Be Your “Authentic Self”?
I don’t know if you have the same experience, but I hear all the time now people extolling the need to show their “authentic self.” A quick Google search came up with 209 results, most of them exuberant sounding, some of those unfortunately from fellow psychologists. Almost all of them promising to help you find this “true” you (except a few standouts like this one or this one, which overlap well with what I’ve written below!). They offer, “How to discover your authentic self” or “Five ways you’ll know your authentic self when you see it.”
When I see this, I hear two implications. First, there is a stable, distinct sense of “I” separate from everyone else; and second, a fight for control over that identity, where others are viewed as ‘inauthentic’ intruders. There is an inherent fight for freedom in arguing for individual authenticity. “I’m in charge of me,” it says. “I know who I am.” Definitely an attractive proposition! I want to be in charge of where and how I express myself.
Definitions
Here are a few definitions for “authentic self.” This is not my area of expertise; frankly authenticity of self was not even a part of my training (unless you take the overlap with the concept of genuineness, which is a topic for another post). So, I’m going to use a psychoanalyst’s blog post I came across, which provides a few definitions of authentic self:
- “The authentic self is the state free of defenses and inhibitory affects.” Diana Fosha, PhD, Developer of AEDP
- “The authentic self is the core of a person, which contains leadership qualities such as compassion, perspective, curiosity, and confidence.” Richard Schwartz, Internal Family Systems Therapy
- “The authentic self has the experience of being truly present and alive. Feeling real is more than existing; it is finding a way to exist as oneself… and to have a self into which to retreat for relaxation.” Donald Winnicott, major developer of Attachment Theory
Well if I wasn’t sold before, I definitely am now. I want that! Here’s the thing though. While I could make an argument in favor of Winnicott’s definition, the other two, as well as the very notion of an authentic self, are fiction. Very simply: it’s not a thing.
Sorry.
Why not, you ask?
What is identity?
To be authentic implies a self, or an identity. After all, you need something to be authentic to! Even an authentic stool requires an understanding of what defines a stool. Does it matter how many legs? How high must it be off the ground? Does the material matter? Does it need to be flat on top? When it comes to stools, designers have played around with these questions for millennia. Stools, of course, are inanimate objects, and do not change on their own. Those pushes and pulls in definition come from humans, not from the stools. And of course if I throw one, it will temporarily become animate, but that’s neither here nor there. Until it lands, when it will be there.
Sorry for all the bad jokes.
What if I’m not a stool?
Unlike stools, people (and all organic creatures) change constantly. Material and information is constantly coming and going, cells are dividing, there are actions and reactions. When it comes to human identity, these changes take on dramatic proportions. Remember all those stage theories you learned about in high school psychology?
(These theories, by the way, mostly no longer have much credibility in psychology, as there is pretty much no evidence for any finite, progressing set of stages for these big concepts. Instead, it is more helpful to think of them as fluidly intersecting guideposts where you may be progressing at different rates for different tasks, in different environments, and can even go in both directions within a progression. But I digress.)
There are many of them. Freud’s psychosexual model, Erikson’s psychosocial model, Helms’s White Racial Identity Development model, Cross’s Black Racial Identity Development model, Troiden’s LGBTQ model, etc. I won’t go into any of the specifics, because that has nothing to do with authenticity. What is relevant here is the assumptions and components common to all of these models. Two of those assumptions are:
- Change: come on, it’s in the name. People’s identities develop. We are not born into an identity and then keep it, unaltered, for the rest of our lives.
- The other: each model involves an interaction with other people as a necessary part of the change.
Understanding how our identities change
Let’s try out an exercise.
Think about the you, sitting (standing, lying, however) there right now, and how you understand yourself. What you hold as important of who you are, and how you express yourself. Think about what you spend your time on. Take a moment to think about all the things that make up who you are, right now.
Now, roll your life back 6 years. Notice these same features, for what your life was at that time. You certainly looked 6 years younger, which could be a minor difference if you are older, or a major difference if you are young. Notice what’s the same about who you are – your values, perhaps; maybe you’ve had the same job, same taste in music. And notice what is different. Maybe you used to love to go out multiple times a week, and now you don’t have quite as much energy. Maybe there’s something that you used to get hung up on, but have since realized isn’t worth it. Take a moment to notice.
Keep going back…
Keep rolling back, and noticing. Another 5 years, another 5, and another 5. Keep going back into your teens. Thinking about the clothes, the music, the styles that seemed to define you. The intensity of emotions. Whether you felt like you fit in, or struggled to find a place. Back to single digits, to the games and books you liked, the shows you watched, the ways of knowing the world around you that seemed to be everything. The hot-and-cold emotions, where everything is great or awful. How did you understand you then? Back to your very earliest memories. Those first moments of a coherent “I”, gazing out at the world, trying to make sense of it all.
What, of this toddler-you I, is like the you of today? Chances are, very little. Sure, there are some basic temperamental or social aspects that may bear some resemblance: “I’ve always been shy,” for instance. But even here, it will have changed. Your level of comfort around people, perhaps depending on how well you know them; or, specific situations you’re open to and others you avoid. Maybe in your first few years, you barely spoke at all; but now, when around someone you feel close with, you’ll talk up a storm.
There’s only one thing that’s stable: the gazing. The you that captures it all. The I that sees.
The non-core core: Observing Self
In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, this is understood as the Observing Self. Everything else can – and will – change. But this role as perceiver is the one piece of you that is not only constant, from birth to death, but also unique to you.
How do these changes happen to everything else? Learning. Development. We are each in constant communication with everything around us. Through modeling, mirror neurons, practice, and more, we learn new ways to be, and in turn affect how other people learn to be. When you say you are being authentic to yourself, but learned that very understanding from your mother, or from a friend, or from a book you read, what does that even mean?
Those developmental models recognize this exchange. Particularly the later ones, that recognized that people from different cultures and in different socioeconomic circumstances don’t end up going through the same progressions. Through our experiences, we learn and grow. What we learn may backfire down the line, but it keeps us going and gives us a sense of who we are in relation to others. For a moment, at least.
So… “authentic self” as a psychological state is misinformation?
In other words, identity is a process, not a destination. In each moment, “I” is assembled from a range of characteristics that currently comprise one’s gaze into the world of your experiences.
This is why Fosha’s definition makes no sense. Those defenses and inhibitory affects – never-mind the assumptions that go into those terms themselves – are just as much a part of you as anything else. At least, in this moment. But neither they, nor anything else, are a “core” you, Schwartz. The most compassionate person judges; the most curious makes assumptions. Besides the process of observing, everything else we experience comes into our lives, stays for some length of time, and then goes on its way. For Winnicott’s definition, you could interpret it as an openness to being the experiencer, the observing self. He’s not describing qualities, but the process.
Just like Chidi’s beautiful Buddhist metaphor in The Good Place of life as a wave in the ocean: “… the water is still there. The wave was just… a different way for the water to be for a little while.” Or perhaps, John Lennon: “I am he as you are he, as you are me and we are all together.” (I Am the Walrus.)
So authentic self is misinformation? What then?
Trying to be an authentic you sounds like an act of destruction. Instead of listening and engaging with the world around you, you’re carving yourself up into pieces, or pinning yourself, down like a butterfly.
Instead of trying to be some imaginary authentic you, know that you already are you. The you of this moment, with all that that means, made up of millions of pieces from everyone and everything you’ve encountered. Good, bad, and in between. Trust in the intentions of this you: focus on listening to the world around you, and on striving to be closer to the you that you aspire to.