EGO AND PSYCHE

Although Western psychology offers many varied theories about the nature of ego, self and psyche, there are several basic assumptions about ego and its relationship to the psyche that seem to be accepted by most of these theoretical systems. The most fundamental of these assumptions is that a process of identification with the external world, especially early caregivers, forms the ego. This gives the ego structure and a bond with family and culture that is critical for survival. A second common assumption is that the ego sits atop an inner world of unruly instincts and irrational energies that the ego must contain and organize.

In the western perspective a healthy ego is one that has achieved clear self definition (hopefully, based on the good use of analytical intelligence) and has learned to exercise sufficient self control to properly contain the irrational urgings of the unconscious. In the west personal growth and healing is all about the centrality of the ego, the importance of control, and the use of analytical competencies as the principal tool for dealing with oneself as well as the world. In this frame of reference the Ego is both real and the central organizing force within the psyche.

In my experience and in the transpersonal view in general the nature of the psyche and the Ego’s role within it is quite different from the standard western model of Ego and its relationship to the psyche. Although the development of an Ego is a natural, universal process, the form the Ego takes is an imaginary fabrication of the psyche. Psyche in my experience is a multidimensional field with no ultimate boundaries. Boundaries are created as a defensive response to what are perceived to be significant internal and external threats. Within this field of psyche, consciousness can become intensely focused into discrete ego states with self-awareness, a sense of personal history, a capacity for choice and a proclivity for self-identification. The rigidity and multiplicity of these Ego States tends to be proportionate to the degree of unresolved suffering an individual has had to tolerate. Within the psyche there can also be other less well defined concentrations of mental energy that are formed out of various combinations of elements of unintegrated personal history, strong dysphoric emotions, and unrecognized or disowned instinctual drives or needs. Most therapists experienced in the treatment of DID clients agree that all the Ego States as well all the other less well defined elements of the psyche must be integrated into a single, flexible sense of self. This healthy Ego no longer feels driven to gird itself with defensive boundaries and no longer needs to continue trying to hold at bay inner or outer realities that would challenge rigid self-definitions.

Ideally, a well integrated, healthy, strong Ego is on the one hand flexible, open and disinclined to constrain itself by limiting self-definitions or personal myths. On the other hand it has a highly developed capacity to deflect any attempts to box it in with externally imposed agendas or culturally driven assumptions about who or what I should or must be. This healthy Ego knows that it is merely the outer face of an inner depth that goes far beyond anything that words can possibly describe. An Ego at its best joyfully admits that ultimately it is impossible to know who or what it is.

The inner space of psyche has unlimited potential for expansion in much the same way as does the outer space of the cosmos. This inner space is constituted of what has been variously called Spirit, Light or Being whose essence is oneness, beauty, truth, joy and compassion. This is the common experience of many I know personally who have probed their inner lives in depth and the universal experience of mystics in every spiritual tradition.

An individual psyche may constellate this space in a variety of ways. It can be transparent to this inner vastness and let Light or Spirit shine through in a way that enhances and expresses the unique beauty of the person’s own inborn potential. Or a person may create hidden and/or closed off places within the inner world which impede the light and spur the ego into a reactive, defensive shell which greatly limits how much light can flow through and into the world. As the light is diminished, so is joy, meaning and vitality.

Most people’s ego is a self created construct made of a complex interwoven set of external identifications, fervently believed stories about “who I am,” scripts imbedded in childhood that are being lived out automatically and networks of defense mechanisms that protect the ego from emotions and awarenesses that might threaten its stability. “Control” is principal focus of this constricted ego.

A much more life-giving alternative to this constricted ego is an ego that reverences the sense of an internally grounded authentic self. This True Self is felt to be more real and important than all the ways the external world invites and often demands us to become. An ego committed to this perspective actively seeks internal and external truth knowing that this search, although difficult, will lead to fullness of life. “Surrender” to reality is the focus of this ego. Its hallmark is openness, freedom, spontaneity, transparency and light hearted good humor.

The constricted ego is a natural outcome of basic western assumptions about the nature of the psyche. It is exacerbated by less than adequate nurturance in childhood and often compounded by abuse. The second description of ego flows naturally from a transpersonal vision of personal reality that sees individual consciousness as merely a facet of a unitary, universal consciousness. In western culture this vision is usually attained only after much hard work and healing.

Authur Deikman M.D., a transpersonal psychiatrist, has developed an extended model of these two basic ways of knowing and being in the world. The first, centered in the belief that ego as the most important factor in the psyche, is invested in what Deikman calls Instrumental Consciousness. As Deikman describes it, instrumental consciousness is dedicated to individual survival through the manipulation of experience and reality. It evolved to gain food and defend against attack. It focuses on boundaries, difference, form and distinction. The second vision of ego with its emphasis on transparency to Spirit, flexibility and openness to connection internally and externally is inclined toward what Deikman calls Receptive Consciousness. Receptive consciousness is a way of being and knowing that gives priority to empathy, flow and merger. It allows connection to be experienced and creates altruistic bonds. It is the source of felt meaning and offers the possibility of the direct experience of reality.

The ego centered or egocentric view of the psyche, with its inevitable identification with instrumental consciousness can ask the big questions, but cannot hear the answers. It leads to meaninglessness, alienation, and fear of dying. In the instrumental context the self is a discrete object, more isolated than not, inclined to act upon or against whatever is perceived as “not me” rather than acknowledging itself to be an integral part of the rest of reality.

From the egocentric, instrumental perspective the environment is seen simply as something to be used or fashioned according to my intentions. Since I see my self as an object distinct from the environment I will be strongly inclined to choose whatever is in my individual best interest without much regard for the impact my choice might have on the rest of reality. Choices are made on the basis of “what is in it for me?”. Service and apparent altruistic behaviors are motivated by the desire for future reward or the fear of punishment mediated by an all knowing God.

A transpersonally oriented Ego with its proclivity toward receptive consciousness knows itself experientially in the present moment in a sensual, nonconceptual fashion. The intuition of self is diffuse and flowing. Self is felt to be the expression of larger life processes. This expansive sense of self motivates choices grounded in empathy. Service is generous and beneficial in intent. No reward beyond the joy of giving is sought. The self is freed from object goals and enlarged by connection. The principal intention of an ego grounded in receptive consciousness is to take in and grow in an expansive fashion. It facilitates allowing and merging.

In receptive consciousness I know the other by doing my best to “be” that other. This is most effectively accomplished through service which opens an intimate connection to the larger context and in varying degrees allows the knower to become the known.