self-image

n.
The conception that one has of oneself, including an assessment of qualities and personal worth.

Psychological term referring to individuals' concepts of themselves and their roles in relation to others; also known as self-concept.

Conceptualization, idea, or mental image one has of oneself; concept of ego.

The term self-image has entered common usage. Initially referred to by psychologists, it was then taken up by psychoanalysts without really being theorized. The self-image is ostensibly the representation that everyone has of themselves, in physical as well as physiological, sociological, and mental terms, envisioned through the prism of each individual self-evaluation at different stages of development and in different situations.

Formerly, this notion was often considered to be the equivalent of the body scheme, postural scheme, somatopsyche, image of body-ego, or even somatognosia, although each of these notions had its own characteristics in terms of both its limits and its basic conception. Within this current of thought, the self-image can be seen as the representation of one's own body, as both body-object within one's environment and body in relation to others; or as the totality of a body that is initially experienced as being fragmented; or, finally, as a body that is experienced as autonomous, upon emergence from the period of non-differentiation.

When used in psychoanalysis, the self-image brings together the notions of body image, self-consciousness, the concept of the self, self-identity, and ego-identity. Self-image is constructed through imitations of (for psychology), or identifications with (in psychoanalysis), people around the subject or real or heroic imaginary figures, throughout the development of narcissism and the setting up of the ideal ego, the ego ideal, and the superego. The self-image is dependent as well upon the type of object relations established.

The notion of the self-image emerged in and was refined through the work of a number of authors, in particular that of Henri Wallon, who described the emergence, during the fifth stage of development (personalism), of self-awareness, which can only occur if the child is capable of having a self-image. This ability is related to the test in which the child recognizes itself in a mirror, whereas previously it had mistaken its specular image for another person. Heinz Hartmann, founder of the ego psychology movement, introduced the distinction between the ego, as psychic agency, and the self, in the sense of the person or personality proper. Paul Schilder posited that the formation of body image plays a determining role in the genesis of the representation of self that follows organization of the ego and the evolution of narcissism. In the view of Donald Winnicott, the mother and the primary mothering environment mirror (or do not mirror) back to the child an image of itself with which the child can (or cannot) identify. In this view, the self is an agency of the personality in the narcissistic sense, a representation of self for the self, a libidinal investment of self. Heinz Kohut, in self-psychology theory, proposed the self as a notion that relates to the personality in its entirety, to psychic functioning as a whole, to the bodily self, as well as to more clearly defined elements such as self-representation. Jacques Lacan returned to the "mirror stage" to show that the young child's recognition of its own specular image founds the dual relation, the dimension of the imaginary, and the ideal ego. In the view of Françoise Dolto, body image plays a part in the subject's identification and determines the possibility of a feeling of self—of self within a body. Here, the body is the basis for the construction of the subject's identity in relation to others, and the unconscious image of the body is the forgotten (repressed) bodily foundation for the feeling of self.

It is important, too, to make clear that the self-image also depends on how others see and assess us. We should perhaps add to the notion of the self-image the feeling of competence that is the cognitive construction corresponding to the opinion that each of us is subject to on the cognitive, social, and physical levels, and the relational feeling of self-esteem.

Bibliography

Ajuriaguerra, Julian de. (c1980). Handbook of child psychiatry and psychology. (Raymond P. Lorion, Ed.) New York: Masson. (Original work published 1970)

Dolto, Françoise. (1997). Sentiment de soi, aux sources de l'image du corps. Paris: Gallimard.

Oppenheimer, Agnès. (1998). Heinz Kohut. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

—PHILIPPINE MEFFRE

Quotes:

"I think it's one of the scars in our culture that we have too high an opinion of ourselves. We align ourselves with the angels instead of the higher primates." - Angela Carter

"If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot." - E. M. Cioran

"The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we have of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us." - Quentin Crisp

"Your self image is your pattern!. Every thought has an activity visualized. Every activity belongs to a pattern. You identify with your pattern or thought. Your patterns leads your life." - J. G. Gallimore

"To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case among cases, a world among worlds, that the largeness of mind, without which objectivity is self-congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes." - Clifford Geertz

"We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit." - William Hazlitt

See more famous quotes about Self-image

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - opfattelse af sig selv

Nederlands (Dutch)
zelfbeeld

Français (French)
n. - image de soi-même

Deutsch (German)
n. - Selbstbild

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - εντύπωση που έχομε για τον εαυτό μας

Italiano (Italian)
immagine di sé

Português (Portuguese)
n. - autoimagem (f)

Русский (Russian)
представление о самом себе

Español (Spanish)
n. - autoimagen

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - jagföreställning

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
自我形象

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 自我形象

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 자신에 대한 이미지, 자아상

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 自己のイメージ, 自己像

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) وصف ألذات‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮תדמית/דימוי עצמי/ת‬

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