The self, the inner person and the subpersonalities
When we endeavour to identify with the loving observer, we often pass through different layers of mental and emotional content we must disidentify from before we can identify with consciousness itself. Some of the most important obstacles to true self-identification with the loving observer are subpersonalities and the inner person.
Roberto Assagioli differentiates between:
THE SELF: the inner observer and actor in its personal and transpersonal aspect. The point of pure self-awareness and will.
THE SUBPERSONALITIES: the inner voices or parts of us, based on the conscious or unconscious roles we play in life etc.
THE INNER PERSON; the innermost persona, the inner commentator we mistakenly believe are our true self because it sounds like ourselves speaking.
I have uploaded a compilation of quotes by Assagioli – all he has said about subpersonalities (English articles and books) here: https://kennethsorensen.dk/en/glossary/sub-personality/
This very important quote by Assagioli gives you a flavour of the inner person and commentator:
“… the last and perhaps most obstinate identification is with that which we consider to be our inner person, that which persists more or less during all the various roles we play, that which is also a person in the etymological sense of Persona (Mask) as the ultimate mask of the self. This “Persona” or “person” has to be discarded in the sense of our no longer being identified with it and limited by it. This is important, because every identification with it tends to make us static and crystallized. It is a kind of image or pattern or model of which we are apt to become prisoners. This “person,” even the relatively most intimate one, is in reality in process of constant change, of flow. There is a continuous intake of experiences which modify it and an output of energies from it. So it too is changeable, fluid, impermanent and therefore cannot be the pure self-identity which persists unchanged throughout all that flow.” (Assagioli, Psychosynthesis, 1965, p. 121)
I have also attached a screen dump from my book The Soul of Psychosynthesis (2016) about disidentification (see comment field). https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Psychosynthesis-Seven-Core-C…/…/
