UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

PRELIM 1 TOPICS

1st Semester | A.Y. 2023-2024

LECTURER: Ian Gamez
EX;
● What were/are the traits or characteristics
COMFORT ZONE
that you inherited from your parents or
➢ Things and activities you are familiar with, grandparents?
places you know, friends you are at ease
with,skills/talents/abilities you possess and Environment (nurture)
enjoy doing. ➢ Total of the forces or experiences that a
EX; person undergoes from conception to old
● Things I enjoy doing age.
● Safety & security ➢ Includes family, relatives, friends,
● Things i am accustomed to classmates, workmates, and other agencies
● Sports that I really like & play or communities one is in contact with.
● Hobbies I usually do EX;
● Talent I possess and enjoy doing ● What were/are the traits or characteristics
● Familiar activities that you inherited from other people in the
● Comfortable situations & people you environment or other people whom you are
are familiar with in contact with?
COURAGE ZONE
➢ Things and activities you are not familiar CONCEPTS RELATED TO THE SELF
with and skills/talents/abilities you do not Carl Rogers
possess yet. ➢ Proponent of self theory
➢ Everything that makes you uncomfortable ➢ A psychologist
and unfamiliar.
EX; Self Theory
● Things I am afraid of ➢ Regarded as humanistic and is a move
● Things I have never tried towards recognizing human potential for
● Hard moments psychological growth.
● Unexplored territory Self
● Risk moments & activities ➢ Made up of many self-perceptions, abilities,
● Things that are difficult and personality characteristics that are
organized and consistent with one another.
PHYSICAL SELF
2 KINDS OF SELF
Heredity (nature)
1. Real Self
➢ Transmission of traits or characteristic from
➢ image or picture of the self based on
parents to offspring
a person’s actual experiences and
➢ Through genes, hereditary potentials like
represents how he/she really or
physical, mental, social, emotional,
actually sees himself/herself.
rational,spiritual & moral traits are passed
➢ It is what one thinks he/she is in
down to generations.
terms of personal characteristics,
1
 skills, abilities, capabilities, talents Engineering
and intelligences. ➢ Essential for the establishments of
structures for protection from human attacks
2. Ideal Self and natural disasters.
➢ Self based on one’s hopes, wishes,
and aspirations. Architecture
➢ It reflects how one likes to see ➢ Seen as mere style as a sign of
himself/herself to be. technological advancement of a particular
civilization ushered in the development of
Self-Concept engineering.
➢ Subjective perception of who and what
people are, and what they are like, or ‘the SUMERIAN CIVILIZATION
person I think I am or the person I wish to
be’ Cuneiform
➢ Plays an important role in personality ➢ First writing system by the Sumerians.
because it influences human behaviors, ➢ Utilizes word pictures & triangular symbols
feelings, and thoughts. which are carved on clay using wedge
➢ How people see or describe themselves instruments.
Uruk City
Reflection ➢ First true city in the world.
➢ The person who knows you best – your ➢ Sumarians built this city using only mud or
abilities, talents, personality, and clay from the river.
characteristics – is YOU. ➢ Used bricks to make houses that protected
➢ You know your positive or high points as them from harsh weather & wild animals
well as your negative or low points.
Great Ziggurat of Ur
➢ Sacred place of sumerians’ chief god where
CIVILIZATIONS / HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS IN only their priests were allowed to enter.
THE COURSE OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
➢ Science & Technology plays an important Irrigation Canals and Dikes
major role in daily life. ➢ Bring water to farmlands and to control the
➢ The developments in this field are not just flooding of the rivers.
products of people’s imagination or ➢ Enjoyed year-long farming & harvesting
one-time thought process, they are also which increased their food production
brought about by gradual improvements to Sailboats
earlier work from different time periods. ➢ Only mode of transportation, trading and in
foresting culture, information, and
technology
ANCIENT TIMES
Roads
Transportation ➢ Facilitate faster & easier travel
➢ People tried to places & discover new ➢ Flow of traffic became faster & organized
horizons
Communication
BABYLONIAN CIVILIZATION
➢ They needed a way to communicate with
the natives of the areas they visited to
facilitate trade & prevent possible conflicts ● The Babylonians were great builders,
engineers and architects.

2
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
➢ A major contribution, which was one of the
seven wonders of the ancient world. SUPEREGO
➢ Concerned with social rules & morals like
Great Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar conscience or moral compass
➢ built the hanging gardens for his wife, ➢ It develops a child learns what their culture
Queen Amytis considers right & wrong.

EX; Your SUPEREGO walked past the same

FREUDIAN REVOLUTION
stranger, it would not take the ice cream because it
Sigmund Freud would know that it is rude. However, if both ID &
➢ Famous figure in the field of psychology & a Superego were involved, and your id was strong
towering literature figure who did his share enough to override your superego, you would still
to raise the consciousness of the civilized take the ice cream, but afterwards, you would most
world in psychological matters likely feel guilt & shame over your actions.

Psychoanalysis EGO
➢ A scientific way to study the human mind ➢ Rational & pragmatic part of our personality
and neurotic illness. ➢ Less primitive than id and partly conscious
➢ Great impact on the scientific way of & unconscious partly.
understanding human nature. ➢ Called ‘self’ by Freud and its role is to
balance the demands of id and superego in
Psychoanalytic Theory the practical context of reality.
➢ Personality develops through a series of
stages, each characterized by certain EX; So, if you walked past the stranger with ice
internal psychological conflict. cream, your ego would mediate the conflict
between your id (‘I want that ice cream right now!’)
Our personality develops from 3 fundamental and superego (It’s wrong to take someone else’s
structures of the human mind; ID, EGO, & ice cream!’) and decide to go buy your own ice
SUPERGEO cream.

FOUR NOTABLE NEO-FREUDIANS Realization

● Alfred Adler, Erik Erikson, Carl Jung, & ➢ Freud believed that id, supergo, & ego are
Karen Horney in constant conflict & that adult personality &
behavior are rooted in the results of these
ID internal struggles throughout childhood.
➢ Most primitive of the tree structures which is
concerned with instant gratification of basic
physical needs and urges.
➢ Operates entirely unconsciously (outside of
conscious thought)

EX; If your ID walked past a stranger eating an ice

cream, it would most likely take the ice cream for
itself. It does not know or care, that is it rude to take
something belonging to someone else. It would
care only that you wanted the ice cream.