ego

Ego (the Latin word for “I”) is the unifying center of consciousness, the irreducible core of self-awareness—that which generates and sustains a sense of self, of personal identity. Our ego is not our thoughts, but that which thinks; not our judgments, but that which judges; not our feelings, but that which recognizes feelings; the ultimate witness

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

Jung has said that to be in a situation where there is no way out, or to be in a conflict where there is no solution, is the classical beginning of the process of individuation. It is meant to be a situation without solution: the unconscious wants the hopeless conflict in order to put ego-consciousness up against the wall, so that the man has to re

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

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.

dreams present a fresh perspective. The dream maker’s views can differ radically from our conscious mind’s opinions and values. Jung said dreams are “invariably seeking to express something that the ego does not know and does not understand.”

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.

We use the term “ego” to signify the inauthentic “I” or self (with a small “s”) that develops to survive in difficult environments and to become acceptable to the conventional world. We view ego as the result of many inevitable adaptations to forces that cannot tolerate the authentic expressions of the Self—helplessness in a small boy develops into

One 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 st