The persona
Notice the mask you wear for the world, what it's for, and where it has started to wear you.
Key takeaways
- Jung called the face you show the world the persona, after the masks actors wore in ancient Rome. Everyone needs one.
- Trouble starts when you can't take it off: when you forget there is anyone behind the competent colleague or the cheerful friend.
- Ask what your mask is for, where it costs you, and where you could let a little more of you show.
The mask
In Latin, persona was the mask an actor wore on stage. Carl Jung borrowed the word for the face each of us shows the world: the professional, the good daughter, the funny one, the person who has it together.
He didn't think the persona was fake or bad. You need one. Nobody wants a surgeon who shares every passing feeling in the operating room. A persona lets you do a job, meet strangers and keep some things private.
“The persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.”
When the mask sticks
The problem Jung saw was identification: forgetting you are wearing a mask at all. The doctor who is a doctor even with their kids. The capable one who can't admit to anyone, even themselves, that they're struggling. The always-cheerful friend who has nowhere to put a bad day.
A stuck persona is tiring to keep up, and lonely, because people only ever meet the mask. It also tends to crack at bad moments: the composed professional who falls apart in the parking lot, the people-pleaser who suddenly snaps.
Like most of Jung's ideas, this comes from his clinical work rather than experiments. Research on "self-concealment" points the same way, though: people who habitually hide distressing things about themselves tend to report more anxiety and low mood.
Question 1 of 2
Which of these sound like a persona doing its job, and which sound like a mask that has stuck?
- A nurse stays calm and warm with a frightened patient, then cries in the break room after a hard shift.
- Jen is "the strong one" in her family, and hasn't told anyone, including her partner, that she's been having panic attacks.
- A teacher keeps her personal life out of the classroom.
- Marco is the funny one, and makes a joke every time a conversation gets serious, even with his closest friend.
0 of 4 sorted
How to do it
Looking behind the mask
- Name the mask
What role do people see? "The reliable one." "The one who never needs anything." Use your own words.
- Ask what it's for
What does it protect, or get you? Respect, safety, being liked, not being a burden?
- Find the cost
Where does it pinch? What never gets said, or asked for, because it doesn't fit the role?
- Let a little show
Pick one safe person and one small thing that's behind the mask, and let them see it this week.
Leila's last day
Leila has run the office for twelve years. Everyone calls her "the rock": she remembers birthdays, fixes every crisis and never seems rattled. Her mother is now seriously ill, and Leila is driving two hours each way on weekends to look after her. At work she has told no one. When a colleague asks how she is, she says "Never better!" and changes the subject. Last week she found herself sobbing in her car before work, and then went in and ran a meeting as if nothing had happened.
Question 2 of 2
Sources and further reading
- Jung, C. G. (1959). The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Collected Works, Vol. 9i. Princeton University Press.
- Jung, C. G. (1928). The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious. In Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Collected Works, Vol. 7. Princeton University Press.
- Larson, D. G., & Chastain, R. L. (1990). Self-concealment: Conceptualization, measurement, and health implications. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 9(4), 439-455.
Finish the lesson
0 of 2 questions done. Answer the rest to finish.