You may think, which adult has no ego? After all, each of us says "I" all day. But what I want to tell you is that if you keep saying the word "I" and have a sense of "I", it doesn't mean that you have formed an abstract self.
I have been engaged in psychological counseling for so many years and have given hundreds of lectures. The total number of organizations that have invited me is far more than this. I often talk about the topics I am good at in these lectures, but most of the time (estimated at 90%) the topics that the inviter wants me to talk about most are stress and emotional management. In my opinion, stress and emotional problems may be the most disturbing psychological problems for human beings. Too many people have a deep understanding, and stress and emotions have caused great trouble to themselves and the people around them.
You must have observed that different people have different abilities to cope with stress and emotions. Some people are strong and flexible, and have strong coping ability; Some people easily collapse and fall into the mire of emotions. Moreover, people have shown consistency on this point.
Have you ever thought about how this difference is formed? Is there any reason? In fact, the most important reason is whether a person has formed an abstract self.
Let me give you an example. There is a lady among my guests. Her job is similar to that of a middleman, that is, buying products from Party B's factory and then selling them to Party A. This job brings her great pressure because she has to deal with the interests of Party A, Party B, her own company and herself at the same time, which is too complicated. When dealing with complicated relationships, she has a trick to be a "no-self" person. To put it simply, she is willing to give in, always putting the interests of others first, and the company trusts her.
In a simple binary relationship, her trick is the easiest to work, because sacrificing herself can make things much easier. However, if she is in a complex and diverse relationship, it is easy to be helpless. For example, the company's superior told her that she would seriously lower the price of Party B, which would immediately bring her great pressure, because she would easily give up on herself when facing Party B. Moreover, her "selflessness" style actually hides a kind of psychology: I have been so selfless, you have to admit that if you don't know, I will be very angry.
As we all know, anger is the key emotion in emotional management. People who are prone to over-expressing their anger will appear angry. However, if it is too difficult to express anger, you will turn around and squeeze yourself, easily become helpless, and you will feel a strong sense of shame because you are too weak.
My visitors feel the same way. Many times, what she shows is to give in and then digest the powerlessness, helplessness and shame caused by it. Occasionally, she will lose control, show strong anger and even hostility, and then business will be difficult. In short, it can be said that she has always been a straight man and won't beat around the bush. Everyone who has been with her for a long time knows this feature of her.
However, after a long period of psychological counseling, she found herself changed and became strategic.
One day, a manager of Party B's company told her angrily that unless you increase the purchase price substantially, a certain business will not be done. But my visitors know that this is impossible, and the price has risen to the point where both our company and Party A's company can't get by. But at the same time, this business also has its value, and both she and the company need to do this business.
In the past, she had only two reactions to this kind of thing, either to please or to push back, but this time she began to become different. Instead of falling into emotion immediately, she imagined herself as a bystander and looked at the manager from a distance. Then she immediately understood that the manager was just angry, and it was impossible for him not to do business. However, this fact can't be simply punctured, and she has to calm the manager's mood.
So, she said to the manager of Party B, you are very angry. I heard it, and I felt it. I'm sorry, then let's think about it and stop doing this business. But when she turned her head, she said to the manager of Party A, please continue to send the bill of lading to Party B. As a result, the business was done.
She felt that this was the first time in her life that she was so cunning. In fact, her mind has long known that she can use various strategies to cope with stress. In the past, when the pressure came up, her emotions would be aroused, and then her heart was full of emotions, and there was no room for thinking about these strategies. Now, her emotions are not satisfied with her, and she has more space and become much more flexible.
Hearing this, you must want to ask, how did this space come out?
Because, through her own efforts and long-term psychological counseling, she initially formed her abstract self. The ego in a specific sense is closely related to the specific will in the event, so there is not much room. The self in the abstract sense is like a container, which can accommodate its own will in specific events, so there is room.
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Although this is a case I met in consultation, I think it is not a single story, but a law.
Whether the self in the abstract sense is formed will lead to a serious difference between stress and emotional management.
Many philosophers will say that only life and death are important things. For example, Camus, an existentialist philosopher and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate [1] once said that there is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. However, life and death are everywhere. We have a physical life and a psychological life.
For example, people who are prone to collapse tend to cling to specific details. This is because they made their own will around this detail. Then, this will be an independent life. When the will is realized, it means that the will is alive; When the will fails, it means death.
This leads to a key question. Before the self-formation of abstract meaning, people will inevitably have such a logic: "I" is equivalent to any specific will issued by themselves.
Everyone is afraid of death, so if a person's psychology reaches this level, he will naturally be obsessed with details. It can be said that this level of self is a concrete self, not an abstract self.
On the contrary, a person with an abstract self will have another logic: every will is only a part of me, not me. Therefore, the life and death of any specific will is only the life and death of this specific will, not the life and death of "I".
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Kohut, the founder of American ego psychology, put forward the concept of "cohesive ego", which is a more accurate description of abstract ego.
Kohut said that the formation of cohesive self is a milestone in the process of spiritual development, and it is also the key to emotional endurance, because the stormy waves of emotions will only shake the cohesive self, but it will not easily lead to the disintegration of the self.
In the condensed self, there is a centripetal force that can unite the fragments of a person's mind. This centripetal force is based on my basic good feeling.
The core of cohesive self is vivid and flowing vitality, and it also has a shell, but this shell, like skin, is naturally connected with the flesh and blood of the soul, which is elastic and interactive. Therefore, when the outside world is under pressure, it is not easy to be overwhelmed, and it can fully interact with the outside world. If there is a serious situation, a person's ego is severely hit, the skin is torn and the core is traumatized. But because of the cohesion, the fragments of the mind can still be reorganized and reborn, and can be more mature and powerful.
So, how is the cohesive self formed?
To put it simply, you need to get a feeling: truly express your will and be sure that your will can basically be realized.
My will can basically be realized, which is a basic feeling of "I survived" in the abstract sense. After it is formed, a person is freed from the life and death of a specific will. We often say that existence is a bit mysterious. It would be much easier to understand if it was changed to "I survived". When this feeling appears, a person's anxiety will be relieved and he will become comfortable.
Therefore, whether a person has self is far from being as simple as stress and emotional management. It has more attractive parts. The expression of full-time author Jia Xingjia is very poetic. He said that in his observation, those who have self are like a revered "little god". They are not only comfortable, but also full of dignity and integrity.
My course is about the birth and development of the self, but the focus is on explaining the birth of the self. This course will not only tell you clearly about self-birth, but also bring some by-products: better manage stress and emotions, and at the same time become more comfortable, more dignified and more complete, just like a "little god."
Of course, it is not easy to really do this, but at least we can improve this part cognitively and have a preliminary experience. In addition, I believe that you have had a lot of experiences about the birth and development of yourself, so our courses will help you to deepen and understand this systematically.
In this course, I will use psychoanalysis theory about how children develop themselves in the ternary relationship with their parents. Most of the cases involved are clinical cases of my perennial psychological counseling. At the same time, this is also my personal growth experience, and I still face the problem of self-birth and development.
The ego in a specific sense is closely connected with its own specific will in the event, so there is not much room; The self in the abstract sense is like a container, which can accommodate its own will in specific events, so there is room.
Before the formation of self in the abstract sense, people will inevitably have such a logic: "I" is equivalent to any specific will issued by themselves. On the contrary, a person with an abstract self will have another logic: every will is only a part of me, not me.
But in life, our habitual thinking is that if he doesn't approve (criticize) what I do, he actually doesn't approve (criticize) me. So if I do something wrong, it means I'm wrong ... and so on.
I am me, and things are things; To deny what I have done is to deny, not to deny me at all … I am a big container, some of which I will make mistakes, some of which I will make mistakes … I can do many, many concrete things. I define many things, not those that define me.