Once the ego has emerged in early childhood, we begin to decide what parts of ourselves—what traits—we’ll let people see and what parts we’ll conceal or withhold. We learn to camouflage reactions others condemn and choose actions that please them and reward us. A young child, for example, realizes that needs-based crying gets results, so learns to cry to obtain wants. If punished for crying, they learn to control it. We begin to form masks to express or hide who we are inside.
Jung called this mask the Persona. If our parents communicated love, support, and acceptance for us, we probably originally formed a persona to please them. We might also have formed it to please them if we feared them and were afraid of displeasing them. If we didn’t feel acceptance from them, we may have reversed the persona and perversely tried to displease them, getting rid of those qualities that might have pleased them. In any case, we kept some of our natural qualities and shut away others. The Persona is a necessary adaptation that allows human beings to live together. A raw, unmediated personality would be more than we or others could bear.
As we in grow in wisdom, we learn to use the Persona to bring whatever parts of us are appropriate to a given situation. The Persona is only a problem when it hides too much or too little. Giving ourselves permission to react however we want in a situation is as destructive as keeping it all locked up.
The persona is a social necessity.
Through it we relate to our world.
The process of civilizing a human being leads to a compromise between oneself and society as to how one should be and appear. The Persona is a mask or costume of sorts that shows the role a person is playing. It’s often necessary to develop and display a persona in order to succeed at a role. A businessman must appear forceful and energetic, an academic intelligent, a civil servant correct, a professional intelligent and well-dressed, and so on. One dons the identity befitting the role.
As we consider the different roles we play and expect others to play, we can see that the Persona is a collective phenomenon, a facet of the personality whose ownership is shared with others in a culture or particular setting. Some people are so good at their personas that their personifications are mistaken for individuality. To some extent, people do choose the roles to which they feel best suited, so in this sense their persona may express individuality. But it is never the whole person.
The persona is a social necessity. Through it we relate to our world. It simplifies contacts with others by communicating what they can expect from us, and what we can expect from them. People who neglect persona development tend to be gauche, to offend others, and to have difficulty in establishing themselves in the world. They’re often hard to get along with and can be prone to various kinds of outbursts or behaviors that confuse or offend others. Thus, the skilled development of persona is important to life among other people.
There is always the danger, however, of identifying oneself with the role one fills, a danger easy to excuse when that role is rewarding and well-suited to the individual. An over-developed persona can mask the self so completely that major aspects of the Self fall into the shadow. “He plays a part,” one says, or “she’s not really like that at all,” another observes. Those who aren’t true to their own natures and over-develop the persona are in danger of losing their way.
A healthy relationship to one’s persona in all its aspects is to stay in touch with its qualities inside our awareness, and the traits and qualities we don’t incorporate into Persona. We know those parts belong to the Self but are sometimes—if not often—inappropriate in the outer world. We continue to greet and nurture those aspects while handling our persona skillfully. Such practice can produce a healthy persona that doesn’t hide us from ourselves.
Those who push the reality of self away, though, may find the persona becomes an iron mask obscuring our identity from others and ourselves. As we mature and grow psychologically, a fully-lived life depends on rediscovering those lost qualities which belong to us.
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