ego

This aspect of Sol niger can show itself when consciousness becomes unconsciously critical. Alchemically, the heat is turned up too high, and the ego's skin is burnt, blackened, or tortured with stinging criticism, producing shame and threatening bodily integrity. Hillman describes a similar process of mortification-when the ego feels trapped or na

Does the ego require a dying process, as the themes of myth and alchemy suggest?

In the classical and developmental psychologies, the unity of the healthy ego is the essential structure of the psyche. The question of the dissolution of the ego or Self is almost always seen as regressive and detrimental, a fusion, or a return to the mother. Some analysts, however, have raised a different perspective, one that has challenged ego

Jungian analyst David Rosen's work Transforming Depression contributes to our understanding of such a death process. In that book Rosen coins the term "egocide" to describe the symbolic death necessary to the transformative process, a process in which the psyche is pushed beyond its defenses. He states that symbolic death "leads to a

The ego is a “subject” to whom psychic contents are “represented.” It is like a mirror. Moreover, a connection to the ego is the necessary condition for making anything conscious—a feeling, a thought, a perception, or a fantasy. The ego is a kind of mirror in which the psyche can see itself and can become aware.

Under those conditions, the ego is primarily concerned with predicting every outcome of every situation, because it is overfocused on the outer world and feels completely separated from the 99.99999 percent of reality. In fact, the more we define reality through our senses, the more this reality becomes our law.

As the psychologist James Hollis puts it, “Your ego prefers certainty to uncertainty, predictability over surprise, clarity over ambiguity.8 Your ego always wants to shroud over the barely audible murmurings of the heart.” The ego, says Lee Hardy, wants you to choose a job and a life that you can use as a magic wand to impress others.

The ego is like an overprotective mother in the extreme. Just as this hypervigilant mother will not let her child explore and have fun playing on the jungle gym for fear of getting hurt, your ego will not let you explore and have fun with life because of the perceived danger.