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In this interview, Assagioli talks about the need to bring the soul, or as he chooses to call it, the Self, into psychology. The Self is the core of self-conscious being that is central to every human being.
An interview by Stuart Miller (1974), translation Kenneth Sørensen
Source: First published in Intellectual Digest , August, 1973
An 85-year-old prophet guides us through a wilderness of instincts and complexes to the very outer reaches of humanity.
For the past 60 years, Roberto Assagioli has worked as a doctor, psychotherapist and teacher. He lives in an old stone house on the outskirts of Florence, and continues to work 10 hours a day despite his advanced age. In recent years, Roberto Assagioli’s ideas have attracted increasing international attention. The ideas combine elements as diverse as common sense, Freudian psychoanalysis and an interest in the very depths of human nature. Last October (1973), Intellectual Digest published the first major American article, “The Will of Roberto Assagioli,” which prefaced his book: The Psychology of the Will .
In this article, Assagioli discusses his current project, a volume he tentatively calls “Height Psychology and the Self.” Playing on the phrase “depth psychology,” Assagioli argues that psychology must acknowledge the highest qualities of man in order to complement and complete the prevailing emphasis on man’s instincts, drives, complexes, pathology, etc. The central but subtle concept of this height psychology is the notion of “Self” with a capital S. From a certain perspective, Self and soul are the same. This new book (see note) will attempt to bring the concept of the human soul back to the center of empirical psychology.
The soul as a concept is not without problems
Roberto Assagioli (RA) : In classical or philosophical psychology, the soul was a very central concept. But with the advent of modern psychology, one tends to hear that “souls are out of fashion”. Well, they remained out of fashion for a long time, but now strange things are happening. Although many psychologists abhor it, several independent psychologists are returning to the concept of the soul. It is encouraging, but the word “soul” is quite unfortunate because it is used in quite different and contradictory ways. The traditional understanding of the soul is that it is a spiritual being – it is absolutely central in the Christian religion and also in Vedanta, which is an important branch of Indian philosophy. But within other religious languages, “soul” is used in a different way, as more or less synonymous with the ego, the personality or consciousness.
Philosophers and psychologists have also used the word “soul” with different meanings. The German philosopher Keyserling equates soul with the emotional nature. Jung describes his rather complicated concept of “soul” in his book: Psychological Types:
Just as our daily experiences justify our speaking of an external personality, we can also justify the assumption that there is an internal personality. The internal personality is the way in which we relate to the internal psychic processes, it is the inner attitude, the character that is turned towards the unconscious. I call the external attitude … persona and the internal attitude I call the anima or soul .
In common parlance, one speaks of the soul of a nation, etc. Therefore, I find it better to avoid the word as much as possible (or at least to emphasize the specific meaning whenever one uses it).
The self defined as a center of pure self-awareness
Generally, it is more useful to use the term “Self” with a capital S instead.
The common word “self” is usually used to refer to a person’s personal self, as discussed in connection with “self-identity,” “self-actualization,” etc. I am not talking about this level when I talk about the Self, but rather about what can be called each person’s higher or transpersonal Self.
The diagram above makes the distinction clear. My students call it the “egg diagram.” Their quip is a way of emphasizing that the diagram is only a rough map and not the actual landscape of human psychology. However, you have found it very useful. The lower level corresponds to what Freudian psychology calls the unconscious: the basic drives, complexes charged with intense emotions, etc. The central belt represents the middle unconscious – the elements that are latent, dormant, or active in the personality but of which we are not currently aware. Above it we find the transpersonal or higher unconscious, the superconscious that is the source of much of what we consider the best in humans: artistic inspiration, ethical insight, scientific intuition, and so on.
The circle in the middle of the diagram roughly represents the area of our existing consciousness. The contents of the lower unconscious, new information from the middle unconscious, and also impulses from the superconscious flow into this field of consciousness.
The personal self, however, is represented as a central point that is independent of any specific content, information, or impulse. Each of us has this central point of personal consciousness that we can experience simply by recognizing that we experience different types of content in consciousness, but we are not this content. That is, we experience our emotions, but we know in a fundamental way that they are not us. We have thoughts, but they are not us. We have bodies, pains, aches, and ecstasies, but they are not us. How else can it be that our emotions, thoughts, and our bodies change so frequently while we maintain a fundamental experience of identity? The fact is that by quite consciously and carefully disidentifying ourselves from all these passing contents, these experiences, we can become aware that we are conscious . This awareness is self-awareness—the awareness of the personal self. The personal self is the human core at the ordinary level, the level of personality. It is the center of our common psychological functions: thought, emotions, sensations, imagination, etc.
On the higher human level, there is similarly a being who is the center of the higher functions: artistic inspiration, ethical insight, and scientific intuition. It is our true core and it is within all of us, but the personality is usually not aware of it on the ordinary level. Therefore, in many cases it does not affect people’s feelings and thoughts. But often it does. In fact, the personal self can be considered a reflection of this higher reality, and the personal self and its ordinary functions (thoughts, emotions, sensations, etc.) can be charged by the vital energies of one’s transpersonal Self. (See diagram).
When a great artist gets an important inspiration, this is roughly what happens: the artist’s transpersonal Self acts through the superconscious and sends energy down into the field of consciousness. This is also what happens in relation to other important inspirations.
Experiences of the Self
Stuart Miller (SM): Is this experience only reserved for great artists, scientists, and religious geniuses? Or can “ordinary” people experience it too?
RA: Not only can we, we often do. But the very outer reaches of the human being, as Maslow called it, are subtle contacts, so it is often useful to refer to well-known people at least as a starting point.
Thomas á Kempis gives an example in his book, The Imitation of Christ. From a psychological point of view, we can say that the “Christ” that Thomas speaks to is Thomas’s own higher Self. I do not say this to deny that there are realities beyond the individual. As you can see in the diagram, the star of the Self is located partly inside the individual’s oval and partly outside. This indicates that the individual Self is in contact with what could be called the universal Self.
Regardless, thousands, perhaps millions, of people have had experiences with the Self and have testified to it. In India it is traditionally called “Atman.” Some of the deeper Christian mystics have been aware of it and have given it various names: the “divine spark” of man, the “summit,” the “ground,” the “center,” and the “innermost essence.” I am particularly fond of Auguste Gratry’s description of contact with the transpersonal Self because it is so vivid:
I felt as if it were an inner form… full of strength, beauty and joy… a form of light and flame that supported my entire being: a stable unchanging form that was always the same and that I rediscovered again and again throughout my life. At times I lost sight of it and forgot it – but always I recognized it again with joy and the proclamation: “This is my true being.”
There are many other testimonies, but most of them are colored by the specific experience of the individual and are mixed with elements such as the means of the experience, its results or the individual’s particular religious beliefs. This is partly because the Self is a very difficult subject to talk about and understand. It can and has been experienced as the immediate fact of consciousness. But it lies outside the realm of rational concepts. It is like an aesthetic sensation or intuition, an immediate conscious experience, outside the mental and intellectual realm.
This does not mean that it is “irrational” in a negative sense. I would like to use the term “para-rational” and in some cases “supra-rational”.
The difference between Assagioli’s Self, Freud’s Superego and Jung’s Self
SM: Can one think of this soul or transpersonal Self as an inner voice from above? Can you distinguish the voice of the higher Self or transpersonal Self from a more common psychological concept – the superego or the Freudian conscience? Are they expressions of the same thing just with different names?
RA: No. The self is different from the superego or “conscience”. Basically, it is structurally and ontologically different. The superego, unlike the self, cannot be considered a “being”. It is a composite product, composed of different elements with different origins. Freud describes the superego as created by the sum of introjected commands, limitations, feelings of guilt and condemnation, all of which originate from the words and actions of the parents and from the “moral” attitudes of the culture in question.
To activate the living relationship that exists between the Self and the personality, I often ask my clients to do an exercise. It consists of entering into a written dialogue with one’s higher Self, hoping for and expecting a response. This disarmingly simple technique often yields good results if one is also alert to false messages from other parts of the personality.
Recently, one of my clients, a 35-year-old American professor, wrote this dialogue. He discovered that he began to have glimpses of his Self and gradually the Self began to “speak” in a rather clear and wise way. My client spontaneously described the difference between the higher Self and the superego.
“The higher Self, as far as I know, is not like the over-ego. The higher Self does not issue orders, does not force and he is not rough. He makes suggestions, he indicates paths – he is more mental, in the pure sense of the word. The over-ego, on the other hand, is full of emotional tension. He pushes and urges. … The Self seems exalted, dressed in white … strong (though in a faint glow) and radiant like Fra Angelico’s ( The Resurrection ). He has the quality of a teacher. If he demands it is to be embraced. He must be there
In contrast, I imagine my superego as dark, more carnal, and even stony. There is a frown on his face and a hammer in his hand. He hammers and knocks off splinters. He threatens and coerces. He exhausts and repels me. One is the principle of freedom and love, the other the dark principle of bondage.”
This is an evocative writing, but it is only one way of experiencing the difference, conditioned by the author’s specific circumstances. For example, the mention of Fra Angelico comes from his visit to the San Marco Monastery in Florence, where I recommended that he study Angelico’s paintings. The use of inspiring works of art is another method among many for evoking the Self. The client was in what Viktor Frankl calls a “crisis of meaning” and both of these techniques, along with other work, were helpful in calling upon his highest inner resources. However, I will correct his evocative description by saying that “the superego is not only bad” and leave this paradox without further ado.
SM: How does Jung’s view of the Self differ from yours?
RA: Jung’s concept of the Self was not specific and it changed along with the development of his psychology. Without going into a long discussion of this, one can say that it is different from both Freud’s superego and from the conception of the Self as having a substantial reality of its own .
The practical application of the Self
SM: How can we apply this reality? To what extent are we talking about something practical?
RA: One of the important explanations for the Self’s return to dignity is the incredible search for self-identity. In the past, a person took himself for granted, so to speak. He accepted himself as he was, or more often, he identified himself with the group to which he belonged: the family, the clan, the tribe, the class, the nation – or, if he was religious, with some great being or with God.
But in our time, which may well be a time of great crisis, all these identifications fall away and the individual is thrown back into himself. It puzzles him because he does not know who he is and that is the main reason for this widespread “existential torment.” This search often brings people into a completely new type of identifications – with temporary groups, their sexuality, work, hobbies, etc. But sooner or later these identifications will fall away and the crisis will return. The way out of the crisis is found through the investigation and discovery of who we are. But also through the awareness of the personal self that is independent of all identifications and in a wider sense of this self, as a reflection of the transpersonal Self.
To answer your question in another way, I can say that the Self becomes a source of guidance, enlightenment and inspiration, but also of the development of human potentials. I see clients who are quite “normal” in the ordinary sense and even personally and socially successful. But they are not satisfied. Their interest is further development. There are two levels to this. One level is the development of their personality in a rounded form that is quite ordinary. Here the emotions, the mind and intuition, etc. are brought into a harmonious function. This has been called “self-actualization.” I use the term “personal psychosynthesis.”
For many this is enough. But others feel a “calling,” to use an old expression. They are drawn to the possibility of expanding consciousness into the far-reaching realms of the superconscious, right up to the experience of the Self. This is true Self -realization and what I call transpersonal or spiritual psychosynthesis.
Many of the young – and the not so young – are in crisis in this area. Some try to achieve peak experiences through drugs or other methods. Often they have these experiences spontaneously. But these experiences are temporary and these people fall back to the ordinary level and then they become disillusioned, wondering why they cannot remain at the “top”. What has happened is that they have to some extent entered what Richard Bucke and others have called “cosmic consciousness”, a state that has been confirmed by people at all times and in all cultures. But their personality is inadequate to handle these high experiences, so they experience a sudden or gradual fall. These people need a structure that allows for a continuous and gradual ascent and this is constituted by first the living reality of the consciousness of the personal self and then of the higher Self. From this consciousness comes an understanding of the spontaneous and motivating experiences and this leads to their assimilation within the other aspects of the personality.
Therefore, the normal and safe procedure would first be: a preliminary work on the personal psychosynthesis, which includes a psychoanalytic phase, although not necessarily a formal detailed psychoanalysis. After this and sometimes simultaneously comes the experience of Self -consciousness. Then the Self can be invoked as a guide in the long process of human development. In relation to the practical aspect, I would answer your question by saying that the cultivation of Self-consciousness on a large scale will serve to bring the highest human energies and inspirations into human life. We do indeed need to tap these sources. I think that is obvious.
Note: The book was not completed when Assagioli died in 1974, but it was later published as a collection of writings under the title: Transpersonal Development after his death. This book was published by Kentaur Forlag in 2006.
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