…Although the ego-consciousness is at first identical with the persona
Two Essays on Analytical Psychology
It would be wrong to leave the matter as it stands without at the same time recognizing that there is, after all, something individual in the peculiar choice and delineation of the persona, and that despite the exclusive identity of the ego-consciousness with the persona the unconscious self, one’s real individuality, is always present and makes itself felt indirectly if not directly.
Although the ego-consciousness is at first identical with the persona—that compromise role in which we parade before the community—yet the unconscious self can never be repressed to the point of extinction.
Its influence is chiefly manifest in the special nature of the contrasting and compensating contents of the unconscious.
The purely personal attitude of the conscious mind evokes reactions on the part of the unconscious, and these, together with personal repressions, contain the seeds of individual development in the guise of collective fantasies.
Through the analysis of the personal unconscious, the conscious mind becomes suffused with collective material which brings with it the
elements of individuality.
I am well aware that this conclusion must be almost unintelligible to anyone not familiar with my views and technique, and particularly so to those who habitually regard the unconscious from the standpoint of Freudian theory.
But if the reader will recall my example of the philosophy student, he can form a rough idea of what I mean.
At the beginning of the treatment the patient was quite unconscious of the fact that her relation to her father was a fixation, and that she was therefore seeking a man like her father, whom she could then meet with her intellect.
This in itself would not have been a mistake if her intellect had not had that peculiarly protesting character such as is unfortunately often encountered in intellectual women.
Such an intellect is always trying to point out mistakes in others; it is pre-eminently critical, with a disagreeably personal undertone, yet it always wants to be considered objective.
This invariably makes a man bad-tempered, particularly if, as so often happens, the criticism touches on some weak spot which, in the interests of fruitful discussion, were better avoided.
But far from wishing the discussion to be fruitful, it is the unfortunate peculiarity of this feminine intellect to seek out a man’s weak spots, fasten on them, and exasperate him.
This is not usually a conscious aim, but rather has the unconscious purpose of forcing a man into a superior position and thus making him an object of admiration.
The man does not as a rule notice that he is having the role of the hero thrust upon him; he merely finds her taunts so odious that in future he will go a long way to avoid meeting the lady.
In the end the only man who can stand her is the one who gives in at the start, and therefore has nothing wonderful about him. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Para 247
Carl Jung’s Persona: Behind the Mask
Arthur Schopenhauer Studies in Pessimism
“One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.” Carl Gustav Jung
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Jung’s Map of the Soul : An Introduction by Murray Stein
The Persona
Jung begins his definition of the persona by making the point that many psychiatric and psychological studies have shown that the human personality is not simple but complex, that it can be shown to split and to fragment under certain conditions, and that there are many subpersonalities within the normal human psyche. However,
“It is at once evident that such a plurality of personalities can never appear in a normal individual.”
In public such an individual is all smiles, backslapping, gladhanding, extroverted, easygoing, happy-go-lucky, joking; at home, on the other hand, he is sour and grumpy, doesn’t talk to his kids, sulks and hides behind the newspaper, and can be verbally or otherwise abusive. Character is situational. The story of Jekyll and Hyde represents an extreme form of this.
Another novel with the same theme is The Picture of Dorian Gray, where the main character keeps a picture of himself in the attic. As he grows older, the portrait ages, revealing his true nature and character; yet he continues to go out in public without wrinkles — youthful, sophisticated, and cheerful.
Further, an attitude is “a combination of psychic factors or contents which will … determine action in this or that definite direction.” An attitude is a feature of character, therefore. The longer an attitude persists and the more frequently it is called upon to meet the demands of a milieu, the more habitual it becomes.
As behaviorism would express it, the more frequently a behavior or attitude is reinforced by the environment, the stronger and the more entrenched it becomes. People can be trained to develop specific attitudes to certain milieus and thus to respond in particular ways, reacting to signals or cues as they have been trained to do. Once an attitude has been fully developed, all that is required to activate behavior is the appropriate cue or trigger.
This was more true of men than of women in the Europe of Jung’s day. Men of Jung’s time and culture worked in one environment and lived domestically in another, and they had to respond to two distinctly different milieus, each of which provided a different set of cues.
“These two totally different environments demand two totally different attitudes, which, depending on the degree of the ego’s identification with the attitude of the moment, produce a duplication of character.”
My friend told me that he plays that role easily and well in the workplace, but when he watches TV in the privacy of his own home he has very different reactions. There he is ultraconservative. In the workplace he is a liberal and enlightened modern man. His ego is not, however, strongly identified with the attitude of that milieu. He has a functional persona: one that he puts on and takes off easily without identifying with it. My friend is very clear in his own mind that he does not identify with that workplace persona.
Frequently, however, the ego does identify with the persona. The psychological term identification points to the ego’s ability to absorb and unite with external objects, attitudes, and persons. This is a more or less unconscious process. One simply finds oneself unintentionally imitating another person. Perhaps one does not even notice it oneself, but other people see the mimicry. In principle, one can say that the ego is quite separate from the persona, but in actual life this is often not the case, because the ego tends to identify with the roles it plays in life.
The domestic character is, as a rule, molded by emotional demands and an easygoing acquiescence for the sake of comfort and convenience; whence it frequently happens that men who in public life are extremely energetic, spirited, obstinate, willful and ruthless appear good-natured, mild, compliant, even weak, when at home and in the bosom of the family. Which is the true character, the real personality ? This question is often impossible to answer.
The Two Sources of the Persona
Jung found two sources of the persona:
“In accordance with social conditions and requirements, the social character is oriented on the one hand by the expectations and demands of society, and on the other by the social aims and aspirations of the individual.”
The second source includes the individual’s social ambitions. In order for society to be able to influence one’s attitudes and behavior, one must want to belong to society. The ego must be motivated to accept the persona features and the roles that society requires and offers, or else they will simply be avoided. There will be no identification at all. An agreement must be struck between the individual and society in order for persona formation to take hold.
Otherwise the individual lives an isolated life on the margins of culture, forever a sort of uneasy adolescent in an adult world. This is different from the heroic rebel who goes his own way and ignores social norms. That is another kind of persona, and one that is offered by all societies and groups. There are many roles to play.
Generally speaking, the more prestigious the role, the stronger is the tendency to identify with it. People do not usually identify with lower-class persona roles like garbage collector or janitor, or even middleclass roles like manager or superintendent. If they do, they often do so humorously. These jobs have their own value and dignity but they do not imply roles to wear proudly in society, and the temptation to identify strongly with them is minimal.
Role identification is generally motivated by ambition and social aspiration. For example, a person who is elected to the United States Senate acquires a role with high collective value and enormous prestige. With it come fame, honor, and high social visibility, and the person who is a senator tends to fuse with this role, even to the extent of wishing to be treated by close friends with conspicuous respect. It has been reported that after John F. Kennedy’s election as president of the United States even his close family members called him Mr. President.
In Ingmar Bergman’s autobiographical film Fanny and Alexander, a little boy is sent to live with a horrible, abusive bishop who is emotionally remote and cold and deeply identified with a religious persona. In one scene of the film, the bishop is shown dreaming. In the dream, he is struggling to tear off a mask, which he cannot detach, and he ends up pulling his face off along with the mask.
The bishop’s ego is utterly fused with the bishop persona because that role has guaranteed his personal aspirations in life. A bishop is without doubt a highranking person in society. Similarly physicians, military men, and royalty are granted personas that attract strong identification. And yet the bishop, in his nightmare, tries to remove the mask from his face. Why ?
The relation between ego and persona is not simple because of the contradictory aims of these two functional complexes. The ego moves in a fundamental way toward separation and individuation, toward consolidating a position first of all outside of the unconscious, and then also somewhat outside of the family milieu.
There is in the ego a strong movement toward autonomy, toward an “I-ness” that can function independently. At the same time, another part of the ego, which is where the persona takes root, is moving in the opposite direction, toward relating and adapting to the object world.
These are two contrary tendencies within the ego — a need for separation and independence on the one hand, and a need for relationship and belonging on the other. The ego’s radical desire for separation/individuation is often rooted in the shadow because it is so threatening both to group life and to the individual’s well-being. Objectively, we all need other people in order to survive physically and psychologically.
The ego’s movement toward relationship and adaptation to the present milieu, which seeks to insure survival, provides the opportunity for the persona to take hold. And this then becomes a person’s self-presentation to the world.
This conflict in the ego between individuation/separation and social conformity generates a good deal of the ego’s basic anxiety.
How can one be free, unique, and individual while also being accepted and liked by others and accommodating to their needs and wishes ? Clearly a source of fundamental conflict exists between ego and persona development. By early adulthood, one hopes that sufficient development has taken place in both ego and persona so that the ego’s dual needs for independence and relationship are satisfied, while at the same time the persona has made a suitable enough adaptation so that the ego can live in the real world.
Famous geniuses like Wagner, Beethoven, and Picasso seem to be exceptions to this rule in that their gifts grant them license to be themselves as individuals to an extraordinary degree. They are forgiven their excesses because of what they offer the world in compensation.”
