It has been understood for many years that psychological situations are a function of both the nature of external events and people's interpretations of those events, and that there are individual differences in how external events are interpreted.

Self-discrepancy theory proposes that individual differences in types of self-discrepancies are associated with differences in the specific types of negative psychological situations their possessors are likely to experience.

Just as your emotional response to your performance is not determined by the properties of the performance per se, but by its significance or meaning to you, self-discrepancy theory assumes that the motivational or emotional effects of your actual/own attributes, or self-concept, are determined by the significance to you of possessing such attributes. And the significance is assumed to depend on the relation between the self-concept and your self-guides, with different types of relations representing different types of negative psychological situations, as described next:

1. Actual/own versus ideal/own
   If a person possesses this discrepancy, the current state of his or her actual attributes, from the person's own standpoint, does not match the ideal state that he or she personally hopes or wishes to attain. This discrepancy then represents the general psychological situation of the absence of positive outcomes (i.e., nonobtainment of own hopes and desires), and thus the person is predicted to be vulnerable to dejection-related emotions.
   More specifically, the person is predicted to be vulnerable to disappointment and dissatisfaction because these emotions are associated with people believing that their personal hopes or wishes have been unfulfilled. Most psychological analyses of these emotions have described them as being associated with
   (a) the individual's own standpoint or agency and
   (b) a discrepancy from his or her hopes, desires, or ideals.
   The motivational nature of this discrepancy also suggests that it might be associated with frustration from unfulfilled desires.
2. Actual/own versus ideal/other
   If a person possesses this discrepancy, the current state of his or her actual attributes, from the person's own standpoint, does not match the ideal state that the person believes some significant other person hopes or wishes that he or she would attain.
   This discrepancy, then, again represents the general psychological situation of the absence of positive outcomes (i.e., nonobtainment of a significant other's hopes or wishes), and thus the person is again predicted to be vulnerable to dejection-related emotions.
   More specifically, because people who believe that they have failed to obtain some significant other's hopes or wishes are likely to believe that the significant other is disappointed and dissatisfied with them, self-discrepancy theory predicts that they will be vulnerable to shame, embarrassment, or feeling downcast, because these emotions are associated with people believing that they have lost standing or esteem in the opinion of others.
   Most psychological analyses of “shame” and related emotions have described them as being associated with
   (a) the standpoint or agency of one or more other people and
   (b) a discrepancy from achievement or status standards.
   The motivational nature of this discrepancy suggests that it might also be associated with concern over losing the affection or esteem of others.
3. Actual/own versus ought/other
   If a person possesses this discrepancy, the current state of his or her actual attributes, from the person's own standpoint, does not match the state that the person believes some significant other person considers to be his or her duty or obligation to attain. Because violation of prescribed duties and obligations is associated with sanctions (e.g., punishment), this discrepancy represents the general psychological situation of the presence of negative outcomes (i.e., expectation of punishment), and thus the person is predicted to be vulnerable to agitation-related emotions.
   More specifically, the person is predicted to be vulnerable to fear and feeling threatened, because these emotions occur when danger or harm is anticipated or impending.
   Most psychological analyses of these emotions have described them as associated with
   (a) external agents, in particular the standpoint or agency of one or more other people, and
   (b) a discrepancy from norms or moral standards.
   The motivational nature of this discrepancy suggests that it might also be associated with feelings of resentment (i.e., resentment of the anticipated pain to be inflicted by others).
4. Actual/own versus ought/own
   If a person possesses this discrepancy, the current state of his or her attributes, from the person's own standpoint, does not match the state that the person believes it is his or her duty or obligation to attain. This discrepancy, then, again represents the general psychological situation of the presence of negative outcomes (i.e., a readiness for self-punishment), and thus self-discrepancy theory predicts that the person is vulnerable to agitation-related emotions.
   More specifically, the person is predicted to be vulnerable to guilt, self-contempt, and uneasiness, because these feelings occur when people believe they have transgressed a personally accepted (i.e., legitimate) moral standard.
   Most psychological analyses of guilt have described it as associated with
   (a) a person's own standpoint or agency and
   (b) a discrepancy from his or her sense of morality or justice.
   The motivational nature of this discrepancy suggests that it may be associated with feelings of moral worthlessness or weakness.

Analyses of Psychological Discomforts

The distinction between shame and guilt suggested in this framework is that shame involves feeling that one has been lowered in the esteem of others because one has disappointed them by failing to accomplish their hopes and wishes for one, whereas guilt involves feeling that one has broken one's own rules concerning how one ought to conduct one's life.

The distinction between fear and guilt suggested here is that fear involves anticipating sanctions from others for having violated their rules, whereas guilt involves chastising oneself for having broken one's own rules of conduct.

Self-discrepancy theory does not assume that people possess only one or the other of these types of self-discrepancies. Particular individuals can possess none of them, all of them, or any combination of them. Thus, one can have no emotional vulnerability, only one (i.e., a pure case), or a number of different kinds of emotional vulnerabilities.

Moreover, even if a person possesses more than one type of self-discrepancy, and thus more than one kind of emotional vulnerability, the discrepancies are not necessarily equally active and equally likely to induce discomfort.

Although it is similar to the concept of cognitive dissonanceOpens in new window, self-discrepancy theory is novel because it is the first theory attempting to predict which type of emotions would result from discrepancies within the self.

True self (also known as real self, authentic self, original self and vulnerable self) and false self (also known as fake self, idealized self, superficial self and pseudo self) are psychological concepts, originally introduced into psychoanalysis in 1960 by Donald Winnicott.^[1] Winnicott used true self to describe a sense of self based on spontaneous authentic experience and a feeling of being alive, having a real self.^[2] The false self, by contrast, Winnicott saw as a defensive façade,^[1] which in extreme cases could leave its holders lacking spontaneity and feeling dead and empty, behind a mere appearance of being real.^[1]

The concepts are often used in connection with narcissism.

Characteristics[edit]

Winnicott saw the true self as rooted from early infancy in the experience of being alive, including blood pumping and lungs breathing – what Winnicott called simply being.^[3] Out of this, the baby creates the experience of a sense of reality, a sense that life is worth living. The baby's spontaneous, nonverbal gestures derive from that instinctual sense,^[4] and if responded to by the parents, become the basis for the continuing development of the true self.

However, when what Winnicott was careful to describe as good enough parenting – i.e., not necessarily perfect^[5] – was not in place, the infant's spontaneity was in danger of being encroached on by the need for compliance with the parents' wishes/expectations.^[6] The result for Winnicott could be the creation of what he called the false self, where 'Other people's expectations can become of overriding importance, overlaying or contradicting the original sense of self, the one connected to the very roots of one's being'.^[7] The danger he saw was that 'through this false self, the infant builds up a false set of relationships, and by means of introjections even attains a show of being real',^[8] while, in fact, merely concealing a barren emptiness behind an independent-seeming façade.^[9]

The danger was particularly acute where the baby had to provide attunement for the mother/parents, rather than vice versa, building up a sort of dissociated recognition of the object on an impersonal, not personal and spontaneous basis.^[10] But while such a pathological false self stifled the spontaneous gestures of the true self in favour of a lifeless imitation, Winnicott nevertheless considered it of vital importance in preventing something worse: the annihilating experience of the exploitation of the hidden true self itself.^[3]

Precursors[edit]

There was much in psychoanalytic theory on which Winnicott could draw for his concept of the false self. Helene Deutsch had described the 'as if' personalities, with their pseudo relationships substituting for real ones.^[11] Winnicott's analyst, Joan Riviere, had explored the concept of the narcissist's masquerade – superficial assent concealing a subtle hidden struggle for control.^[12]Freud's own late theory of the ego as the product of identifications^[13] came close to viewing it only as a false self;^[14] while Winnicott's true/false distinction has also been compared to Michael Balint's 'basic fault' and to Ronald Fairbairn's notion of the 'compromised ego'.^[15]

Erich Fromm, in his book The Fear of Freedom distinguished between original self and pseudo self – the inauthenticality of the latter being a way to escape the loneliness of freedom;^[16] while much earlier the existentialist like Kierkegaard had claimed that 'to will to be that self which one truly is, is indeed the opposite of despair' – the despair of choosing 'to be another than himself'.^[17]

Karen Horney, in her 1950 book, Neurosis and Human Growth, based her idea of 'true self' and 'false self' through the view of self-improvement, interpreting it as real self and ideal self, with the real self being what one currently is and the ideal self being what one could become.^[18] (See also Karen Horney § Theory of the self).

Later developments[edit]

The last half-century have seen Winnicott's ideas extended and applied in a variety of contexts, both in psychoanalysis and beyond.

Kohut[edit]

Kohut extended Winnicott's work in his investigation of narcissism,^[19] seeing narcissists as evolving a defensive armor around their damaged inner selves.^[20] He considered it less pathological to identify with the damaged remnants of the self, than to achieve coherence through identification with an external personality at the cost of one's own autonomous creativity.^[21]

Lowen[edit]

Alexander Lowen identified narcissists as having a true and a false, or superficial, self. The false self rests on the surface, as the self presented to the world. It stands in contrast to the true self, which resides behind the facade or image. This true self is the feeling self, but for the narcissist the feeling self must be hidden and denied. Since the superficial self represents submission and conformity, the inner or true self is rebellious and angry. This underlying rebellion and anger can never be fully suppressed since it is an expression of the life force in that person. But because of the denial, it cannot be expressed directly. Instead it shows up in the narcissist's acting out. And it can become a perverse force.^[22]

Masterson[edit]

James F. Masterson argued that all the personality disorders crucially involve the conflict between a person's two selves: the false self, which the very young child constructs to please the mother, and the true self. The psychotherapy of personality disorders is an attempt to put people back in touch with their real selves.^[23]

Symington[edit]

Symington developed Winnicott's contrast between true and false self to cover the sources of personal action, contrasting an autonomous and a discordant source of action – the latter drawn from the internalisation of external influences and pressures.^[24] Thus for example parental dreams of self-glorification by way of their child's achievements can be internalised as an alien discordant source of action.^[25] Symington stressed however the intentional element in the individual's abandoning the autonomous self in favour of a false self or narcissistic mask – something he considered Winnicott to have overlooked.^[26]

Vaknin[edit]

As part of what has been described as a personal mission by self-confessed narcissist and author Sam Vaknin to raise the profile of the condition.^[27] Vaknin has highlighted the role of the false self in narcissism. The false self replaces the narcissist's true self and is intended to shield him from hurt and narcissistic injury by self-imputing omnipotence. The narcissist pretends that his false self is real and demands that others affirm this confabulation, meanwhile keeping his real imperfect true self under wraps.^[28]

For Vaknin, the false self is by far more important to the narcissist than his dilapidated, dysfunctional true self; and in contrast to the psychoanalysts he does not believe in the ability to resuscitate it through therapy.^[29]

Ideal Self Real Self And Actual Self

Miller[edit]

Alice Miller cautiously warns that a child/patient may not have any formed true self, waiting behind the false self facade;^[30] and that as a result freeing the true self is not as simple as the Winnicottian image of the butterfly emerging from its cocoon.^[31] If a true self can be developed, however, she considered that the empty grandiosity of the false self could give way to a new sense of autonomous vitality.^[32]

Orbach: false bodies[edit]

Susie Orbach saw the false self as an overdevelopment (under parental pressure) of certain aspects of the self at the expense of other aspects – of the full potential of the self – producing thereby an abiding distrust of what emerges spontaneously from the individual himself or herself.^[33] Orbach went on to extend Winnicott's account of how environmental failure can lead to an inner splitting of mind and body,^[34] so as to cover the idea of the false body – falsified sense of one's own body.^[35] Orbach saw the female false body in particular as built upon identifications with others, at the cost of an inner sense of authenticity and reliability.^[36] Breaking up a monolithic but false body-sense in the process of therapy could allow for the emergence of a range of authentic (even if often painful) body feelings in the patient.^[37]

Jungian persona[edit]

Jungians have explored the overlap between Jung's concept of the persona and Winnicott's false self;^[38] but, while noting similarities, consider that only the most rigidly defensive persona approximates to the pathological status of the false self.^[39]

Stern's tripartite self[edit]

Daniel Stern considered Winnicott's sense of 'going on being' as constitutive of the core, pre-verbal self.^[40] He also explored how language could be used to reinforce a false sense of self, leaving the true self linguistically opaque and disavowed.^[41] He ended, however, by proposing a three-fold division of social, private, and of disavowed self.^[42]

Criticisms[edit]

Neville Symington criticised Winnicott for failing to integrate his false self insight with the theory of ego and id.^[43] Similarly, continental analysts like Jean-Bertrand Pontalis have made use of true/false self as a clinical distinction, while having reservations about its theoretical status.^[44]

The philosopher Michel Foucault took issue more broadly with the concept of a true self on the anti-essentialist grounds that the self was a construct – something one had to evolve through a process of subjectification, an aesthetics of self-formation, not something simply waiting to be uncovered:^[45] 'we have to create ourselves as a work of art'.^[46]

Literary examples[edit]

• Wuthering Heights has been interpreted in terms of the true self's struggle to break through the conventional overlay.^[47]
• In the novel, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, the heroine saw her outward personality as a mere ghost of a Semblance, behind which her true self hid ever more completely.^[48]
• Sylvia Plath's poetry has been interpreted in terms of the conflict of the true and false selves.^[49]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Examples Of Ideal Self

1. ^ ^abcWinnicott, D. W. (1960). 'Ego distortion in terms of true and false self'. The Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development. New York: International Universities Press, Inc: 140–57.
2. ^Salman Akhtar, Good Feelings (London 2009) p. 128
3. ^ ^abMary Jacobus, The Poetics of Psychoanalysis (Oxford 2005) p. 160
4. ^D. W. Winnicott, 'Ego Distortion in Terms of True and false self ', in The Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment (London 1965) p. 121
5. ^Simon Grolnick, The Work & Play of Winnicott (New Jersey: Aronson 1990) p. 44
6. ^Rosalind Minsky, Psychoanalysis and Gender (London 1996) p. 118
7. ^Winnicott, quoted in Josephine Klein, Our Need for Others (London 1994) p. 241
8. ^Winnicott, quoted in Josephine Klein, Our Need for Others (London 1994) p. 365
9. ^Rosalind Minsky, Psychoanalysis and Gender (London 1996) pp. 119–20
10. ^Adam Phillips, On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored (London 1994) pp. 30–31
11. ^Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (London 1946) p. 445
12. ^Mary Jacobus, The Poetics of Psychoanalysis: In the Wake of Klein (Oxford 2005) p. 37
13. ^Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection (London 1997) p. 128
14. ^Adam Phillips, Winnicott (Harvard 1988) p. 136
15. ^J. H. Padel, 'Freudianism: Later Developments', in Richard Gregory ed., The Oxford Companion to the Mind (Oxford 1987) p. 273
16. ^Erich Fromm (1942), The Fear of Freedom (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 2001) p. 175
17. ^Quoted in Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (1961) p. 110
18. ^Horney, Karen (1950). Neurosis and Human Growth. ISBN0-393-00135-0.
19. ^Eugene M. DeRobertis, Humanizing Child Development Theories (2008), p. 38
20. ^Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession (London 1988) p. 136
21. ^Heinz Kohut, How Does Analysis Cure? (London 1984), pp. 142, 167.
22. ^Lowen, Alexander. Narcissism: Denial of the true self. Simon & Schuster, 2004, 1984.
23. ^Dr. James Masterson, expert on personality disorders; at 84
24. ^Neville Symington, Narcissism: A New Theory (London 2003) pp. 36, 115
25. ^Polly Young-Eisandrath, Women and Desire (London 2000) pp. 112, 198
26. ^Neville Symington, Narcissism: A New Theory (London 2003) p. 104
27. ^Simon Crompton, All about Me: Loving a Narcissist (London 2007) p. 7
28. ^Vaknin S The Dual Role of the Narcissist's False Self
29. ^Samuel Vaknin/Lidija Rangelovska Malignant Self-Love (2003) pp. 187–88
30. ^Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child (2004) p. 21
31. ^Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession (London 1988) p. 135
32. ^Alice Miller, The Drama of Being a Child (2004) p. 45
33. ^Susie Orbach, Bodies (London 2009) p. 67
34. ^D. W. Winnicott, Winnicott on the Child (2002) p. 76
35. ^Susie Orbach, The Impossibility of Sex (Penguin 1999) pp. 48, 216
36. ^Susie Orbach, in Lawrence Spurling ed., Winnicott Studies (1995) p. 6
37. ^Susie Orbach, Bodies (London 2009) pp. 67–72
38. ^Mario Jacoby, Shame and the Origins of Self-Esteem (1996) pp. 59–60
39. ^Polly Young-Eisendrath/James Albert Hall, Jung's Self Psychology (1991) p. 29
40. ^Daniel Stern, The Interpersonal World of the Infant (1985) pp. 7, 93
41. ^Daniel Stern, The Interpersonal World of the Infant (1985) p. 227
42. ^Michael Jacobs, D. W. Winnicott (1995) p. 129
43. ^Neville Symington, Narcissism: A New Theory (London 2003) p. 97
44. ^V. R. Sherwood/C. P. Cohen, Psychotherapy of the Quiet Borderline Patient (1994) p. 50
45. ^Paul Rabinov ed., The Foucault Reader (1991) p. 362
46. ^Quoted in Jon Simons ed. Contemporary Critical Theorists (2006) p. 196
47. ^Barbara A Schapiro, Literature and the Relational Self (1995) p. 52
48. ^Hannah Green, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1967) pp. 104, 117
49. ^J. Kroll, Chapters in a Mythology (2007) pp. 182–84

Ideal Self Vs Real Self

Further reading[edit]

• D. W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality (London 1971)
• Jan Abram and Knud Hjulmand, The Language of Winnicott: A Dictionary of Winnicott's Use of Words (London 2007)
• Susie Orbach, 'Working with the False Body', in A. Erskine/D. Judd eds., The Imaginative Body (London 1993)

Ideal Self And Actual Self

External links[edit]

• The Wikiversity course Unmasking the True Self