I have often wondered about all the roles we play in life. We are sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, a friend, sometimes a teacher or student, in school or at work. How overwhelming would that be; not knowing which role you’re playing at any one time, or mixing them up without realizing it. Indeed, that DOES happen.
For instance, many individuals may unwittingly play the role of a student in a doctor’s office, rather than a patient; listening and not clarifying, taking the doctor as the authority in the situation although – as a patient – you are the authority of your own body.
Carl Jung, prominent psychologist (and student of Sigmund Freud) spoke of the “Persona”; “a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual”.
Taking this as a basis, I believe that our person as DO hide our true selves, but that (i) we do not only have one Persona, and (ii) that we do have a choice about which Persona we use at different times. Given that my conceptualization of Jung’s Persona is different, I prefer to think in terms of “masks”.
As a student, we have facets that come to the fore; listening, open to learning, conscientious in completing our schoolwork and homework, and so forth. As a patient, these may shift – we increase the value of speaking, our conscientious now only focuses on the task of taking our medication or following suggestions, and we have a greater awareness of our bodies.
In social relationships, too, do we wear masks. These masks, depending on our relationship with the person in front of us, can have more or less solidity as well as have different facets. I may be more goofy and silly with one friend or group of friends, but be more mature with another. And there is always the case of being able to share some things with our friends that we don’t share with our family and/or vice versa.
Underneath all of these masks, however, is our true selves. A conscientious person, for instance, may be more so in one situation and less in another, but that does not mean they stop being conscientious altogether. I do not stop being mature completely with one group of friends, or cease making jokes with the other. The difference here is in levels.
Some may consider using these masks as hypocrisy – after all, one’s true self is not the same as one is portraying. A mask, however, obscures the true nature of a person, but it does not change it and does not express the opposite. If the person who speaks of politics is a Democrat, for instance, they may keep quiet about the same if they wish, but it is when they express support for the Republican party or its politics that we can consider the person a hypocrite.
To be a hypocrite, however, one has to be fully aware that they are going against their true selves – that which lies behind the mask. It is only when we know what facets lie behind the mask that we can decide the degree to which we want to express them, if at all.
For instance, I know I am empathetic. This may be more visible in my work as a therapist but slightly less as a teacher (at least in schools where information dissemination is more important than meaningful learning, but that is a topic for another post!) However, even if the level at which I express it may differ, that does not change the fact that I am empathetic.
Why is it so important to remember that we wear masks? Because the mask is not the whole of our true selves, but only a part of it. One’s true self is the foundation for our masks, not the other way around. And since no one knows our true selves as well as we do, we are the ones who decide how to create our masks the way that fits US best in the role we play.
Here I come to the second aspect of ‘masks’. I believe that our choice of mask isn’t only dependent on making a definite impression on others, but rather the aspects of our true selves that we are comfortable sharing with the other person.
For example, someone may choose to show a concrete mask to a person they have just met rather than a less solid one (as is often the case with individuals with trauma history). That might not lead to a definite impression. In fact, it would be possible that the individual left no impression on the person.
The importance of agency, or a person’s choice, figures into the masks we use. We choose how to create our mask based not on the impression we want to make, but how comfortable we would feel wearing it. The mask must conform to our true selves for it to be comfortable, and depending on the outside world for such information would be ineffective. Doing so could also confuse us about our own true selvesw or could lead to us being hypocrites.
Masks are not a bad thing – often we will meet individuals with whom some facet or another of our true selves would be incompatible. Masks allow us to interact with various people with minimal distress, and can be altered or exchanged for other masks if significant incompatibility is noticed.
It is when we wear the masks for ourselves, however, that they may be dangerous. If the masks begin to be the source of who our true selves are, there is a risk of us ignoring or even going directly against who we believe we are. In such a situation, one would in effect allow the world to suppress one’s true identity, increasing emotional and psychological distress in the process.
Perhaps the one of the most important things to remember is to take off one’s mask with themselves. Being free of masks allows us to breathe, to be ourselves in a wholistic and healthy way. To explore if the world outside had given us anything that we wanted to identify with, that we liked or disliked…to add to our true selves that becomes more detailed every day.
So, go ahead. Enjoy your ‘student mask’, ‘teacher mask’, ‘friend mask’, ‘daughter mask’, ‘son mask’…just remember to hang it up at the door when you get home.
Think Again 