“I want to find out who I am.” It is a phrase heard often in the therapy room, and outside it too. Many people imagine their authentic self as an archaeological find waiting to be discovered, if only they dig deep enough — behind other people’s expectations, social roles and all the “shoulds”.
But what does contemporary research tell us about the authentic self?
It appears that the self is not some hidden entity waiting to be uncovered, but something that is created and re-created continually through the way we relate to the world, to others and to ourselves.
It is not something static, but a dynamic process.
Contemporary research on authenticity shows that people who feel more authentic have lower levels of anxiety and depression, greater psychological wellbeing, and report more satisfying interpersonal relationships. The feeling of authenticity, then, is not an abstract philosophical idea. It is a real and measurable psychological experience directly connected with mental health.
Gestalt psychotherapy sees a person more as an ongoing process than as a static and unchanging entity. Our identity is shaped within relationships and over time, through our experiences, our choices and the circumstances of our lives.
As early as the 1950s, Gestalt theory described the self not as a fixed and unchanging entity, but as a dynamic process emerging at the meeting point between a person and their environment.
In other words, we cannot understand the self in isolation from its relationships.
We are shaped within relationships from infancy onwards and go on changing through them throughout our lives.
One important aspect of authenticity that is studied is autonomy — the degree to which we feel our choices spring from us rather than from external pressures or expectations. A second is genuineness — the degree to which our behaviour is in agreement with what we experience internally.
There are people who laugh at jokes they do not find funny, take on interpersonal roles that were handed to them, agree with views that do not express them, and avoid saying what they really think for fear of being rejected. In this way they may appear to gain connection and acceptance, but internally they experience a sense of distance from themselves. This inner estrangement, when it is experienced systematically, is often connected with anxiety, depression, loneliness, or a persistent feeling of emptiness and absence of meaning.
It should be added at this point that authenticity does not mean saying whatever comes into our head without awareness, nor ignoring other people in the name of honesty. It is not about the absence of relationship with others, but about the capacity to stay in relationship with them without losing ourselves. To be able to connect with others without abandoning our needs, our feelings, our values and what has meaning for us.
Many people who struggle with authenticity describe a sense of not knowing what they want, what they feel or what they need. Often these are people others would describe as “good kids” — people who find it hard to disappoint, to disagree or to set boundaries. The so-called people pleasers. Others with a similar difficulty may be those who grew up with intense criticism, disapproval, control or perfectionism; those who learned to be strong, not to show their vulnerability, to live through roles. Those who learned to be constantly in action because that was what made them feel significant, while neglecting to nourish the connection with themselves.
They are the ones who easily say “yes” when they want to say “no”.
Who know better what other people need than what they need themselves.
Who feel responsible for the feelings of those around them.
From the perspective of Gestalt psychotherapy, these behaviours are not weaknesses of character. They are often what we call creative adjustments — ways we once developed in order to secure love, safety, acceptance or connection.
A child who grew up in an environment where acceptance was tied to obedience, quietness or compliance may have learned to ignore their own needs in order to preserve the relationship.
These strategies once made sense and served the needs of the developing organism.
The difficulty lies not in the adjustments themselves, but in the fact that we often forget they were choices we once made in order to survive particular conditions. When these choices become fixed and are repeated unconsciously, they can distance a person from living contact with present experience and limit their capacity to choose new ways of being.
So someone can be surrounded by people and at the same time feel deeply alone, because the connection they are experiencing does not really include them.
Gestalt places awareness at the centre of therapeutic change.
The more we recognise what is happening inside us, the greater the sense of freedom we feel in terms of the flexibility available to us for action.
Authenticity, however, is not a destination. It is a daily practice.
Every time we set a boundary.
Every time we acknowledge a feeling instead of bypassing it.
Every time we express a need.
Every time we choose something because it has meaning for us and not only because others expect it.
We often search for ourselves as though we were something lost somewhere in the past, waiting to be discovered.
Perhaps, though, the question is not “who am I really?”.
Perhaps the more essential question is “How do I choose to exist today?”
Because the self is not only what we carry from the past.
It is also what we create through our choices in the present.
And so perhaps authenticity is not the discovery of a hidden self.
Perhaps it is the courage to take part consciously in its continuous, ongoing creation.
To close with the words of a client: “I don’t mind that my old group of friends has fallen apart; I like it, because it’s liberating to be able to change what I was. For years I felt I was a convenient person, but now that I have more authentic relationships I see that I can be more myself. Only in safe relationships can you be who you are.”
References:
Wood, A. M., Linley, P. A., Maltby, J., Baliousis, M., & Joseph, S. (2008). The Authentic Personality: A Theoretical and Empirical Conceptualization and the Development of the Authenticity Scale. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 55(3), 385–399.
