Letting your Mask slip
Since ancient times it has been observed that we operate different versions of ourselves depending on our position in society, state of mind and who we are with. You might have read the title of this post and instantly felt that it applied to you. On the other hand, think how many times in your life you have gone into a situation and behaved differently or said something that you barely recognised. Which version of you do people around you see?
The hugely influential 20th Century Psychotherapist, Carl Jung gave birth to the Psychological term Persona. Now a word that is universally used, Jung applied it to his theory of self because its latin origin referred to masks worn during ancient Etruscan mime performance. As with much of his thinking, Jung repurposed the ancient and created a modern concept that describes the various roles and personalities we might assume in social situations in order to get by or be accepted.
The thinking goes, that the mask you wear is not something you choose and that they form part of who you unconsciously are. Psychotherapy, Counselling Therapy or Hypnotherapy are all ways to understand and work with the parts of you that you don’t think about but that are critical to how you function in life.
In analogy, in Jungian psychology, persona represents the social mask each one of us wears in interactions with others in society. The mask, or persona, looks similar to our own, but the mask is heavily influenced by the external world; think of it like an accommodation between an individual and society.
The term "person" comes from Persona, which suggests that people are playing roles within society, wearing masks. Jung saw the Persona as something we all posess, a predicted psychological development between a human being and society. In this sense, the ego, the persona, and the self, refer to the way in which we view ourselves, the way in which we want ourselves to be seen, and how we really are, respectively.
Although our sense of self is initially identified with the persona--that compromised role we parade in front of society- but even if you identify with one mask more than any other, the unconscious self is never suppressed to the point of being extinguished. Beyond this, in our internal psychology, there is another function-part which connects us with the broader unconscious shared by everyone. This helps to balance the mask wearing with the real you. When we look at a persona, we peel back the masks to reveal that what appears to be an individual is, in fact, a collective; in other words, the persona is just the mask of the unconscious.
On the one hand, the persona is necessary for individuals and also for society, and it may act as a vessel for exploring our various identities. The persona is therefore a functional complex which comes into being due to adjustment or individual convenience. Because it is something that can be assumed, Persona is not the same as your identity. Your differing personas perform a role but they don’t define you.
Jung said our shadow, the antithesis to the persona, that part of us that is suppressed, or that we do not express as personas, is a truer self than is the persona. You may not like your shadow self, but which of us doesn’t cast a shadow? The persona is an organic functional complex in the psyche, like the shadow, and thus, the persona serves a purpose.
This collection of masks keeps us from undertaking what Jung considered to be our life’s most essential task, the individuation process- bringing your unconscious closer to conscious awareness. According to Jung, dissolution of the persona occurs inevitably during the process of individuation as you become a truer version of yourself.
In the course of the process of individuation, the individual has to realize that the persona is not the entirety of his or her being, but is instead just one small component of a much larger persona. According to psychotherapists, any effort to become the individual persona would be counterproductive, as it would block growth in the other components of the self, thereby stunting the growth of overall self. Your end goal in therapy, is to cultivate a personality that helps one to navigate society, yet does not conflict with the true you.
Developing a workable social persona is a crucial part of adapting to, and being prepared for, adulthood in the outside social world. Without a fully developed personality, we run the risk of being blind to the realities of the world, misunderstood by society, an irrelevant piece of the collective jigsaw.
The idea of the social mask may well ring true, but with respect to a persons essential personality, the persona is merely a secondary reality, the product of trade-offs, of which others usually have more influence than the wearer of the mask. Your Persona are formed to please and satisfy others, even if your perception of their needs undermines your own desires and priorities. If you feel that you have lost control or are anxious is social and domestic settings it could be that be balance between your real self and the one you portray to others is broken.
Travelling even further back in time, the adaptive approach of forming a facial mask (almost literally in our ancient relatives) allows us to be accepted by other members of our social group. Going into any new situation can be stressful. Our brains love to predict what is coming up around the corner, as much as a way to survive attack by Sabre-Tooth Cats as make sure that we dont get caught in traffic on the daily commute. This same mechanism makes a protective mask or persona just as attractive to us because it lessens the change of attack from other people in our group and brings us closer to being accepted.
Over time as clients build a relationship with their therapist, the social mask and need to impress or portray a distorted version of themselves may fade. As Jung suggested, there is so much more to you than what might impress other people. In allowing you the space to let the mask slip, Therapy of any kind can bring you closer to accepting the real you.