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Jung saw the psyche made up of units or “molecules” that he called complexes. These complexes were defined as the sum of ideas magnetically gathered about a particular feeling-toned event or experience….At times, complexes appear to behave like partial personalities, setting themselves up in opposition to or in control of the ego. An extreme example of this would be in séances where a medium brings forth spirits and other entities as “other personalities from the dead.” These entities would be considered to be splinter psyches or complexes in projection experiences. (Groesbeck, 1985, p. 434)
Personality is capable of producing many ego structures. According to transpersonal writer and mystic Jane Roberts, the personality is capable of producing numerous ego structures, depending upon the life-context of the organism.
The personality, even as you know it, is never static, always changing, and even the ego is not the same from one day to the next. The child’s ego is not the adult’s ego. As a rule you perceive the similarity, and overlook the differences of psychological patterns of this sort. The ego is not the most powerful or the most knowledgeable portion of the self. It is simply a well-specialized portion of the personality, well equipped to operate under certain circumstances…It is a great mistake to imagine that the human being has but one ego…. The ego represents merely any given pattern of characteristics, psychological characteristics that happen to be dominant at any given time. If any kind of a thorough investigation were to be carried on, it would become apparent that during one lifetime any given individual will display several, sometimes quite different, egos at various times, each one quite honestly seeing itself as the permanent I. (Butts, 1999a, pp. 21-22)
Control of the various elements of the personality. The various elements of the personality have to be acknowledged, recognized, and accepted, so that their power and energy can be harnessed for personality development. This can be done in a number of ways through suggestion, an alteration of consciousness, or a changing of beliefs.
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The most effective method by which [we take possession of the various elements of the personality and acquire control over them] is that of dis-identification…based on the following psychological principle: We are dominated by everything with which our self becomes identified. We can dominate and control everything from which we dis-identify ourselves. (Assagioli, 1993, p. 22)
This requires understanding that you are not your thoughts. The thought and the thinker are two different entities. You are the self that has thoughts. You can change your thoughts without changing yourself. By taking on the objective attitude of an observer or witness to your own psychological experiences and contents of consciousness, a detached and disinterested “psychological distance” is achieved that permits one a degree of freedom and control over potentially harmful subconscious images or complexes in order to mindfully consider their origins, their nature, and their effects, and then harmlessly released or used for constructive purposes.
Second Stage of Psychosynthesis:
Transpersonal Psychosynthesis
Realization of one’s true Self - the discovery or creation of a unifying center. After the various elements of the personality have been acknowledged, recognized, and accepted (a magnificent and tremendous undertaking and a long and arduous task that is neither easy nor simple), “what has to be achieved is to expand the personal consciousness into that of the Self; to unite the lower with the higher Self” (Assagioli, 1964, p. 24), and allow the inner, transpersonal self to express itself through the immediate, ego-directed self.
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