ego
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
... See moreRobert Moore • King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine
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.
David Brooks • The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life
Our ego spends so much energy creating a fragmented identity—constantly categorizing, dividing, and keeping us trapped in dualistic thinking. Jung called this “directed thinking” (CW 7, para. 483), where the mind separates everything into binaries: self and other, good and bad, light and dark. This way of seeing the world reinforces our sense of... See more
Jennifer Leela • Carl Jung’s Path to Spiritual Awakening: A Journey Toward Wholeness
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.
Russell Kennedy • Anxiety Rx: A New Prescription for Anxiety Relief from the Doctor Who Created It
The Ego is that part of the psyche that believes in material existence.
Steven Pressfield • The War of Art
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.”
Joseph Lee LCSW • Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams
After formulating the second phase of the transcendent function, the bringing together of the opposites for the production of the third (the first being the emergence of the unconscious material), Jung adds another critical component. Though it may seem somewhat counterintuitive given the importance of the unconscious in Jung’s psychology, he
... See moreJoan Chodorow • The Transcendent Function
In Buddhism, what’s annihilated is not you but the deeply ingrained illusion that there’s a solid, independent, permanent “ego” at the center of experience. What’s discovered on the other side of that illusion isn’t nothingness, but a far more intimate, responsive, and alive way of being.
The Death of Ego and the Persistence of Self
Whereas the ego weaves together the world, the shadow unravels the world. Whereas the ego acts as a catalyst of creation in the world, the shadow acts as a catalyst of destruction. Whereas the ego supports the status quo, the shadow is an agent of transformation.