Анна Шиман
Draft translation. This text was translated automatically and has not been proofread yet — if something reads oddly, it does.
Psychosynthesis is a concept of a person’s mental life developed by the Italian psychologist Roberto Assagioli.
Psychosynthesis belongs to transpersonal psychology.
Psychosynthesis is used in psychological work with psychosomatic disorders above all when they are caused by a deep and complex conflict between different groups of the patient’s conscious and unconscious forces, or when they arise from deep and painful crises. In the latter case, the patients themselves do not always realise or correctly judge the processes going on inside them.
The key concept in psychosynthesis is that of the Subpersonality.
Work with subpersonalities consists of the following stages (Rueffler, 1998):
- Awareness and recognition.
- Acceptance.
- Coordination and transformation.
- Integration.
- Synthesis.
According to Assagioli, the main tasks of psychosynthesis are:
- coming to know your true, Higher Self
- reaching inner harmony on that basis
- building sound relationships with the outer world, including the people around you.
The central problem of human life is a lack of freedom, an apparent “split” (the personal I, which is unaware of and denies the existence of another I — the true one, present in hidden form and not open to direct awareness). In reality the I is one. Inner harmonious wholeness, a true realisation of your Self and good relationships with others can be reached through the following stages:
- Deep knowledge of your own personality — exploring the lower unconscious, then the middle and the higher (psychoanalysis), discovering your true callings and unknown abilities that were suppressed before
- The ability to manage the various elements of the personality (the method of disidentification), which consists in breaking up the harmful images or complexes that have been uncovered (attacks of the unconscious) and in directing and using the energy released in this way. We are ruled by everything we identify with, and we can rule everything we disidentify from
- Knowledge of your true Self — discovering or creating a unifying centre, so as to widen the awareness of your personality into awareness of your Self (moving along a ray of light, following its direction to the very source of the light and uniting the lower and the higher Self).
When suitable active techniques are used, or in natural inner growth, each stage is linked with a new identification. For example, a person creates an ideal of their personality that matches their scale, their stage of inner development and their psychological type, and in this way makes the ideal attainable. (“The ideal is an artist who realises himself by creating beauty”). Ideal models touch on the basic relationships with the outer world and with other people; the inner world is projected outwards — a person does not lose themselves in the outer object but is, to some extent, freed from selfish interests and inner narrowness; they realise themselves through an outer ideal, some outer essence. This outer essence is not a direct path to the higher Self, but a true point of contact with it, a link between the person and their higher Self, which is reflected in the outer object and is its symbol.
Psychosynthesis is the formation or reconstruction, around the new centre that has been created, of a new personality marked by coherence, organisation and unity.
The process of psychosynthesis can be roughly divided into several stages.
- Choosing the new personality we aspire to. We need to picture this “ideal model” in our mind, preferably visualise it, and make sure it is realistic for us and therefore attainable. The whole variety of “ideal models” can usually be reduced to two main groups. The first group includes images that embody inner harmonious development and spiritual perfection. Such models matter more to introverts. The second group of images embodies excellence in a particular field of activity (a scientist, a businessman, a politician and so on). Such “ideal images” are more often chosen by extroverts. The main thing is that the “ideal model” chosen for further development should be in tune with the natural course of your own personality’s development. Through psychosynthesis you can become better and more perfect, but you cannot become your own opposite.
- Using all the energies available. Assagioli counts among them, above all, the forces released in the process of analysis, including the “release” of unconscious complexes, and the strivings towards harmony and the ideal that are present at the patient’s different psychological levels and are not fully conscious. To use the energy of the unconscious, it has to be channelled in the right direction and turned into something else — “transmuted”.
- Developing the elements of the personality that are missing (or not developed enough) for building the “ideal model”. New qualities are formed in two main ways: through self-suggestion and through the systematic training of underdeveloped mental functions, such as memory, imagination, feelings and so on.
- Coordinating and subordinating the various elements of the psyche, becoming aware of the harmonious, whole structure of the personality. This can be compared to the creative uniting (synthesis) of separate sounds, whose aim is harmonious music.
