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Our self-image partially reflects how others first saw us. Therapist Salvador Minuchin has observed that “families create specialists.” That is, children often feel typecast within their family script.
Early in life, we were recognized for particular qualities (“she’s sensitive, just like her grandmother”) and not others which we might also have had. When we were young, our family might have needed us to play a certain role – a hero, a caretaker, a scapegoat, a peacemaker – and we took on that role in order to fit in.
We internalized a narrow view of ourselves and began to believe it, forgetting that this view was a tactic, a defensive mask we adopted to get through childhood.
Decades later we may find that the mask has stuck to our face, mistaken – even by us – for our complete identity. The goal of therapy and change work is to awaken from the dream of being only your self image.
Our self-image is deeply unconscious and attached to memories, roles, habitual emotions. It even has a body location. In the trance of our Enneagram style we are attached to our image and unconsciously believe we can’t exist without it. Some overdefended behaviour is an attempt to maintain this historical image of ourselves, despite the fact that the world around us has changed.
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