Throughout the history of psychology, formal and informal, mental health has been characterized in part by self-awareness.  Whether it came from the oracle in Delphi, or C.G. Jung, the message was the same, know thyself. Knowing oneself means having a clear understanding of one’s attributes, positive and negative. However, it is important that search for self knowledge is done within the constraints of safety. It’s hard for one to look into the depths of the self without the danger of losing the self in the details, especially when some of what is found within the closet of one’s personal experience is quite negative. The oracle should have said Know thyself but be careful of what you find for some things were kept hidden for a reason. Thus, a warning label should come with this advice. Of course the Oracle was high on earthly gases when she made her comments, so I have to forgive her for that.

When I say the healthy self has an uncanny sense of self awareness, I don’t mean that everyone should go out and start trying to understand the self without appropriate precautions. This is what differentiates my blog from self-help sources. The authors of these dime store psychology sources tell readers what to do without warning them of the consequences of actions. When one begins a self-investigation, one must be prepared for what is uncovered. For instance, if one did something extremely negative in the past, all of the emotion that was unconsciously dissociated from that action through repression returns to be re-lived as if the event from the past was occurring in the very present.

Re-experiencing events with full emotion is a good thing. It is what C.G. Jung referred to as the transcendent function. According to Jung, the psyche serves to balance the conscious and unconscious, keeping certain material outside of consciousness unless that material is needed to improve an individual’s adaptation to the environment. So long as that content is separated from consciousness, and this occurs through repression, it is disassociated from emotion. Some unconscious material though, should never (again) see the light of consciousness.  This material is relegated to the deepest dimension of the psyche, the collective unconscious. In the collective unconscious is found the archetypes, the primordial images that were once used to trigger behaviors when consciousness was in its most primitive state. This material is so foreign that when experienced it is experienced as coming from an outside source rather than from within the self. Thus, for instance, a person in need of help in a desperate situation may hear God speaking to him, or may see a vision of a dead relative. Jung believed that when collective unconscious content rears it self, it does so to very sick individuals, and is perhaps a last psychological resort when all other possible aides have failed.

Unlike the collective unconscious, the personal unconscious contains personal material that is either forgotten or repressed because it is not compatible with consciousness. One reason it may not be compatible is that this content is associated with negative emotion. Thus, when unconscious, it is dissociated from emotion. Unfortunately, our psyche is quite clever and never lets one forget negative experiences. With time these experiences like magnets attract similar experiences so that the latter trigger the same emotional responses as the original source (nuclear) experience. In time, these experiences constellate into what Jung called a complex. This complex with time can constellate so many diverse experiences that each one no matter how different from the nuclear experience sets off the same emotional response. The complex, though uncomfortable, is a key element of the transcendent function and is the real reason one should know the self. One goal of knowing one’s self is to rid the self of complexes, as complexes tend to usurp control; Jung said people don’t have complexes but complexes have us. Thus, for instance, a person scarred by a childhood experience of being unexpectedly and publically exposed may now fear revealing himself to romantic partners so much that he becomes a priest and takes a vow of celibacy.

Thus far I’ve discussed two dimensions of the psyche, the personal and the collective unconscious, both of which have their conceptual origins in Jungian psychology. The transcendent function is the function that is meant to align the psyche with reality. A health psyche is one that is aware to the extent necessary to deal with the constraints of its environment, and no more. Consciousness is the third dimension of the psyche and is awareness. With time, our psyches have evolved to the point where consciousness dominates functioning. Life has become conscious and there is little room for the unconscious, particularly the collective unconscious. At times, though, collective unconsciousness reemerges and directs behavior, such as when people believe they see images of the Virgin Mary in a cup of coffee, or when her statue appears to cry, or when UFOs appear mysteriously in the night sky. People tend to flock to such anomalies as if all the answers to life’s mysteries will be revealed by these strange occurrences, but that’s what the collective unconsciousness is all about. That notwithstanding, life today requires directed thought and consciousness is directed thought. Nevertheless, each psyche is filled with unconscious content and some of that unconscious content must gain the light of consciousness if the individual is to adapt well to the environment. In other words, individuals need to be self aware to a certain degree if they are to succeed in their environments.

The healthy self has an uncanny sense of self-awareness, a strange almost supernatural self awareness. It’s a bit unsettling to the rest of us that one can be so well adjusted to know the self well and do so without being bothered by what is known. This of course takes years to achieve and must be achieved with the help of a trained professional counselor or psychotherapist. Even Jung embarked on his own self journey and failed, losing himself in the depths of his psyche, in a somewhat acute schizophrenia. When one has a helper, though, the helper can manage self-awareness so that consciousness can assimilate the new – old content in slow progressive fashion. There is a reason some material is kept outside the light of consciousness. Thus, it is hard to assimilate by oneself. If it were not hard to assimilate, it would have been done so already; it’s just that simple.

Everyone should strive to attain the characteristics of the healthy self. However, these are characteristics of individuals already attaining healthy self status; they are not prescriptions of how one is to attain self health. Nevertheless, like all journeys, one needs a destination before seeking directions from the present position. Thus, an uncanny sense of self-awareness is where we should all strive to go, but the first step is to get the best directions and a good map. The psychotherapist is the best available map to help an individual provide the best directions to the self to get there. Like most rewards in life, this one takes a little help to achieve, but imagine the end…