ego
The Ego is that part of the psyche that believes in material existence.
Steven Pressfield • The War of Art
Here Jung defines the ego as follows: “It forms, as it were, the centre of the field of consciousness; and, in so far as this comprises the empirical personality, the ego is the subject of all personal acts of consciousness.”2 Consciousness is a “field,” and what Jung calls the “empirical personality” here is our personality as we are aware of it
... See moreMurray Stein • Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction
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.
Murray Stein • Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction
we might regard ego from soul's perspective where ego becomes an instrument for day-to-day coping, nothing more grandiose than a trusty janitor of the planetary houses, a servant of soul-making.
James Hillman • The Essential James Hillman: A Blue Fire
In our waking life, the ego is like the sun—it illuminates everything but it also blocks out the stars.
Connie Zweig • Meeting the Shadow
The center of our conscious life is called ego. It has two concurrent characteristics: It is functional in that it is the strong grounded activating principle by which we make intellectual assessments and judgments, show feelings appropriately, and relate skillfully to other people. It can also be neurotic when it becomes attached, addicted,
... See moreDavid Richo • How to Be an Adult: A Handbook on Psychological and Spiritual Integration
Nearly every problem we face, whether it’s anxiety, conflict, addiction, insecurity, political division, or even the suffering passed down through generations, all comes from one mistake: we think we are the mind. We mistake the voice in our head for “me,” and then spend our entire lives defending, protecting, validating, and obeying it. The mind... See more
Damien Echolssubstack.comOne of the hardest things to do as a counselor or therapist is to get clients to separate their Egos from their emotions without at the same time repressing the emotions. There is a really good psychological exercise for doing this that can help; it’s called focusing, originated by Eugene Gendlin. We ask our clients, when they sense the onset of
... See moreRobert Moore • King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine
The ego, like consciousness, also transcends and outlasts the particular contents that occupy the room of consciousness at any particular moment. The ego is a focal point within consciousness, its most central and perhaps most permanent feature. Against the opinion of the East, Jung argues that without an ego, consciousness itself becomes
... See moreMurray Stein • Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction
“Against the opinion of the East, Jung argues that without an ego, consciousness itself becomes questionable.”