Self-praise as a watchword – 07/31/2023 – Vera Iaconelli

The internet is littered with videos in which young children shout phrases about their own worth, beauty and intelligence. The statements are well-rehearsed and said in a tone of protest against anyone who says — or thinks without saying — the opposite. An antidote that parents invented for violence against girls.

The children’s grace and the pleasure of seeing them so happy and self-confident leave us with a smile on our lips and explain the virality of these images.

There is no shortage of good intentions here, but misunderstandings are already visible.

The psychic constitution takes place from the experience that culminates with the image of oneself. Trying to summarize the rivers of ink that psychoanalysis accumulates on such a fascinating subject, I would say that everything starts with the baby experiencing its own body while being carried, looked at, fed, listened to.

From the baby’s perspective, it is a profusion of sensations that, from the loving and invested relationship with the caregivers, culminate in self-recognition.

The psychedelic chaos of sensations of pleasure and displeasure gives way to the discovery that I exist and others exist. This leads us to the first “existential crisis”: after all, what if the other fails me? The child who was on everyone’s lap starts to refuse to do it; the one who slept well starts to wake up frequently, in short, it is not easy to recognize that we depend entirely on the goodwill of strangers.

And what sustains this leap from which I say “I” to myself? The self-image named by caregivers. The baby sees himself reflected in the mirror and in the look of the caregivers who say that this is the baby. Caregivers find in daily contact ways to demonstrate that they recognize the baby as a similar one.

Recognizing oneself, then, is always based on the other. As soon as we discover ourselves, we want to know our place in the bread line, because it is in comparison with the other that we organize ourselves.

The image, therefore, is slippery, and by relying on it we build our house on quicksand. These are the pitfalls of the Self, which loves to define itself as being like this or like that, while the unconscious gives the air of grace to remember that the Self is just the tip of the iceberg of subjectivity. The more we are captured by the mirror image, the more unstable our psyche.

Studies have shown how idealized images on social media are more harmful to girls. Self-mutilation, depression and eating disorders, resulting from self-image distortion, are pregnant among them.

Between the self-affirming discourse and the subjective experience there is an abyss, which cannot be ignored.

Social glories are not enough to support an image inflated by slogans.
Self-confidence, when forged from the outside in, leaves no room for constitutional human hesitation and reveals the high expectations of caregivers.

Freud discovered that the I insists on asserting itself in the manifest discourse to the exact extent that it tries to conceal what it does not know in itself. The same guy who swears “I’ll start tomorrow!” he is the one who doesn’t get up the next day, revealing the division between the egoic promise and the unconscious. First of all, it is better to find out in the name of what we stand up for after all.

Strengthening children implies helping them to recognize their fallibility, without underestimating or overestimating them. Herculean task for caregivers in the face of child narcissism. Self-enhancement mantras are backed by our illusion of completeness.

Wouldn’t human power start precisely from the recognition of our structural helplessness?
This is the focus of an analysis.

PRESENT LINK: Did you like this text? Subscriber can release five free hits of any link per day. Just click the blue F below.