During the past decade, a revolution has been quietly going on in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and medicine. New theories and concepts concerning the “self” have grown out of the work and findings of clinical psychologists, practicing psychiatrists, and cosmetic or so-called plastic surgeons. New methods growing out of these findings have resulted in rather dramatic changes in personality, health, and apparently even in basic abilities and talents. Chronic failures have become successful. “F” students have changed into “straight A” pupils within a matter of days and with no extra tutoring. Shy, retiring, inhibited personalities have become happy and outgoing.
Writing in the January 1959 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, T. F. James summarizes the results obtained by various psychologists and MDs as follows:
Understanding the psychology of the self can mean the difference between success and failure, love and hate, bitterness and happiness. The discovery of the real self can rescue a breaking up marriage, recreate a faltering career, and transform victims of “personality failure.” On another plane, discovering your real self means the difference between freedom and the compulsions of conformity. (Excerpt is inspired from “Psycho-Cybernetics”, by Maxwell Maltz).
Your Golden Key to a Better Life
The most important psychological discovery of this century is the discovery of the “self-image.” Whether we realize it or not, each of us carries about with us a mental blueprint or picture of ourselves. It may be vague and ill-defined to our conscious observation. In fact, it may not be consciously recognizable at all. But it is there, completes down to the last detail. This self-image is our own conception of the “sort of person I am.” It has been built up from our own beliefs about ourselves. But most of these beliefs about ourselves have unconsciously been formed from our past experiences, our successes and failures, our humiliations, our triumphs, and the way other people have reacted to us, especially in early childhood. From all these, we mentally construct a “self” (or a picture of a self).
Once an idea or a belief about ourselves goes into this picture, it becomes “true,” as far as we personally are concerned. We do not question its validity but proceed to act upon it just as if it were true. This self-image becomes a golden key to living a better life because of two important discoveries:
1. All your actions, feelings, behaviors—even your abilities—are always consistent with this self-image. In short, you will “act like” the sort of person you conceive yourself to be. Not only this, but you literally cannot act otherwise, in spite of all your conscious efforts or willpower. The man who conceives himself to be a “failure-type person” will find some way to fail, in spite of all his good intentions, or his willpower, even if the opportunity is literally dumped in his lap. The person who conceives himself to be a victim of injustice, one “who was meant to suffer,” will invariably find circumstances to verify his opinions.
The self-image is a premise, a base, or a foundation upon which your entire personality, your behavior, and even your circumstances are built. For example, a schoolboy who sees himself as an “F”-type student, or one who is “dumb in mathematics,” will invariably find that his report card bears him out. He then has “proof.” A young girl who has an image of herself as the sort of person nobody likes will indeed find that she is avoided at the school dance. She literally invites rejection.
2. The self-image can be changed. Numerous case histories have shown that one is never too young or too old to change his self-image and thereby start to live a new life. One of the reasons it has seemed so difficult for a person to change his habits, his personality, or his way of life has been that heretofore nearly all efforts at change have been directed to the circumference of the self, so to speak, rather than to the center.
Numerous patients have said to Maxwell Maltz something like the following: “If you are talking about ‘positive thinking,’ I’ve tried that before, and it just doesn’t work for me.” However, a little questioning invariably brings out that these individuals have employed “positive thinking,” or attempted to employ it, either on particular external circumstances or on some specific habit or character defect. (“I will get that job,” “I will be calmer and more relaxed in the future,” “This business venture will turn out right for me,” etc.) But they have never thought to change their thinking about the “self” that was to accomplish these things. “Positive thinking” cannot be used effectively as a patch to the same old self-image. In fact, it is literally impossible to really think positively about a particular situation as long as you hold a negative concept of your “self.”
Experiments Conducted by Prescott Lecky
Numerous experiments have shown that once the concept of self is changed, other things consistent with the new concept of self are accomplished quickly and without strain. One of the earliest and most convincing experiments along this line was conducted by the late Prescott Lecky, one of the pioneers in self-image psychology. Lecky was a schoolteacher and had an opportunity to test his theory on thousands of students.
He theorized that if a student had trouble learning a certain subject, it could be because (from the student’s point of view) it would be inconsistent for him to learn it. Lecky believed, however, that if you could change the student’s self-conception, which underlies this viewpoint, his attitude toward the subject would change accordingly. If the student could be induced to change his self-definition, his learning ability should also change. This proved to be the case. One student, who misspelled 55 words out of 100 and flunked so many subjects that he lost credit for a year, became one of the best spellers in the school and made a general average of 91 in the next year. A boy who was dropped from one college because of poor grades entered Columbia and became a straight “A” student. A girl who had flunked Latin four times, after three talks with the school counselor, finished with a grade of 84. A boy who was told by a testing bureau that he had no aptitude for English won an honorable mention the next year for a literary prize.
The trouble with these students was not that they were dumb, or lacking basic aptitudes. The trouble was an inadequate self-image (“I don’t have a mathematical mind”; “I’m just naturally a poor speller”). They “identified” with their mistakes and failures. Instead of saying “I failed that test” (factual and descriptive), they concluded, “I am a failure.” Instead of saying “I flunked that subject,” they said, “I am a flunk-out.”
So what type of self-image are you holding about yourself? Is it supporting or holding you back in life?
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