| Healthy: Self-aware, introspective,
on the "search for self," aware
of feelings and inner impulses. Sensitive
and intuitive both to self and others: gentle,
tactful, compassionate. / Highly personal,
individualistic, "true to self."
Self-revealing, emotionally honest, humane.
Ironic view of self and life: can be serious
and funny, vulnerable and emotionally strong.
At Their Best: Profoundly creative,
expressing the personal and the universal,
possibly in a work of art. Inspired, self-renewing
and regenerating: able to transform all
their experiences into something valuable:
self-creative.
Average: Take an artistic, romantic
orientation to life, creating a beautiful,
aesthetic environment to cultivate and prolong
personal feelings. Heighten reality through
fantasy, passionate feelings, and the imagination.
/ To stay in touch with feelings, they interiorize
everything, taking everything personally,
but become self-absorbed and introverted,
moody and hypersensitive, shy and self-conscious,
unable to be spontaneous or to "get
out of themselves." Stay withdrawn
to protect their self-image and to buy time
to sort out feelings. / Gradually think
that they are different from others, and
feel that they are exempt from living as
everyone else does. They become melancholy
dreamers, disdainful, decadent, and sensual,
living in a fantasy world. Self-pity and
envy of others leads to self-indulgence,
and to becoming increasingly impractical,
unproductive, effete, and precious.
Unhealthy: When dreams fail, become
self-inhibiting and angry at self, depressed
and alienated from self and others, blocked
and emotionally paralyzed. Ashamed of self,
fatigued and unable to function. / Tormented
by delusional self-contempt, self-reproaches,
self-hatred, and morbid thoughts: everything
is a source of torment. Blaming others,
they drive away anyone who tries to help
them. / Despairing, feel hopeless and become
self-destructive, possibly abusing alcohol
or drugs to escape. In the extreme: emotional
breakdown or suicide is likely.
Key Motivations: Want to express
themselves and their individuality, to create
and surround themselves with beauty, to
maintain certain moods and feelings, to
withdraw to protect their self-image, to
take care of emotional needs before attending
to anything else, to attract a "rescuer".
Examples: Ingmar Bergman, Alan Watts,
Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morrisette, Paul
Simon, Jeremy Irons, Patrick Stewart, Joseph
Fiennes, Martha Graham, Bob Dylan, Miles
Davis, Johnny Depp, Anne Rice, Rudolph Nureyev,
J.D. Salinger, Anaîs Nin, Marcel Proust,
Maria Callas, Tennessee Williams, Edgar
Allan Poe, Annie Lennox, Prince, Michael
Jackson, Virginia Woolf, Judy Garland, "Blanche
DuBois" (Streetcar Named Desire). |