Symposium.: The Hero-Self

First, I should like to say how grateful I am to Redfearn for his very helpful article on ‘Ego and self: terminology’ (REDFEARN 5). I think that it is particularly helpful for those of us who are involved in teaching. Focusing on his suggestion of capitalising the word self, which I recognise as being a small part of his article; although I am mostly against the suggestion, I should like to explore some of the reasons why a part of me finds the idea attractive. Fordham, in a letter to the Editor, makes the point: ‘… it tends to aggrandise a set of experiences and foster their narcissistic elaborations’ (FORDHAM 2). I agree with this statement and I should like to enlarge on it by describing what it means for me.

Since it is primarily our ego which is struggling with the concept of the self, there is always the possibility that our ego will be overwhelmed. This possibility is supported by the origins of the ego which is partly represented by the hero archetype. I would suggest that the wish to capitalise the word self is motivated mostly by the hero as part of his aim to rescue the self from the effects of narcissistic damage. In writing of the origins of the hero Jung says that: ‘… an overwhelming proportion of the libido prefers an internal object that rises up from the unconscious as a substitute for the missing reality’ (JUNG 3). Since the hero has the important characteristic of searching, it could be said that the purpose of the hero in this context is to redirect the libido outwards in a quest for an object that will reinstate the individual's sense of value. However, it would seem that the objects that heroes seek are idealised: the pot of gold; the beautiful maid; everlasting peace and so on. Failure in these quests provides the psyche with reminders of the earlier narcissistic damage and after a short period, sometimes involving impotent rage, the hero is back to his struggles. Perhaps it is only when there has been some measure of success that some of the o