“Who even am I, any more?” It’s an important question to have a sense of, and not a pleasant one to find yourself asking.
A coherent, meaningful sense of self is vital to mental well-being. Yet, this ‘self’ is a dynamic thing, changing every day. It’s in constant dialogue with your own history, current goals, future plans, and the world you live in. The way you feel about a central aspect of your life, such as your career path or intimate relationship, can change overnight. And, you don’t quite recognise yourself as a result. Equally, you may live with a piece of yourself hidden. Perhaps an aspect of sexuality that feels too shameful to admit. A desire to change to a simpler form of life. Uncertainty of what professional life is doing to your values.
Identity conflicts are inevitably common, and we may experience more than one of them across the lifespan. Psychological therapy then becomes a helpful place to turn. This brief piece considers some different ideas that may help when working with identity.
A common issue in identity conflicts – The weight of our un-lived lives
The baldness of the subheading here may in itself be unsettling. ‘Existential guilt’ is the idea that, at times, we suffer guilt from what is excluded by difficult choices. Choose a path and live with the consequences, come what may. Regrets, shame, guilt about ‘mistakes’ rear their head, sometimes half a life later. These consume, eat away at any chance of joy or peace in the present. ‘I am not where I should be…’ ‘If only I had…’ There may be a need for some grieving, and also finding some acceptance, however hard it may be to get to.
If you’re interested in psychology and mental health, you might have heard of Jung’s idea of the golden shadow. It’s a metaphor for (among other things) disavowed or unrealised strengths. For example, perhaps I have disowned my own capacity for aggression. It’s something that may have been undesirable to others at one time in life. But, welcoming back a healthy degree of it may be a useful part of myself. It might round out my identity, bring a little more motivation into my engagement with the world.
There is the one life we are living, and the many lives we could be. Therapeutic work to tease this out can be life-changing.
Competing psychological ways to understand the ‘self’
Humanistic psychology understands personal growth and change as vital. A good, meaningful life comes from both belonging and being freed up to reach for our inherent potential. Identity conflicts may arise in relation to our need for belonging, as we pull ourselves out of shape just to fit in. Similarly, undervaluing ourselves will block our potential. Another is the narrative view — identity is shaped by the stories we tell about our lives. We must therefore re-examine and re-tell our personal story, to resolve conflict, or even make room for the conflict itself. Within this view, it is through stories that humans find real life meaning.
These are (just some of the many) different ways of thinking and talking that we can make use of in working with identity. Self-esteem, belonging, personal potential, internal conflict, your self-story, values and attitude to life… identity conflict can lie within any of these domains. Whatever way(s) of thinking generate meaningful insight, we can draw on as we need to.
The therapist’s role in working with identity
Where am I, the therapist, in all of this? As a pluralistic therapist, I am not stuck on, or committed to one particular view of the self. Rather, I accept that different ways to ‘cut’ the self for the purposes of being analytic will be useful for different people. I am likely to respond to your difficulties by paying attention to what is emerging from your story, and offer a model to work with that helps you reach reflective depth. If storytelling and literature makes sense to you, helps you understand the world, then working in a narrative way is likely to be helpful to you.
It could also be that you would benefit from a contrasting model, to help you see the problems in a new way. Often, therapy provides a change in perspective, freeing you from those repetitive thoughts that first drove you to seek support. Sometimes, I may also serve as an emotional sensor, to help you locate the emotional truth of the conflict. Regardless of whether it’s me or another that you work with, your therapist should serve as a unique human presence. Their role is to be there to provide constructive, non-judgemental, supportive guidance, be with you, reliably, while you navigate deep uncertainty.
In closing
I personally understand a pluralistic approach to working with identity to be helpful. Its inherent openness leaves room for you to come into your own depths.
But, I have not said enough about what you bring, which also matters in pluralistic therapy. You’re a person with your own power, your own reality, a life of accrued experiences and resources. Whatever speak to you, be it psychologists, poets, philosophers, designers, coders, close friends, spiritual figures, filmmakers, writers, video game creators, inventors, futurists… anyone or anything that helps you understand yourself more clearly is valid. Identity is a place in which imagination, inspiration, and creativity should be granted freedom. The therapy room can help bring that freedom back into play.
If I can be of support in working through any issues with identity, I welcome you to be in touch.
