Self

The individual self is the subject of successive states of consciousness, but although each individual has an acute awareness of self, it is difficult for him to determine exactly what he is aware of; some thoughts and acts are more self-relevant than others. It has been said that the true self can only be defined by what it is not, every denial "this is not I" more clearly highlighting what is.

Distinctions may be made between self and ego in many different ways, or they may be treated as equivalent. For example, self as known to the individual is known as the "me" or empirical ego (see Self-concept). As known, it is the "I" or pure ego.

To Jung, the self is the unity of the whole personality, the archetypal image of man's fullest potential; it is the centre of psychological life and also the whole circumference, the unifying principle, the totality comprised of conscious and unconscious elements; and as such extends beyond the ego both in scope and intensity, the ego being the centre of the conscious mind. Again, to Jung, the process of relating ego to self is unending, the self demanding realization but being beyond the range of human consciousness. Positive response to interventions of the self, rather than simple submission to or ignoring of the archetype, is the discriminatory function of consciousness. This definition of self as archetypal urge to deal with the tension of opposites makes it the means for confronting good and evil, human and divine, an interaction in which freedom of choice is exercised towards the inconsistent demands of life. Archetypal symbols have a numinous, transcendent, god-like quality.

Followers of Jung have extended the concept of self development to refer to the expression during life of innate, archetypal potential existing at the outset; the process implies [deintegration]

of emerging potentials and their [reintegration]

through reactive response and internalization of the response. Others see the mother's self acting as a mirror for the child, whose ego emerges with gradual separation from the mother and whose attitude to the self is therefore related to his relationship with his mother.

The Vedas refer to the true self or [Atman]

and the false self or [Ahamkara]

, the latter being identified with the ego-sense. In the individuation (or coming-to-be of the self), the true self emerges as the goal of the whole personality, and this is quite distinct from the coming of the ego into consciousness. In Buddhism, [anatma]

or not-self is described as man's true nature, nothing that can be referred to by the individual as "myself" being, in fact, the self.