The Self
Das Selbst
The whole of the psyche, and its centre.
The Self: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
For Jung the Self is both the whole of the psyche, conscious and unconscious together, and the centre that orders it. The ego, he wrote, stands to the Self as the moved to the mover. It cannot be known directly, only through its symbols: the mandala and the quaternity, the stone, the child, the circle with a centre, the union of opposites.
Individuation, the lifelong process Jung held to be the psyche’s own work, is the gradual realization of the Self. He observed that its symbols cannot be told apart, empirically, from images of God.
The Self: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The atman of the Upanishads, the Anthropos or cosmic man, Christ as Jung read him in Aion, the philosophers’ stone of the alchemists, the jewel in the lotus.
From the Sources
Jung distinguishes the Self from the ego: the Self includes the unconscious psyche and embraces the ego, and in unconscious phantasy it often appears as a superordinate or ideal personality, as Faust to Goethe and Zarathustra to Nietzsche.
“…hence it also includes the unconscious psyche. In this sense the Self would be an (ideal) factor which embraces and includes the ego. In unconscious phantasy the Self often appears as a super-ordinated or ideal personality, as Faust in relation to Goethe and Zarathustra to Nietzsche.”
C. G. Jung, Psychological Types or The Psychology of Individuation, Chapter XI, 'Definitions', no. 16, 'Ego', p. 540. Translated by H. Godwin Baynes, M.B., B.C. Cantab; London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.; New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc. (Internet Archive OCR text). The text, read in part
Jung calls this middle-point of the personality the self: a psychological concept for an essence that transcends our powers of comprehension, which might just as well be called 'the god in us'.
“I have called this middle-point the self. Intellectually the self is nothing but a psychological concept, a construction that serves to express an undiscemible essence, and which in itself we cannot grasp, since, as its definition implies, it transcends our powers of comprehension. It might just as well be called ‘ the god in us.’”
C. G. Jung, M.D., LL.D., Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 'The Relation of the Ego to the Unconscious', Part II, Chapter IV, 'The Mana Personality', p. 265. Authorized translation by H. G. and C. F. Baynes; London: Bailliere, Tindall and Cox, 1928 (Internet Archive OCR text). The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- “The Self” and “Christ, a Symbol of the Self,” in Aion, CW 9ii
- “Transformation Symbolism in the Mass” (1942/1954), CW 11
- Psychology and Alchemy (1944), CW 12
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
In the Glossary: Self, Individuation.
Also among The Persons of the Psyche
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Self.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/self.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
The Orphan (The abandoned one) · The Anthropos (The cosmic man) · The Centre (Axis mundi) · The Sphere (The round, the rotundum) · Squaring the Circle (Quadratura circuli) · The Quintessence (The fifth essence) · The Spiral · The Tree (Arbor philosophica)
Nearby in the alphabet: The Sea: The collective unconscious, unfathomed. The Seed: The whole, hidden in the small. The Senex: Order, limit, and time, and their hardening into rigidity. Separatio: Dividing the one into two, so it can be known.