An archetypal IMAGE of man’s fullest potential and the unity of
the personality as a whole. The self as a unifying principle within
the human psyche occupies the central position of authority in relation
to psychological life and, therefore, the destiny of the individual.
At times lung speaks of the self as initiatory of psychic life; at
other times he refers to its realisation as the goal. He stressed this
was an empirical concept and not a philosophical or theological
formulation but the similarity of his views and a religious hypothesis
have needed clarification. One cannot consider the concept of the
self apart from its similarity to a GOD-IMAGE and, consequently,
ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY has been confronted both by those who
welcome acceptance of it as an acknowledgment of man’s religious
nature and others, whether doctors, scientists or religious dogmatists,
who find such a psychological formulation unacceptable.
‘The self is not only the centre’, lung writes, ‘but also the whole
circumference which embraces both conscious and UNCONSCIOUS; it
is the centre of this totality, just as the EGO is the centre of the
conscious mind’ (CW 12, para. 444). In life, the self demands to be
recognised, integrated, realised; but there is no hope of incorporating
more than a fragment of such a vast totality within the limited range
of human CONSCIOUSNESS. Therefore, the relationship of ego to self
is a never-ending process. The process carries with it a danger of
inflation unless the EGO is both flexible and capable of setting individual
and conscious (as opposed to archetypal and unconscious)
boundaries. The life-long interaction of ego and self, involving an
ongoing process of ego-self referral, is expressed in the individuality
of a person’s life (see EGO-SELF AXIS; INDIVIDUATION).
Lest the self appear to be entirely benign, lung emphasised that it
should be likened to a daemon, a determining power without conscience;
ethical decisions are left to man (see MORALITY). Therefore,
in relation to interventions of the self, which may come by way of
DREAMS, for example, lung warned that a person must be aware,
insofar as possible, of what he decides and what he does. Then, if he
responds positively, he is not merely submissive to the ARCHETYPE nor
following his own whim; or, if he turns aside, he is conscious that
he may be destroying not just something of his own intervention but

an opportunity of indeterminate worth. The power of exercising such
discrimination is the function of consciousness.
Following lung conceptually, the self can be defined as an archetypal
urge to coordinate, relativise and mediate the tension of the
OPPOSITES. By way of the self, one is confronted with the polarity of
good and EVIL; human and divine (see SHADOW). Interaction requires
exercise of the maximum human freedom in face of life’s seemingly
inconsistent demands; the sole and final arbiter being the discovery
of MEANING. A person’s ability to integrate such an image without
priestly mediation has been questioned by the clergy, and theologians
have been critical of the inclusion of both positive and negative elements
in the God-image. But lung staunchly defended his position by
pointing out that Christian emphasis upon ‘the good’ alone had left
Western man estranged and divided within himself.
Symbols of the self often possess a numinosity (see NUMINOSUM)
and convey a sense of necessity which gives them transcendent priority
in psychic life. They carry the authority of a God-image and lung
felt there was no doubt that alchemists’ statements about the lapis,
considered psychologically, describe the archetype of the self (see
ALCHEMY). Although he claimed to have observed intent and purpose
in psychic manifestations of the self, he nevertheless eschewed making
any statement in regard to the ultimate source of that purpose
(see RELIGION).
lung’s theoretical work on the self has been extended and used as
a developmental concept (Fordham, 1969, 1976). See DEVELOPMENT.
A primary or original self is hypothesised as existing at the outset of
life. This primary self contains all the innate, archetypal potentials
that may be given expression by a person. In an appropriate environment,
these potentials commence a process of deintegration emerging
from the original unconscious integrate. They seek correspondences
in the outer world. The resultant ‘mating’ of an active infant’s
archetypal potential and the mother’s reactive responses is then reintegrated
to become an internalised object. The deintegrative/reintegrative
process continues throughout life.
In infancy, the degree of excitement created by deintegration
requires lengthy periods of reintegrative sleep. Gradually, ego
fragments present in the de integrates cohere to form the ego. The
primary self is said to have its own defensive organisation which
operates most markedly in situations when, from the infant’s point
of view, there has been an environmental lack. Such defences protect
the self, not only from a sense of outer attack and persecution, but
also from the fear of implosion generated by an uncontrollable level
of anger corresponding to unmet expectation, deprivation being experienced
as attack.

Like ego defences, defences of the self may be regarded as normal,
in Fordham’s view. But, if they persist or become over-determined,
a tendency toward omnipotence develops which leads to grandiosity
and rigidity; i.e. resulting in a narcissistic personality disorder (see
NARCISSISM). On the other hand, autism may result. In either case,
the individual is cut off from the satisfactions of relationship because
it is otherness itself which feels persecutory.
A second application of Jung’s thesis to development was advanced
by Neumann (1973, written in 1959-60). Neumann sees the mother
as carrying the image of the baby’s self in unconscious PROJECTION
or even functioning ‘as’ the baby’s self. Since in infancy the child
cannot experience the characteristics of an adult self, the mother
reflects or acts as ‘mirror’ of her child’s selfhood. The first conscious
experiences of the self derive from perceptions of her and interactions
with her. Extending Neumann’s thesis, the baby’s gradual separation
from his mother may be compared with the ego’s emergence from
the self and the image he develops of his relationship to his mother
forms the basis of his subsequent attitude toward the self and the
UNCONSCIOUS in general (see GREAT MOTHER; IMAGO).
It is clear that a conceptual difference exists among analytical
psychologists. Some tend to define the self as the original state of
organismic integration. Others see it as an image of a supraordinate
unifying principle. Both groups make use of Jung’s frequent references
to the individual personality as ’emerging from’ the archetypal
potentials contained within the self. Neumann’s work represents an
imagistic approach; Fordham’s provides a model.
(CW 9ii is devoted to the phenomenology of the self. For a comparison
of the views of Fordham and Neumann, see Samuels, 1985a.)