3.1.4 From monolithic 'self' to dynamics of multiple
identifications of self
In one of the 'Café Discussions' where I met
regularly with some friends for several months, we discussed the notion of
'ego' which popular literature on spirituality presents a some thing to get rid
of (February 98). I came with an idea that there is something useful in the
individual talents that the 'ego' affords us (Bouchon, 1997d), and with a view
of it as co-determining and co-determined by the surrounding society. This was
the effect of an intellectual deconstruction due partly to what I was learning
in social ecology about post-modernism (Gergen, 1991, Bouchon, 1997c). Having
to challenge all assumptions and theories was confusing for a time. At the
café, my ex-seminarist friend, somewhat of a philosopher, challenged us
all further, and we collectively came to the conclusion that the 'ego' was a
dynamic process rather than a fixed 'thing', one that was useful but limiting
if we did not see the larger context. It was plainly a construct of our mind,
and needed to be transcended, but had its usefulness in daily life.
Social ecology also gave me a new vocabulary for what
I used to call 'roles' and 'multiple facets' or 'aspects' of self.
Psychosynthesists calls them 'sub-personalities' within the personal self or
'ego', which can be 'synthesised' into an expanded form of self and
self-awareness, the High Self (Assagioli, 1965). The post-modernists see the
monolithic notion of 'one self' as a multiplicity of 'selves' with which we
identify alternatively, depending on the situation. Summarising different
psychologies, I mapped out the various notions of self in Figure
10.
Trans-: Archetypes
expressed in transpersonal
forms
Transpersonal
Self
Higher Unconscious
Conscious / Ego / Personality self
incl.
subpersonalities, gestalts...
Personality Un-/Sub-conscious: Shadow
Collective
Unconscious
Lower Unconscious, Id
Somewhere in all this is our 'core' or 'inner' sense of self,
unchanging
Pre-: Archetypes expressed in
pre-personal
forms
Figure 10: Our many selves: Various parts, forms and
definitions of 'self'
This figure is not Roberto
Assagioli's 'egg diagram' (Assagioli, 1993, p.26). It simply synthesises
various understandings
and models of psychology, to highlight approximate
equivalences. Our usual sense of 'I' is placed in the personality,
also
called 'ego' or 'conscious'. However, m y general understanding of the
terms of 'self' follows roughly the definitions given b y
Rowan (1993). The words are not defined, on purpose, to appeal to
intuitive understanding. "Consciousness' may mean Universal Consciousness or
Mind (not in the scope of m y study) or simply being conscious of self (the
sense I will use). I use 'awareness' not to mean 'conscious' but to refer to a
knowing, using perceptions (inner or outer) or not: it is 'being aware of'.
My experience suggests that the Transpersonal Self (or
'Higher Self', or 'High Self') may correspond to my growing idea of 'New
Paradigm mind'. I consider, at this stage, that higher creativity and 'direct
knowing' --intuition-- access the higher unconscious and collective
unconscious, but also make some kind of use of all dimensions of 'self'. Both
these activities of the mind are increased in New Paradigm 'Higher' mind to an
extent difficult to imagine for the conventional mind. I must distinguish my
'Higher mind' from what I believe Tibetans mean by the term 'Mind'. Their
expanded understanding includes what Westerners generally call 'mind' (the
intellect), includes higher thought power (my 'Higher mind' or 'New Paradigm
mind'), creative and intuitive (that is, their 'discriminatory mind'), and
includes what transpersonalists would call 'consciousness' or
Spirit.
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