The introduction of elements of our lived history to our subjective experience is essential to imparting the depth and resonance of full human emotion to what might otherwise be simple ephemeral feeling states. Emotion itself can thus be understood as “feelings with biography.” Our emotions impart much of the complexity and often, the ambiguity of “meaning” that informs our mental processes at all levels of consciousness. It is the rich spectrum of meaning and the enduring reverberation of complex emotion that provides the elements of distinctness and continuity indispensable to each individual’s subjective experience.

Furthermore, while elements of our evoked history shape perceptions of the present, our unconscious mind naturally, continuously selects primarily those aspects of past experiences that can most readily be integrated into our ongoing Self-narrative – those that best serve to maintain its coherence and to support our existential concerns. That is to say, our psyche is naturally inclined to retrieve from our past and bring to conscious recognition primarily those characteristics of ourselves and experiences that sustain and enhance our positive self-concept as attractive, competent and suitable social beings. This continuous process of programmed selection and curating – from which our negative characteristics, our haunting, deeply felt liabilities are naturally, automatically redacted, ultimately produces and sustains a potentially predominant and enduring model of ourselves – a “Self-ideal,” traditionally termed “Ego.”

The Phantom Power of Shame

For many, perhaps most individuals, the construct of the Self-ideal gradually becomes the prevailing living model for their identity. Except in rare moments of intentional reflection, it remains in the background of their consciousness, while it functions as a key point of reference that shapes much of their thinking and firmly guides their behavioral choices. At its core, the Self-ideal serves as a continual stabilizer, a means to maintain internal emotional equilibrium by alleviating the heavy onus of negative “self-representations” embedded in the foundations of the psyche. These self-images are latent imprints of our early psychological vulnerabilities and wounds, records of the impact of any and all negative views of ourselves that we have absorbed from the inevitably flawed relationships in our early environment.

From the early history of all our lives, and ongoing, there is an infinitude of moments that may impart to us a sense of fundamental vulnerability to failure, that may call into question the adequacy of our basic capabilities – our ability to survive and thrive in life. Moreover, from the outset we sense and naturally identify with such insecurities within the inner lives of the primary adult figures of our early relational world. The vestiges of both theirs and our own “internalized” negative experiences are thus likely to settle deep into our own psychological bedrock and to haunt us.

Thereby, some persistent sense of basic and inalterable deficit or defect is likely to be present in the psychological foundation of all individuals. As such, it may continually suggest to us what we are not, what we most fundamentally lack; it transmits to us a primal anxiety of existential vulnerability, continually threatening us from within. This pervasive, uniquely potent and phantom-like presence within the psyche is the essence of what we can properly call, “Shame.”

To whatever degree that shame’s latent insecurity settles within our psychological foundation, when it does re-emerge, its presence is often signaled to our psyche through its natural concomitant, anxiety. Through anxiety, shame’s impact upon our evolving Self-construct may be continuous and far-reaching, as the course of everyday life presents us with an infinitude of situations or endeavors in which even a fleeting feeling of vulnerability can “trigger” long-buried feelings of fundamental inadequacy. Except in situations of acute embarrassment, which are momentary and relatively rare, shame’s particular toxic power is more continuous and insidious in character, experienced internally and privately. For most individuals its very presence tends to be elusive and shadow-like. It generally escapes our direct recognition primarily because our predominant sense of identity, our Ideal Self (our “Ego”) can effectively obscure conscious awareness of our most dreaded shortcomings.

Furthermore, we can mobilize our defensive filtration processes within the mere instant that something present in our experience evokes that acute sense of vulnerability that is shame’s hallmark. Our Self-construct itself is particularly adapted to assembling and bringing to the forefront of consciousness whatever aspects of our ideal Self best meet and neutralize shame’s particular assault. There is a traditional clinical term that specifically describes the quality of those fleeting moments of negative self-recognition that trigger nearly instantaneous removal from our awareness: “Ego-dystonic,” that is, intolerable to the Self. For instance, wherever we note certain familiar qualities of “conceit” or grandiosity in the personality and behavior of any individual, we can safely surmise that they represent that person’s primary living defense against that which is most Ego-dystonic to them; lurking beneath it is the dark specter of shame.

What Is Narcissism?

Within the continuous cycle of shame’s reemergence and its suppression, we observe the key driver of the idealization process in the evolution of our Self-concept: Shame itself exercises unique power over the quality and shape of our living sense of Self by compelling us to summon the defense of pride – the very antithesis of shame, and its (temporary) antidote. Pride can be understood as the enhanced, uplifted feeling state associated to any situation in which our Self-ideal is affirmed, in which our positive attributes are primarily manifest and/or recognized by ourselves and others.

Thereby, those characteristics and experiences that evoke the feeling of pride within us serve as the “brick and mortar” with which we construct and sustain a generally idealized Self-narrative. It is pride’s energy that directs the curating of this Self-concept, producing an idealized model of our identity. The quality and the intensity of our relationship to that idealized version of our Self – the pride-infused dimension of our identity – is the essence of what has been traditionally termed, “narcissism.” In other words, our narcissism is our relationship to that curated part of Self consisting primarily of those of our characteristics that we (and others) find most admirable, attractive and/or lovable. Our narcissism is therefore the natural concomitant of our shame – the natural counterbalance to whatever haunting, persistent feelings of defect or deficiency may linger within us.

What Is Neurosis?

A hugely consequential dilemma – central and omnipresent in the psychology of human experience – occurs within the emotional  polarities between shame and pride; it revolves specifically around the idealized Self that arises from it. At its root is the fact that the construct which is our Self-ideal is, by its very definition, constantly vulnerable to its own inevitable failure. The repudiation that the Self-ideal experiences when juxtaposed to our natural human complexity and fallibility creates a recurring cycle of emotional inflation (pride/grandiosity), followed by subsequent deflation (closely akin to shame itself, and which has sometimes been termed, “narcissistic injury”).

In the conduct of our lives we operate as full human beings, replete with our flaws, our shortcomings and our natural capacity for failures small and large. To the degree that our living identity is merged to an ideal model of ourselves, that sense of Self – constantly confronted with our flawed human reality present in all life situations – is likely to suffer some degree of continual, jarring deflation. Thereby, the Self becomes trapped within an internal emotional continuum of recurring shame and anxiety.

Moreover, any present situation in which the failure of the Self-ideal is manifest, as well as any circumstance in which its failure can be anticipated, will sound our internal alarm system, which is anxiety. The psyche’s natural inclination is to avoid such a painful rejection of any aspect of its held concept; thereby, it compels us to continually map and select present and future life situations according to their potential to threaten our essentially fragile construct which is the Self-ideal. Depending on how closely individuals’ lived identity must conform to the Self-ideal, their navigation through life’s landscape will be unconsciously directed toward situations most likely to affirm their positive attributes and entitlements, and conversely, direct them away from those that are likely to find them falling short of what is, fundamentally, an untenable standard for themselves.

At its extreme, the consequence of this essentially universal dilemma is that an entire life’s primary mission may be to sustain and seek affirmation of the characteristics of the Self-ideal; to defend it against any and all possible repudiations. To the degree that any person’s living sense of themselves is trapped within its own curated, idealized version and its rigid dictates, that individual’s tolerance for participation in spontaneous, unpredictable life situations – particularly, for a diversity of potentially gratifying relationships and social interactions – will be increasingly narrower and more constrained: Their life experience in general is likely to become ever more proscribed and limited. This common, potentially chronic and life-defining human dilemma is the essence of the human condition that can be properly understood as “neurosis.”

Our Worldview

From its inception the structure of our Self’s story evolves within an even broader framework, which can be described as our “worldview.” It is the overall vantage point from which we locate our Self and its story within the larger scheme of life around us. The perspectives of our worldview are primarily extracted from, and shaped by, the expressed and unexpressed feelings, the attitudes, and the behaviors that we witness and absorb in our earliest relationships – primarily those within our original family. As participants in our original family culture we continually observe and record how the adults closest to us interact with and conduct themselves in the external world.

As children our attunement naturally operates at the “gut,” level, that is, primarily through feelings: We absorb reality in a way largely unobstructed by adult cognitive/intellectual faculties with its vast knowledge base. Thereby, we can more directly absorb subtle truths about our parents’ and elders’ sense of place and standing in their social milieu and the broader culture. We further note the kind of personality adaptations that our primary adult figures make in social interactions, and we take the measure of the quality and extent of their “agency,” that is, their impact on others in their social environment.

The vast array of interpersonal dynamics that we witness in a myriad of contexts gradually coalesces into “models” from which we automatically extract conclusions about the nature of the world at large. In turn, these produce a central paradigm: an unconsciously held, ever present and profoundly influential framework that encompasses the whole of the world and ourselves in it. Our worldview thereby becomes the basis for enduring assumptions that we maintain about the essential nature of the outside world; these in turn determine our expectations of what life holds for each of us.

As powerful and ubiquitous as early determinants of our Self-narrative may be, we do well to consider that they are neither absolute nor permanently fixed: While the foundational “blueprint,” our worldview, is initially drawn from our early relational environment, we also continually integrate an accumulating history of our own specific life experiences.  As these naturally diverge in a myriad of ways from our original models, we may gradually come to synthesize new truths about the world and our place in it. Optimally, these acquired experiences can penetrate, challenge and even significantly alter the presuppositions of our worldview: They can expand our capacity to interpret our present and past life experience and thereby, reshape our sense of our future as well. Profound shifts in our Self-concept and in the trajectory of our narrative can arise from such expanded consciousness; at best, they may ultimately reorient our lives toward a much fuller realization of our authentic potential.

Subjectivity

It has been often observed, and it is nearly self-evident that subjective psychological experience, that of our inner world of feeling and thought, drawing on its own historic archive, is our most immediate and palpable in life. Subjectivity is the natural territory in which our Self is rooted; thus it is essential to defining and securing our psychological boundaries, to our maintaining a sense of distinct, coherent identity in the ever-changing world around us. It follows also that the idiosyncratic “truths” developed and held within our subjective realm can exercise dominant power to mediate and define virtually the whole of our experience of reality.

The processes of our unconscious mind that produce and support subjectivity naturally serve our role as the primary custodians of our own survival, well-being and quality of life; they also incline us to egocentricity and potentially, a somewhat solipsistic construct of reality. Indeed, much of our life experience – the feelings attached to it, the meaning that arises from it, and the importance we accord it – is automatically organized to conform to and serve our ongoing self-narrative and our concept of ourselves at its center. By natural default, the sense of reality that ultimately penetrates our consciousness is itself already “curated.” Our experience in the world is, to a large degree, pre-selected and interpreted primarily according to whether it confirms and enhances, or conversely, challenges and diminishes the Self-concept and its protagonist (Self/Ego) operating at the center of our life story.

The Self In Relation To The Other

Acting as the living manifestation of our subjective reality, the Self functions both as the primary creator and as communicator of our living story to the outside world. In doing so it operates through interconnected roles that are closely analogous to those of the theater: that of creator/writer/editor of the story itself; that of the protagonist (who embodies primarily those characteristics we most like and value), and that of the actor who conveys our concept of our Self-protagonist to others through our personality. Because we humans are inherently self-observing, our Self experience also engages the functions of a director/critic. Through this powerful and often troubling faculty, sometimes described as our “third eye,” we maintain within ourselves some degree of constant critical oversight of both the content of our Self-narrative and the characteristics and quality of its performance.

Managing our exposure to some form of audience present before us is thereby a quite natural, primary and continuous task of the Self. While our Self constantly experiences observation and scrutiny from outside ourselves – by the recognizable “audience” of others present before us –we must simultaneously manage the more elusive presence of the audience/observer from within our psyche: the director/critic, traditionally termed, our “third eye.” It operates from its internal vantage point primarily to judge how well we are actualizing our Self-ideal (Ego) in our role of protagonist within the life story.

The nearly constant presence of some bilateral scrutiny, from both outside and within ourselves, is a constant psychological challenge. It is charged by feelings of vulnerability instinctively connected to any threat of potential failure in relation to other’s or our own expectations. In these processes the apparatus of anxiety (that is, all fear not related to concrete, imminent danger) operates like a signal from an internal alarm system to which we automatically respond in thought and/or action. Through the neuro-mechanisms of fear, anxiety thus cues us to the presence of any threat or danger – whether imminent, imagined or anticipated. The natural ebb and flow of anxiety within us can and does deeply influence how we unconsciously regulate the disclosure of certain aspects of the whole of ourselves. Thus, the degree of our anxiety in any given moment is a major, though subtle determinant of our personalities and of much of the behavior that makes our Self known in the world..

In routine social engagement our management of the Self’s vulnerability to exposure takes place within a constant “relational balance.” In this, each individual’s Self perceives and responds to the presence of an audience of others who are, likewise, “Self-performers,” and with whom we share the “stage.” In a fluid give-and-take, all participants in social interaction thus enact the role of the protagonist of their life narrative, while they alternately or simultaneously serve as the audience for other Self(s) present, who are themselves similarly engaged.

Throughout, all parties to social interaction are psychologically programmed to make largely automatic and continuous assessments as to the identity and disposition of the “audience” of others present. Key information is drawn from a multi-level exchange of information and energy among all participants. This exercise of social skill engages not only verbal communication, but simultaneously, a stream of “affective language” comprised of facial expressions, body language and tone of voice. From this rich, complex flow of information, all participating “Self-performers” automatically calculate how their Self-concept is being communicated to, and received by, others present – their “audience.” Participation in such reciprocal self-exposure and shared vulnerability during social interactions sustains a natural balance by which each individual can continually monitor and adjust the degree and content of his/her self-exposure on a moment-to-moment basis.

The Dilemmas of the Designated Performer

When by circumstance or choice, an individual is designated to be the primary performer before persons specifically designated as his/her audience, a radical shift occurs in the natural relational balance present in common social interaction: In place of the fluid dual roles of performer and audience shared among all participants, a situation of formal performance instead places a specific individual (or group of individuals) under a unidirectional “spotlight” before an audience with whom there is generally little, if any, dynamic give and take. This minimizes the possibility for the designated performer to “sound out” and gauge the observing individuals present, all of which is key to normal, shared social engagement. It is likely, moreover, that any given audience may be too far too heterogeneous for such an assessment.

The “designated performer” situation inherently suspends the performer’s access to information as to just who the present observers may be, and what may be their predispositions, current feelings and reactions to what is being presented. Thereby, a performing-Self’s engagement with a designated audience of others imposes an overriding condition for success: that he/she relinquish any direct control over his/her experience of vulnerability under the unilateral scrutiny of others.

A quite significant and challenging dimension is also present in formal performance situations: the constant presence of a performer’s internal “critic/director” – the second-tier audience. While the internal critic operates continually and unabated within the psyche of all individuals, its presence is particularly demanding of the designated performer, already burdened by the anxiety linked to the vulnerability of his/her Self to an “unknowable” audience.

The continuous scrutiny exercised by the faculty of a designated performer’s internal critic impacts him/her much as it does all persons in daily life; that is, not only directly from within,but also through a process of displacement, via the distinctively human psychological process of projection. Through projection, whatever negative perspective may be generated by our the internal director/critic can readily be displaced and superimposed upon the “blank screens,” who are the unknown others comprising our external audience. Through the imaginative and potentially toxic process of projection, any performer, whether designated or not, may experience in specific audience members, or in an observing group as a whole, a range of negative perceptions of the presentation that may, in truth, originate and exist primarily within him/herself.

Projection can thereby greatly exacerbate anxiety in any interpersonal or social milieu by creating a heightened sense of threat vulnerability present on two fronts simultaneously: from both external and internal audiences. Moreover, the continual, active scrutiny of the internal critic/director tends to concentrate primarily on how a given performance conforms to an individual’s deeply embedded, generally idealized self concept – itself built upon untenable standards. As in all situations in which our living, human reality is measured against our ideal model of ourselves, heightened anxiety linked to the threat of the unmasking of some sensed “fraudulence” becomes an overriding, haunting and potentially debilitating presence.

Performance anxiety (stage fright) can thereby be understood as an acute state of alarm arising from unilateral exposure of one’s Self to others; from a concomitant loss of control over the observations and reactions of others who are not likewise vulnerable; from intense scrutiny from within one’s Self, and from the imagined (projected) negative scrutiny of others. Among the great challenges that such multilateral stressors may present is the fact that the most basic, universal psychological response to feelings of threat signaled by performance anxiety – the option of “fight or flight” – is starkly unavailable to a designated performer. He/she may neither directly confront and engage an audience as an adversary, nor flee the stage! Thus, for many persons, even an occasional circumstance of formal performance or presentation, even one merely requiring straightforward presentation of simple, concrete material, can become a daunting and even overwhelming trial.

It is unsurprising that studies often demonstrate that for those unaccustomed, public speaking is among the most stressful of all life events. For those others for whom performing is a constant way of life, the challenges to maintaining a sense of competent relational control in the moment are likely to be less acute, though more protracted: Stress may ebb and flow within the trajectory of each individual’s career experience, according to each present circumstance; it is likely to be managed by a range of psychological faculties and coping skills that each performing artist acquires through experience.

Despite all these general tendencies, it is important to note that the relationship of particular individuals’ Self to the proscribed audience of observing others is not necessarily fraught with stark emotional challenges, nor is the competence of certain performers/artists necessarily threatened by the heightened situation: Indeed, there are many performers who seem generally to welcome and take pleasure in the experience of being the primary focus of others’ attention, intense scrutiny – and anticipated applause.