Types of self-knowledge. Analytical self-knowledge of personality

What does the concept of “Self-knowledge” include?

Let's look first on Wikipedia " Self-knowledge- this is a person’s study of his own mental and physical characteristics, self-understanding.”

As long as we live, we want to know ourselves better. There is a saying: “Another person's soul is darkness. And in my own way I don’t know a bit better.”

How to know your own personality? Let's see what methods of self-knowledge exist.

1 way– this is purposeful watch yourself. How I act in a given situation, what feelings overwhelm me, what and what I think about every second.

Over the past 2 months, I have trained myself to observe the course of my thoughts. This is very interesting! Try it!

Moreover, now I am learning to transform negative thoughts into positive ones. This is just super cool! Not to mention that there are much more good moods than blues! And this feeling is fabulous, because I was in prolonged depression for 5 years. And I started having serious health problems. Watch yourself, don't get carried away!

2 method of self-knowledge personalities– analyze everything that you notice in yourself. They brought me to great irritation. How easy is it to bring me to this state? After all, I am calm at my core.

And it turns out that I become easily quick-tempered and even harsh when communicating with only one person. And this closest and most beloved person is capable of driving me to white heat!

What's the reason? Why am I generally reasonable and calm, and why do I light up like a match? And I understand that this has been going on since childhood. This person always tried to impose his opinion on me, but I stubbornly resisted and acted in my own way. And now, already an adult and having lived a long life, I find myself in the same situation right away!

And here is the second discovery, which is why my husband and I spent our whole lives...

This is how, from self-knowledge of myself as a person and analysis from a specific situation that happened an hour ago, I saw my whole life and understood EVERYTHING about it.

For example, I’ll compare myself to a super beauty with untold wealth and a ton of fans.

So what? Everything is clear, she’s ugly, she’s poor, and God knows what else you can think about. No, I don’t want anyone to compare myself to standards.

I am the only one and the prettiest, the kindest, the smartest and all that kind of stuff. And a man would be a fool if he didn’t see all this in me! Another thing! Isn't it true? And there are plenty of fools.))) Not without this. ;)

Option 4- very tricky - this is model yourself, your behavior, character with special signs. At the same time, other people should also be included in the modeling of relationships.

I haven't tried it, but I'm curious. Right now we’ll do it together with you, my beloved reader!

Any infographic creation service is good for this. I liked the one proposed by ]]> ]]> the most.

Look what happened. Depicted are me, my children, grandchildren, ex-husband and a pig in a poke. I think guessing who is where is not difficult for an attentive person.

I depicted my surroundings, but not everyone. But only with pronounced relationships.

5 mechanism of self-knowledge comes after studying the previous steps. Now we must realize that there is an opposite. After all, the same quality of a person has two sides of the coin: negative and positive. And when we accept ourselves as we are, we get closer to self-improvement.

The most common method is self-knowledge through knowledge of other people. We evaluate others in situations and analyze their actions. Remember your question: “why did he (she) do that?” Thus, we see our own difference.

Everyone experiences themselves differently.

Some write personal diaries, others watch films and read books, where they notice the psychological portraits of the characters and put themselves in their place. Would I do that or not?

Why do you need to understand yourself as a person?

In order to increase your self-esteem.

And at this stage, we must check ourselves to see how much the desired corresponds to the reality. What have we achieved by getting to know ourselves and what still needs to be worked on.

Self-knowledge- this is a person’s study of his own mental and physical characteristics, self-understanding. It begins in infancy and continues throughout life. It is formed gradually as it reflects both the external world and self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is inherent only to man.

If you explain it in the language of simple, ordinary people, self-knowledge is knowing yourself in order to know what you want. Those. who am I? Why do I live? Is there an ideal job for me, an ideal family, an ideal life partner, an ideal world and an ideal life for me? Why don't they love me? Why don’t I have good relationships with my peers, or with work colleagues, or with my parents, etc.

Self-knowledge should occur not only on the physical, but also on the spiritual level. Most people in our time often don’t even think about setting spiritual goals; our world has become very, so to speak, “clothed, enslaved,” everything can be bought for money, forgive the blasphemy, even priests. All human goals most often come down to acquiring something, buying something.

Man, originally a spiritual being, has reduced himself to material needs, and therefore suffers, because the spirit is oppressed, as if in prison.

Self-knowledge arises and develops as a person matures and matures, as his mental functions develop and contact with the outside world expands. Self-knowledge is closely related to individual self-esteem.

Self-knowledge is realized through the perception and understanding of one’s behavior, actions, experiences, and results of activities. The complexity of self-knowledge lies in its focus on the inner world, rich in individual-subjective, original moments. As observations and studies show, self-knowledge begins in childhood. It grows with the mental development of the child. The process of self-knowledge develops gradually, often unconsciously, and the student, for example, initially explains the fact of successful mastery of a given subject by his attitude towards it (like it or not). The development of self-knowledge allows a person, by getting to know his inner world and experiencing internal sensations, to understand it and relate to himself in a certain way, i.e. self-knowledge is not only a rational, but also an emotional process, often an unconscious attitude towards oneself.

Most often, the pangs of self-knowledge torment thinking, searching, creative people. But not only that, many ordinary people turn to self-knowledge after experiencing a crisis situation, for example, conflict at work, at college, failures in their personal lives, loss of contact with parents or children. Some try to find a ready-made answer by reading a variety of literature, watching films, consulting with friends, seeking support that they are right. Others who are more mature and adequately assess the situation (able to look at it from the outside) will strive to understand themselves, understand their own desires and motives for their behavior, and relationships with others. Analyzing themselves in a conflict situation, they will strive to find positive points of contact and achieve a position in the future to completely avoid or mitigate the conflict situation that has occurred. And someone will need the help of a specialist of their own free will or on the advice of relatives or friends, in the process of communication with whom work will be carried out aimed at self-knowledge of their own inner world, to advance along the path of self-improvement, personal growth, in order to build harmonious relationships with themselves , the people around you and the world.

If we recall all of the above and the data of psychological literature, then the process of self-knowledge as an attempt to answer the question “Who am I?” – is the creation of one’s own identity, individuality.

Self-knowledge is a meeting with one’s being, seen through the signs and symbols of culture. Only thanks to them, one’s own existence becomes understandable and accessible to both the person himself and his environment. Thus, through the language of self-determination (discursive concepts), a person acquires self-existence-in-the-world: embeddedness in the world, awareness of oneself as part of the world.

In conclusion, it should be said that usually the torment of self-knowledge begins when there is no happiness in love. Not satisfied with work (no favorite thing), two. A person has lost his health, the ability to move, or learned of the inevitability of imminent death, three, etc. And most importantly, during crisis periods of a child’s development, otherwise there would be no development and improvement of a PERSON with a capital “H”. The pangs of self-knowledge cruelly torment creative people and people of science, because... without them there would be no great actors, artists, scientists, great discoveries, and we would live in caves, etc.

From early childhood, a person wonders about who he is, tries to understand himself, his inner world. This is how the process of self-discovery begins. And this is not only contemplation of oneself, but also observation of one’s actions and thoughts with the aim of improving them. After all, knowing yourself without inner work is meaningless.

One of the main requirements for this is the recognition of one’s own ignorance and the desire to acquire this knowledge. It is impossible to know oneself through introspection alone. Logical reasoning or other mental activity is not enough. It is necessary to awaken the consciousness of one's nature and do this better under the guidance of an experienced mentor or Teacher with knowledge.

Each person is a separate world that contains many mysteries. And just as it is difficult to comprehend the external world, it is also difficult to understand the inner world of a person. This is a very exciting, challenging, but achievable task.

An interesting fact is that this is not a one-time process, but a gradual one. By discovering one part of himself, a person gradually learns something new. And it can end up taking up your entire life, making it incredibly exciting.

In order to understand yourself, you also need to be aware of what drives your actions, what your internal motives are. Such an assessment must be objective.

With each stage of self-knowledge, a person changes himself, changes his attitude towards life. He discovers more and more new sides of himself, new possibilities that he had not thought of before.

In ancient teachings, self-knowledge was understood as knowledge of one’s depth, in which the divine nature of man was revealed. It was combined with the study of mental states. Such self-knowledge took a person beyond the limits of knowledge of his own Self.

To engage in self-knowledge, a person must not only have the desire, but also find out what methods of self-knowledge exist. This could be religion, philosophy, psychology, various meditative techniques or bodily ones. It is important to understand what results this or that way of knowing oneself leads to.

A person must constantly develop - this is another important condition for knowing oneself. Self-knowledge constantly lags slightly behind the object of knowledge.

In the process of knowing yourself, it is important not to belittle your qualities, nor to exaggerate them. It is a sober assessment and acceptance of oneself as one is that is the key to proper personal development. Otherwise, arrogance, self-confidence, or, conversely, timidity, isolation, and shyness may appear. These qualities will become an insurmountable barrier to self-improvement.

Some philosophers highly valued self-knowledge. So Socrates said that it is the basis of all virtue. Lessing and Kant argued that this is the beginning and center of human wisdom. Goethe wrote: “How can one know oneself? Thanks to contemplation this is generally impossible; it is possible only through action. Try to fulfill your duty - and then you will know what is in you.”

Recently, one site reader wrote to me that he has been engaged in self-knowledge for more than 20 years. I asked him a question - What results did you get during this time? The answer is silence. And a few days later the man wrote that during this time, over 20 years, he had learned a lot and began to understand himself better. And, apparently, he had nothing more to say. You know, a problem is often buried here, the cause of which is the spiritual incompetence and lack of education of most people. It’s sad when a person knows a lot, his head is full of information, but his mind is full of vinaigrette, and yet the results in life, as a rule, are zilch. That is, a person has not learned to apply anything in practice, the question is - why did he study then? This is how losers are born, I tell you.

Personal self-knowledge is not an end in itself! Self-knowledge is just the first, preparatory stage in the path of human development and self-realization in life. Self-knowledge must be followed by purposeful development and necessarily self-realization (practical application of knowledge in life - success, happiness in practice! ).

What is Personal Self-Knowledge

To better understand the topic, first of all, I recommend reading the article - it also talks about self-knowledge, but as one of the stages of life. And now let’s take a closer look at Self-Knowledge.

, The second stage of Personality development must be understood almost literally - self-knowledge. The stage of self-knowledge is necessary for every person to consciously choose a life path, a path of development and a choice of life goals (profession, etc.).

Relatively speaking, there are many levels of self-knowledge, and it all depends on the person. For some, it is enough to simply feel and understand their desires, aspirations - who a person wants to be and why. For example, a person wants to be a doctor and earn a lot. He analyzes his desires and chooses a profession in medicine that pays well (dentist, plastic surgeon, etc.). For many people, it is enough to simply understand their desires and, without much thought, begin to achieve them. And for some this is infinitely not enough.

Truly self-knowledge of a person begins with questions: Who am I? () What am I born for? Why am I living? In this case, self-knowledge includes knowledge and development of oneself as a Personality, knowledge of one’s Soul, the search for the highest meaning of Life, choice and moral principles by which a person would like to live.

The stage of self-knowledge passes into the path of development when a person finds answers to the key questions listed above - chooses goals and a knowledge system, the answers of which satisfy him.

- this is, in essence, a spiritual search, which, most often, involves reading many books, sifting through a large amount of information, getting to know your feelings and aspirations, and an initial practical test of some postulates.

The next stages of Self-knowledge Personalities follow after a person has decided on the choice of path and has begun to purposefully work on himself according to some kind of system. That is, he began to apply in his life, in practice, the relevant knowledge, development techniques and get results.

Subsequent stages of self-discovery include:

• Knowing your Soul, its structure, potential, abilities and their disclosure
• Cognition of your divine Individuality and its disclosure
• Knowledge and implementation of your
• Knowing your own with its further implementation

Remember! If you read a lot and know a lot, this does not mean that you are developing and moving towards perfection! You are just discovering. And development begins only when you begin to change yourself, apply knowledge and techniques in practice, and get positive results in your life.

As Christ said: “You will know by the fruits!“, or so - “Show me your results in life and I will tell you what level of development you have”

Today, the most popular and sought-after word among healthy people is “improvement.” In every area a person must move, grow, develop. However, few people understand how to do this, which is why they do not achieve it in the end. All people would like to develop as individuals, but they do everything that does not contribute to this. One of the important stages of development is self-knowledge, of which there are several types.

What role does the online magazine site highlight for self-knowledge in the development of oneself? A person is able to develop only when he knows what shortcomings he has in order to change and improve them. What do people usually do? They change those around them and the world as a whole, forgetting that the development and achievement of happiness, success, love begins with the development of themselves. People change and influence anything but themselves. And here psychologists identify the two most important reasons for this:

1. It is difficult for a person to know himself, since he has always been taught to understand the world around him. Moreover, knowing oneself will force a person to see himself not as he is used to seeing himself, but to finally become convinced of his own imperfection and the presence of many shortcomings.
2. Development requires changes, and it is difficult for a person to change himself, because it requires effort, time and effort. It is easier to force someone else to change and be offended if this does not happen, than to engage in your own development.

A person “slows down” himself in his development and self-improvement until he notices his weaknesses, patterned behavior, and wrong actions and decides on the actions that he needs to take to correct them. As long as a person is deaf to the advice of other people, blames others for his troubles (and troubles are the world’s response to a person’s actions) and does not decide to change himself, he continues to fall into the same troubles and receive the same misfortunes as before. To change, you need to see your own weaknesses, wrong actions and patterned behavior, which leads to problems.

The most important stage is to start changing yourself. People have already learned to see their shortcomings. But that's not all. You need to work to remove these shortcomings and develop your strengths. And this is a much more complex and difficult process, requiring willpower and complete self-control.

To develop, you need to change yourself. It seems to sound quite natural, understandable. But for some reason, many people still believe in the illusion that they can somehow develop without changing their habits, actions, and lifestyle. How can you make yourself different without changing? It sounds quite natural, but when it comes to direct actions, a person begins to hope that without changing himself, he will be able to deceive fate and become perfect.

Don't fool yourself. Development is only possible when you yourself see your weaknesses, patterned behavior and wrong actions that give you the life you ultimately live. You don't need to change all of yourself, but only part of it. But even this is hard to do when you don’t want to, you’re deceiving yourself and trying to fool the whole world.

To develop, you need to change yourself. And this desire should be yours personally. You must be the one who wants to change. It is you who must engage and control yourself. Life won't change without your changes. You won't cheat fate. And you can understand this if you analyze your past, where your attempts at deception failed.

What is self-knowledge?

Self-knowledge is an important stage in development and improvement. This term implies a person’s knowledge of his personality from any angle:

1. The biological sphere is the knowledge of your body, your physical capabilities, the functions of the body, its changes.
2. Social – the ability to acquire knowledge, develop skills, and communicate with people.
3. Personal – the ability to make decisions, dream, draw conclusions, etc.

A person is a whole system that consists of body, soul and mind. If a person begins to know himself, then he specifically considers his body, his life, character traits and behavior patterns, complexes and fears, advantages and disadvantages, etc.

Self-knowledge is very difficult for a modern person, since no one teaches him this. Moreover, each individual is faced with the fact that thinking about himself, caring and loving himself is considered selfish manifestations that are not accepted and condemned by society. If a person does not have to take care or think about himself, then he does not need to know himself. What kind of development can there be if a person doesn’t even know what to change?

From childhood, people are taught to think about others, to help and care for their neighbors. So it turns out that people get to know each other, but not themselves. And they try to influence their own lives by changing those around them or the outside world. Let's take an example that is offered to everyone who wants to change something in their life: it is recommended to change their place of residence, work, change their circle of acquaintances and even a loved one if something does not suit the individual. But, as the sages say, wherever a person goes and runs away, he always takes himself with him.

Just as a pig will find dirt everywhere, so a person will not change his life as long as he continues to have the same qualities and perform the usual actions with which he previously brought himself to trouble.

It is easiest for any person to remain himself. By the way, people who accept this lifestyle often use the expression: “Accept me as I am.” But what happens when you do the same actions? You get the same result. And therefore, only you can decide whether you will remain the same in order to stumble upon the “same rake”, or begin to develop in order to achieve new results.

You can be whatever you want to be and achieve whatever you want. To do this, you just need to organize your life so that it brings you what you want. In other words, develop habits, a way of thinking, a way of life, a worldview, so that all this leads you to what you want to achieve.

Many people are accustomed to living like a Tetris game: the experience remains the same, but the number of mistakes increases. That is, time passes, but a person goes through life’s difficulties, repeating his experience, accumulating mistakes. But life’s problems are given so that a person develops, evolves, changes, and becomes better.

Why keep something in yourself that does not lead you to the desired result? You understand, for example, that alcohol does not benefit you, but only harms your health. Then why do you continue to develop the habit of drinking beer or vodka at the end of the working day if you want to be healthy and successful people? Stop cherishing those habits that do not lead you to your goals. Instead, spend some time developing new habits and habits that will benefit you and even benefit you.

A lot can be changed in this life, especially in your own. And only you can decide whether to remain the same or develop in order to ultimately get what you deserve.

Self-knowledge and personality development

There is a close relationship between self-knowledge and personality development. From childhood, a person has a desire for self-knowledge in order to improve his skills and capabilities. Self-knowledge is recognizing your capabilities and qualities. Development is the improvement of one’s capabilities and qualities.

Since every child goes through the process of education, at some stage he is faced with the fact that he must think about the people around him and the world, and not about himself. At this point, the process of self-knowledge stops, which leads to a lack of development.

To develop, you need to know yourself. An amazing process is observed here: when a person finally begins to see himself in a real light, he has an energy that forces him to develop. He begins to understand why he faces the troubles that constantly haunt him. He understands why he made certain mistakes. Now it becomes clear what needs to be done to achieve success in those areas where a person sets goals and does not achieve them.

Self-knowledge already gives energy to a person to begin his development, since he begins to understand, and not to soar in his own illusions.

Illusions are inherent in all people who were forced to forget about themselves and start thinking about everyone else. Each person has a personal idea of ​​himself. And here some dissonance arises:

1. The ideal self is what a person wants to be.
2. The “real self” is what a person really is, but he does not know himself as such.
3. The “social self” is how a person is seen by people around him. Often, they also don’t know a person well in the real world, since they get to know him only as long as it is interesting and beneficial to them.

Self-esteem is precisely built on how a person looks at himself and from what position he evaluates himself. Often a person’s self-esteem is built on the opinion that he hears about himself from other people. For some people, self-esteem is built on the ideal image of who they would like to be, which is why it falls every time they notice that they do not live up to their ideals. And only a small part of people have healthy self-esteem when they really look at themselves, without inventing anything and without being influenced by surrounding opinions.

When a person gets to know himself, he has a chance to improve his own and make it adequate. Adequate self-esteem depends on how realistically a person evaluates himself and does not demand the impossible from himself. When self-esteem decreases, a person tries to be ideal, which she fails to do, and the people around her constantly suppress her with their criticism. Inflated self-esteem is the result of the fact that a person already considers himself ideal, although, of course, he actually is not.

Self-knowledge helps to form a stable and adequate self-esteem. This doesn't mean you won't have shortcomings. On the contrary, you will be aware of your weaknesses, but you will not be upset about them. Now you will be faced with a choice: to exchange your shortcomings for advantages or to leave them in yourself, without criticizing yourself for their presence?

Types of self-knowledge

Types of self-knowledge are:

1. Self-observation is observation of internal processes, thoughts and one’s behavior.
2. Self-analysis is the discovery of cause-and-effect relationships in ongoing events, motives for one’s own behavior, highlighting traits based on identified connections.
3. Comparison - comparing oneself with other people or images.
4. Modeling is the creation of a new image based on existing characteristics.
5. Awareness of opposites - seeing the existing qualities and those that he would like to have. If a person learns to see positive phenomena in his qualities, which he previously perceived exclusively negatively, then he will treat them less critically, which will make him stronger.

For self-knowledge, you can use the services of a psychologist who will become an objective observer.

Bottom line

To change anything in your life, you need to know what to change. And while a person is afraid to look at himself, he will direct his forces to change the people around him or the world as a whole, which is absolutely impossible and even meaningless.