1ª PARTE
"STRUCTURING
OF THE PERSONALITY"
CHAPTER IV
"DISGUISES OF THE PERSONALITY - MASKS AND IMPELLERS"
Objective: To verify that we are not authentic and to pass to notice that, to come out of that situation and to accept our reality, we need to free us of two internal attitudes:
- Of the need to project an image.
- Of the concern with the opinion of others, because we will never satisfy everybody.
Deep causes exist, objectives that take us to flee of our reality. What happens is the following: along the life, for the influence of the education, of the social environment, of the communications means, of the religious principles, we develop a series of faiths, a series of concepts, or better, prejudices, and we form a person image that would please the context. Then, all of the contents that are not adjusted to that determined conduct go being rejected, repressed and forgotten, in benefit of that image that we judge ideal. The person establishes a type of commitment with the society that surround her, of only to practice what is desirable to the eyes of the group and that translate the faiths and concepts that she absorbed.
The man starts to work as actor and creates resources that are truly of a theatrical representation, trying to convince him and the others that he is an individual that doesn't bring the unbalances that he considers undesirable. He puts that which YUNG called "PERSONA", Latin word that means mask.
Let us see, then, some of those masks, some of those mechanisms of disguises, some deviation of the reality and seek, honestly, to frame us inside of them.
1. Masks - detected by the Psychoanalysis:
a. Rationalization:
To justify the minima lapses as, for instance, to arrive late, to forget some thing etc. To always arrange an excuse to put us safe of any fault. To show how fort is that tendency, we have the example, removed from the medical matter, of the student that went to attend a lecture about hypnotism. Invited to participate in the experience, he went up to the stage taking his umbrella. During the process of hypnotism, it was suggested that it rained and he opened the umbrella. Awake, with the open umbrella in the hand, the hypnotizer asks: You with an open umbrella in closed room? To what the boy, immediately, without thinking, answers: It is that he is with a defect and I am seeing where it is the problem to order to repair.
Our defense is so big that, continually, we are reacting like this, without reflection.
b. Projection:
To project in other person actions and emotions that we want to hide. It is observed well in the traffic of S. Paulo. When there is any incident, it is always the other that is to be blamed. It is as the history of the grandchild that went to the Zoo with the Grandfather. Everything went well, until they approached the cage of the lion. The boy glues the Grandfather's hand and it pulls him saying: "Care, don't approximate very close that he bites you". Actually, it was him that was afraid, but he passes the impression that he wanted to protect the Grandfather. Another example is this of the housewife whose husband is a Major. To stop the youth's noise, instead of saying: "Stop that I want to sleep", she says: "Don't make noise because the Major wants to sleep." She is so good, it is not for her, but it is for the Major.
Another important point is to cogitate on the defects that we see in the other ones. A great percentage is projection. Or we have the defect in us, or we too much want to act as the other one is acting and we don't have the courage.
2. Impellers
The Analyze Transactional detected so many other deviations of our reality that she denominates of Impellers.
Analyze Transactional: Read Summary ... great for our self-knowledge.
Impellers are behaviors that we stereotype to hide flaws and to express attitudes to be approved by the environment and that confirm the conclusions that we came through our existence.
a. Be strong:
It comes accompanied of the idea - don't demonstrate emotions, don't let the others notice that you feel; don't feel. The masculine sex is already harmed by the ingrained prejudice "man doesn't cry", but the feminine sex is also bearer of this impeller. To show emotion is weakness. In general, these people become confident, because they are strong. But it is very stressful disguise, once their emotions are repressed.
OBSERVATION: Of course that I have to be strong before the life, but in a conscious way, with criterion and not in an obsessive way, as mask, only to show an image.
b. Be perfect:
The person never accepts that made a mistake. He uses too much the rationalization. They suffer when somebody calls his attention; unable to meditate on the validity of an observation. It comes accompanied of the idea "don't overcome me", in other words, nobody can know more than me. Usually, they are envious; they like to devastate the other ones so that they stand out. They don't hear the opinion of anybody; they always have the last word. It is very difficult to maintain dialogue. Perfectionists, besides that they martyr themselves, for they are never satisfied, it adds of the fact that are intolerant and they only come to see defect in the other ones.
OBSERVATION: Naturally that I should try to be perfect, but in a conscious way and not as a disguise.
c. Exert yourself more:
The person wants to show productivity. She wants to look like she has a lot of things to do. That nobody in the world works more than she. She begins several things at the same time and doesn't finish them. She is always saying, my obligations are too many, I cannot manage everything. Most of the time she puts down what has right period to be done, in order to make an effort in the previous day and look like overloaded. When she has commitment, she leaves late to arrive running. The bearers of this impeller bring prohibition for the leisure, to enjoy the life in the good sense. The largest punishment for that person is to be surprised without doing anything, maybe stretched out in an armchair. She will have an excuse, in other words, she will rationalize. They want to hear: you are too busy! I don't know how you can tolerate that!
OBSERVATION: Naturally that we have to make an effort, but...
d. Speed up yourself:
It can seem equal to the previous, but it is different. The other has a thousand things to do, this doesn't have anything properly but she wants to seem that has thousands. Fluster attitude, anxiety and anguish. She has two hours to arrive in some commitment and she already begins speeding up the people, even if it is to be waiting when arrives to the destiny; and becomes walking from here to there as if the service was late.
e. Please me:
Image of good, of solicitous, of helpful. He insists that people say: So-and-so is formidable! He agrees with everything. He never says not because he doesn't get to. With that, he goes on assuming and being overloaded. Inside, he can mutter, but he goes on assuming and carrying everybody - ascendants, descendants, collaterals, spouse, neighbors etc.
All those, are outlines that we assume for the others to form an ideal opinion of ourselves, inside of the concept that we elaborated. I stop being authentic to provoke impression. The extraordinary is that, in spite of being behaviors unconscious, they are absolutely coherent.
It happens, however, that our internal reality doesn't extinguish; our tendencies, our temperament, our instinctive pulses are suffocated only and they continue pressing. Therefore, that false exteriorization doesn't result in interior welfare, it doesn't satisfy. It creates a confused psychological situation. A great American psycho-sociologist, Dr. McDougall (1.871-1.938), therefore in the beginning of the century XIX, affirmed that the largest wear suffered by the man is the one of trying to be what he is not. It is one of the biggest, of the enormous "stress" causes.
We should analyze each one of these outlines and to frame us. If we don't get, we can suspect that is having some type of escape. All of us have a little bit of each one.
We distort our reactions because we give importance to the strange opinion, and we give importance to the strange opinion, because we are insecure and we need approval. We need to convince ourselves that, in our reactions, what imports is a position of justice before our conscience and not what the others think of my action. In no hypothesis we will please everybody. It is as the fable of the old, of the boy, and of the donkey that they went to sell in the city. If nobody used the donkey, to save him, the pedestrians commented on the stupidity of the two; if the boy mounted, the old was educating wrong, not infusing respect to the old ones; if the old mounted and the child pulled the donkey, the old was heartless and was creating a revolted ones. Finally, they decide to carry the donkey and, nevertheless, the slighting comments continued.
At this point, between parentheses, I would like to observe that these masks are one of the main causes of the matrimonial unhappiness. The engagement period is a sea of roses. The coexistence, however, provokes the fall of the masks and it brings the largest deception. It is very common to hear the spouses say: "It was not with that person that I got married. She was a creature kind, delicate, interesting, animated and creative, she let me act freely etc., etc....
Closed the parenthesis, I want to emphasize an interesting phenomenon. When the person notices the non validity of the appearance, of the impression that causes, when she takes off the masks and start facing her internal problem in order to modify it, it remains, always, a reality that, in essence, is the same for all. It begins having a larger connection with our Superior Conscience, that could be called our internal Christ and, invariably, the person turns to the spirituality. This is not a conclusion esoteric or theological; it is a conclusion of the science. Jung, that created the analytical psychology, speaks about the "individuation", that is the encounter of the basic reality to what he gave the name of Self and that is nothing else than our Superior Conscience. Rogers speaks about the self-realization and Maslow about the culminating experiences. All expressing the same idea: a balance that makes possible the person to come across with that imponderable part that each one of us brings inside of ourselves.
The first step of that road is the acceptance of our unbalances; try to catch you in the very act, in a sporting way, with sense of humor, jovially and try to free yourself of the opinion of others.
Before finishing, it is necessary to explain well the following: to be authentic is not to react inopportunely with what I feel. If I am with rage, for instance, I won't explode. I will detect my interior state, I will analyze the situation and I will address a fair reaction. When my authentic reactions disturb the harmony of the environment, I should control them and to address them, in a conscious way. The important is that I see my reality and stop hiding it, unconsciously, even of myself. After detecting my internal reactions, I neither need to approve them nor to express them.