2010 - Fantasy is what we all use to perfect our *idealized self* and protect our real selves from harm. The terms come from Karen Horney. Nearly 80 years ago, she was instrumental in uncovering defensive strategies in childhood. Horney began to use the term, real self to indicate "a possible self," that is, a self that we can realistically learn to express outwardly in life by "being ourselves." Unfortunately, we come across some very hard people who have other ideas along the way- so we modify our real selves into idealized versions in a defensive measure. This, Karen Horney called "the idealized self."
The idealized self is a glorified version of how we think we should be. Our real self is covered up with layers of this idealized "should be" crud because the idealized version works with an almost impenetrable fortress of defense mechanisms called the "tyrannical shoulds." I should be able to know, understand and foresee everything. I should be able to solve every problem of my own or of others in no time. I should be able to overcome every difficulty in life and help others overcome theirs. I should be able to do things in one hour that normally take others two to three... and when a romantic partner comes into my life and mirrors my idealization of myself- I feel I have found my soulmate. I then project my idealized self onto them as keepers of the flame. Everything is great and nothing causes anxiety. I am in love. The idealized self now becomes more real than the "real self." In fact, Karen Horney went further into this break with reality by claiming that the real me, the one I keep hidden, is now despised by myself. She called it the "despised real self."
I don't really know that I despise my real self because my thoughts are hypnotized with the idealization of my new partner who mirrors my idealized self. But the new relationship allows me a sense of freedom and I seek to be understood for the "real me." I let down my guard and begin to share my secrets. I begin to show bits and pieces of my real self to my partner. And in synchronicity, my partner sees the "actual" person that I am- maybe not as idealized as I would think. This causes me anxiety and I work hard to recollect the idealization. Soon, the problems arise that my idealized self cannot control or fix. This idealized self that I created to offset my anxiety is now no longer working.
"In contrast to authentic ideals, the idealized image has a static quality. It is not a goal toward attainment, but a fixed idea that is worshiped." ~ Karen Horney. In other words, the idealized image can become arrogant, which may be labeled narcissism. The idealized self is now seen as a state of being- one that is nearly impossible to attain.
I feel a sense of hostility. I am now in pain. My idealized self is based on wishful thinking style, and I am compelled to reach this unrealistic goal of problem solving with behaviors that Horney called, my "search for glory." One that returns me to the all wonderful, idealized self that works with wishful thinking but never accomplishes my idealized version of love.
And the wishful thinking overrides the reality that my partner and I are bound together by some form of idealized need, the basis of which is pain and suffering that is really our despised real selves. And I feel we are better together against this pain than alone because we have mirrored each other in a fantasized, idealized World of “shoulds.” We should be able to fix this. We should be never split up our friendship. I should help him/her. He/She should get well. *We* should be happy. This shouldn't be a problem.
Unfortunately the idealized self and it's tyrannical shoulds isn’t reality- it's fantasy. Your real self is showing. That's the self that’s anxious and uncomfortable and perhaps feeling a bit hostile that your idealized self has been and is being challenged. The idealized self is and has always been defensive. It is what you created in order to survive a hostile World in childhood. You did this in order to gain needed love and approval. It's being defensive again. Meanwhile, your real self is still there, waiting, perhaps hiding with it's core issues- and it harbors all the potential for personal growth and well being outside of the creation of the idealized self- but it has atrophied and barely given respect. Too much of your attention has gone to your idealized version of yourself- (the one that's impossible to attain.) Your real self harbors your own feelings, thoughts, wishes, dreams, abilities and will power- but it was shoved aside, damaged by parental indifference in your childhood.
Horney's theories detail many rationalizations, conflicts and blind spots in therapy before we are able to let go of this idealized version of ourselves. One of the earliest blockages is the externalization of the idealized self onto others. "When a person feels that his life for good or ill is determined by others, it is only logical that he should be preoccupied with changing them, reforming them, punishing them, protecting himself from their interference, or impressing them. Another inevitable product of externalization is a gnawing sense of emptiness and shallowness if he does not." Horney, 1945, p.117.
Being mirrored by a romantic partner forces your insistence on the idealized version of yourself. An idealized version that doesn't work because it never could. It just causes a great pain. Losing this idealized version causes an identity crisis of such proportions that you feel like you are crumbling apart and dying. Your idealized self was created to defend against separation anxiety and abandonment depression from childhood and here it goes -not working anymore. Most people come into therapy during this stage. That's why Horney added a third self-image, which is the only one we cannot really see but others see in us. She called it our "actual self." (That's the one you show outwardly and the one that therapists are looking at when you go to therapy during an identity crisis.) It's up to the therapist to help you crack through the wall of the idealized version in your head and get at the real you that's lying dormant and to do so creates hostility and anxiety.
~It's very difficult to let go of the idealized self and the mirroring of the idealized self in a Borderline relationship. It doesn't mean that we are Narcissists, it just means that you and I created an idealized version of ourselves that worked fine up until we met our partner and that idealized self is what is covering up the real self- and the real self needs to be comforted and restored to it's real glory. First it has to suffer the pain of going it alone. :light:
http://plaza.ufl.edu/bjparis/horney/fadiman/04_major3.html
end 2010
"BPDers Fu** up EVERYONES lives that interact with them - plain and simple"
Feel free to contact me about anything. Questions, experiences, annotations, copyright infringment...