scholarly journals Identity, transcendence and the true self: Insights from psychology and contemplative spirituality

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carter Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Carl Jung ◽  
True Self ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
False Self ◽  
Holistic Thinking ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Spiritual Transcendence ◽  
Viktor Frankl ◽  
Thomas Merton ◽  
Contemplative Spirituality

This article investigates the intersection of psychology and spirituality as seen through the works of Thomas Merton, Carl Jung, Fritz Kunkel and Viktor Frankl. The themes of spirituality contextualised in human identity, psychological and spiritual transcendence, and the true self versus false self metaphor are traced through the works of all four thinkers. Epistemological flexibility and holistic thinking and being are suggested as methods for transforming interdisciplinary practitioners, such as pastoral counsellors, spiritual directors and spiritually oriented psychotherapists, in order that they can offer care in a less bifurcated and more integrated way. Practical applications, including a vignette and specific recommendations for broadening and deepening personal and professional integrative practice, are offered.

Ancient Concepts of Personal Identity

2009 ◽  
pp. 259-270
Author(s):  
Christopher Gill
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
True Self ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
The City

The burgeoning science of human nature recognized the implications for human identity. In the later fifth or early fourth centuries BCE philosophers started to develop a systematically dualistic account of human beings as composites of body and soul. In this view, the body is something that embeds the person in a particular community, and the soul is the true ‘self’, the locus of desires and beliefs which those communities could shape. This article suggests that personal identity is for these thinkers social identity, and it is no coincidence that Plato's utopian designs for a polis in the Republic are largely structured around rethinking the educational curriculum, or, conversely, that Protagoras assigns the central role in moral education to the city as a whole.

scholarly journals KEINDAHAN SEBAGAI ELEMEN SPIRITUAL PERSPEKTIF ISLAM TRADISIONAL

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andi Herawati
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Journey ◽  
True Self ◽  
False Self ◽  
Human Need ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Traditional Islam ◽  
The Way

Beauty for most part eventually seen as the science of form, more than that is of the essential part of human living and the way we look at it by the time become more discern as it invites the philosophical vibration. It becomes a consiousness through the questions about the creation of the cosmos and meditation upon the Almighty. Whether aware or not, human need beauty through out their living, at the same time is a spiritual journey. Beauty in Traditional Islam is also able to ascending human, create the the awareness of plurality, and at the last it aso to born out the sense of the Sacred manifested thorugh the form of art, culture, calligraphy, and the whole cosmos. At last, beauty has its role in spiritual journey through self emptiness, from the false self to the true self.

scholarly journals Thomas Merton: The true self and the quest for justice

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Rakoczy
Keyword(s):  
100Th Anniversary ◽  
True Self ◽  
Social Critic ◽  
The World ◽  
Thomas Merton ◽  
The Way

The year 2015 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Merton who was born on31 January 1915. His writings cover diverse themes, which are of value to a myriad of faithtraditions. This article will trace his understanding of holiness and the way in which Mertonemphasised participation in the transformation of the world. It commences with a biographicaloverview of Merton and then Merton’s understanding of ‘holiness’ as growth of the ‘true self’in God is discussed. His work as social critic is outlined and the article ends with a reflectionof Merton’s understanding of ‘love’ and ‘compassion’ – a life before God.

The Frankl Cure for the 21st Century: Why Self-Transcendence is the Key to Mental Health and Flourishing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
paul T P Wong
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Mental Health Crisis ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
True Self ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Viktor Frankl ◽  
Letting Go ◽  
Self Transcendence

Viktor Frankl has the best answer to the mental health crisis during COVID-19, and we ignore him at our own peril. His dialectical and paradoxical self-transcendence (ST) model emphasizes that we can find our true self only by letting go of the old one. He defines meaning in terms of ST and propose that meaning is the key to mental health and flourishing. My remembrance of Frankl revolves on his three aspects of ST: (1) ST is an awe-inspiring way of life, (2) ST is at the heart of therapies, and (3) ST represents a new paradigm for wellbeing research.

The development of multiple role-related selves during adolescence

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 835-853 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSAN HARTER ◽  
SHELLEY BRESNICK ◽  
HEATHER A. BOUCHEY ◽  
NANCY R. WHITESELL
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Perceived Support ◽  
Narrative Construction ◽  
True Self ◽  
Gender Orientation ◽  
False Self ◽  
Feminine Gender ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relational Contexts

The organization of the adolescent self-portrait is discussed within a framework that focuses on the construction of multiple self-representations across different relational contexts. Contradictions between self-attributes in different contexts create conflict, beginning in midadolescence when cognitive-developmental structures allow one to detect but not resolve opposing attributes. Conflict is greater across roles than within roles. Moreover, for certain roles (e.g., self with mother vs. self with father) conflict is higher. Females, particularly those with a feminine gender orientation, report greater conflict involving attributes in more public contexts. Opposing self-attributes also raise concerns for adolescents about which attributes reflect true versus false self-behaviors. Conflict is more frequent for opposing attributes that pit true against false self-characteristics. False self-behavior is associated with liabilities including devaluation of false self-attributes, low self-esteem, and depressive reactions. Perceived support across relational contexts is highly predictive of favorable evaluations of attributes, high self-esteem, and true self-behavior within corresponding contexts. Strategies for resolving potential contradictions in self-attributes would appear to emerge as one moves into late adolescence and adulthood, when multiple self-representations are perceived as both appropriate and desirable, and the individual can achieve some degree of integration through higher level abstractions and the narrative construction of his or her life story.

Chaos

2016 ◽  
pp. 153-156
Author(s):  
Donald W. Winnicott
Keyword(s):  
Normal Function ◽  
The Self ◽  
True Self ◽  
External Reality ◽  
False Self ◽  
The Creation

In this chapter, Winnicott explores the concept of chaos, with reference to the internal world, preferring to think of it as un-integration. The defensive states that may follow may also be protected by enabling sufficient capacity for illusion in the growing self, but, if this is not the case, splitting within the self—a normal function—can become excessive. This leads to the disruption of the true self with its capacity for spontaneity and the creation of a false self with overcompliance to external reality. The states of disintegration, dissociation, and repression are defined.

Comments on Joseph Sandler’s ‘On the Concept of the Superego’

2016 ◽  
pp. 127-134
Author(s):  
Donald W. Winnicott
Keyword(s):  
Oedipus Complex ◽  
British Society ◽  
True Self ◽  
Stages Of Development ◽  
False Self ◽  
Parental Figures ◽  
Psychic Reality

Winnicott’s comments on a paper given to the British Society by Joseph Sandler entitled ‘On the Concept of the Superego’. For Winnicott, Sandler’s work, though relevant to the Freudian concept of the super ego, does not address dreams, psychic reality and fantasy sufficiently. He refers to the importance of Klein’s work, but also to his own paper, ‘Mind in Relation to the Psyche Soma’ and to his concepts of the True self and False self. For Winnicott, the period before the establishment of the superego at the oedipal stage must be considered first. Here there is little autonomy of the early self and thus little capacity to internalise the parental figures and establish the super ego. Winnicott criticizes Sandler for not fully addressing and defining these matters of the very early pre-superego stages of development but agrees that, in health, the classical superego, belonging to the passing of the Oedipus complex, can be observed.

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