The Conflict Between Your Real and Ideal Selves

The concept of different selves is usually attributed to the humanistic perspective in psychology. The humanistic perspective in Psychology deals with our consciousness, values, as well as our abstract and non-abstract beliefs that we live and die for. It believes that our personality is shaped by our internal experiences such as our thoughts, feelings and more importantly, our sense of basic worth. Furthermore, it stresses that human nature is innately good (or at worst, neutral) with a positive drive towards self-fulfillment. Carl Rogers (1902-1987), was one of the founding figures of humanistic psychology who introduced this concept of different selves.

Rogers believed that our personality is specifically determined by our self-concept, an organised, fluid, conceptual pattern of concepts and values related to the self (Kelland, 2017). It is our perception of who we are based largely on how other people have described us and evaluated us.

When our self-concept is positive, we tend to be at peace with ourselves and lead a happy life. However, when our self-concept is negative, we tend to be unhappy and find ourselves developing neurotic behaviours. Rogers says our self has two aspects — real self and ideal self. The real self is what we are born with, the ideal self is the person we would like or aspire to be based on the conditions people place on us. He calls this conditional positive regard, a list of conditions that have to be met in order to be considered successful. The reason why we attempt to please these external conditions is as we believe our worth depends on whether or not we follow these conditions. Rogers emphasized that in order to attain congruence, that is to have our thoughts about our real and ideal self be closely aligned, it is essential to achieve consistency between these two selves. In the case where there is a strong dichotomy between our ideal self and our real self, we tend to experience a state of incongruence. This also means that our self-concept is no longer accurate and our real self is obscured as a result of our developmental experiences of socialization.

When we have an inaccurate self-concept, we try to close the gap between our real and ideal self to reduce the incongruence experienced. We evaluate experiences, and accept or reject them, not in terms of how they contribute to our real self, but in terms of whether they bring positive regard from others. Such incongruent and incompatible experiences can become threatening and affect our psychological adjustment and emotional health. This can lower our sense of worth and affect personal adequacy.

How do we then attempt to minimize the chances of experiencing such psychological disturbances? We have to surround ourselves in an environment where we can receive unconditional positive regard from those surrounding us. Unconditional positive regard can also be considered as unconditional love and acceptance. When we do not have conditions we have to meet in order to obtain people’s approval and love, our ideal self becomes much more aligned with our real self since it is not determined by others based on such external conditions. It will also help for us to actively seek out and discover what our real self actually is and not internalize any conditions of worth. This can help us feel worthy under all conditions and situations which might help reduce the chances of our self-concept being threatened in the future.

While seeking out our real self can be a long and excruciating process, it can also be one that is highly rewarding and meaningful. Let us continue to strive to improve ourselves while not losing ourselves in the process, our real self will thank us later in the future.

REFERENCES:

1. Kelland, M. (2017). Personality theory. Retrieved from https://www.oercommons.org/authoring/22859-personality-theory/15/view