**6. Self-esteem and self-expression**

As anticipated, in the independent cultures (Western, especially "Protestant" ones) the positive characteristics of the individual are the ones which are the most important for self-esteem, while for interdependent cultures (Oriental ones) is more considered the affiliation to others [2]. Beyond these differences, in all cultures self esteem performs the function to indicate how the person is behaving in life (in a right way or not). According to Alfred Adler, children and adults with a balanced and healthy personality, universally acquire confidence and self-esteem every time they are aware of being able to reach a goal: in synthesis, the sense of inferiority is resolved when a new challenge is overcome [19]. The self-esteem levels therefore play a crucial role in this process, precisely because they are signals how effectively the individual is acting. An accurate knowledge of own capabilities and preferences is also important because can guide a person through his existence, and d helps him to live in a manner more appropriate regarding his own needs and abilities. Self knowledge also represents as a reference for perceiving other people, and it influences what types of social aspects are more considered. It must also be noted that sometimes we act in such a way as to express our authentic self, other times, as anticipated, we can act because we want to shape others opinions about themselves, in order to gain power, influence or approval [2, 13]: in this consists the difference between self-expression and of self-presentation. When you dedicate yourself to self- expression, you try to convey the concept you have of yourself through your actions. The self-expression and communicates it to other people, and it that can even work as a powerful reaction strategy when we are under stress, and can also beneficially affect out auto-immune system [16]. The self-presentation is however only our attempt to create a good impression, to please other people and to obtain confirmations by others, to increase self-esteem and strengthen out ego. Wellbeing, on the other hand, goes in another direction. According to Fromm [1] the well-being is different to narcissism. Well-being means becoming what one is really, it means being fully open to joy and sadness. Wellness means being fully awake, it also means being creative and authentic, being able to express our real self [1].

### **7. Finally becoming yourself**

The self-expression helps people to meet their real emotions and their real self: also simple forms of self-expression, for example, talking about feelings caused by threatening events, may help overcome some of the physical and emotional costs of those events [16]. Self-realization and self-expression are indeed among the highest needs on the scale of human needs, and certainly affect human health [20]. The need of self-expression, specifically, is the need to use our talents, abilities and potentials. Self-realization and self-expression can therefore be briefly defined as

the courage to be yourself; in this regard according Kierkegaard we can achieve harmony and inner peace only through the courage to be ourselves, instead of trying to be like someone else (or want to please someone else); he was convinced that despair vanishes the moment we stop denying who we really are and try to accept and discover our real nature. According to this author, the opposite of despair consists in really wanting to be who one is [14]. Fromm believed in this regard that we can make life better, even if it is painful at times, by giving it meaning by seeking and developing an authentic self. He believes that man's innate existential condition is a state of anxiety, which however can be overcome by finding one's purpose in life: by struggling to become free and unique individuals. As we have seen, however, at the same time we always feel the need to be in relationship with others, and to confront ourselves with a social group; however, it is very important in parallel to discover one's own independent self, one's opinions and one's values, rather than always adhering to pre-established norms, imposed by one's neighbor, or by the reference culture; according to Fromm we become precisely alienated if we try to delegate to others the responsibility of our choices, we could add, if we modulate all our conduct on the basis of self-presentation and the others' satisfaction. The purpose of life, according to this author, is to define ourselves, accepting our personal uniqueness, and discovering our abilities: it is very important to focus on what differentiates us from others. In this way it is possible to free oneself from alienation, confusion and loneliness; we must discover our individuality, understanding our true passions, inclinations and ideas, setting ourselves a creative purpose in life [1, 21]. However, there are several types of personality that can hamper personal and true self-realization, among these are: personality receptive orientation (ie those who live passively and accept the fate in a fatalistic way, those which behave as gregarious complacent); people which have an demanding orientation, that usually use other people like and object; the accumulators also show a pathological orientation: they are constantly looking for a social climb and consider the people they frequent as property. These kind of personalities are far from the development of an authentic self; finally there are those who have a mercantile orientation: those who are obsessed by their own narcissistic image and by their status (and this is the type that most represents modern society). A healthy personality type is the productive one: it is that who show flexibility, creativity, sociability, rationality and mental openness; this kind of people develop a high level of consciousness, willing to change their beliefs in the face of new evidence, and to evolve. Thus, the human health is conceived as a dynamic process of evolution, rather than as an end state, and certainly in this process are the fundamental expression of one's self, a healthy self-esteem and personal development; the value that a person thinks he has, is therefore not only in the result of his individual actions, but in representations that are built over time and evolve in the life process. The Well-being human involves in fact the expression of a v auction range of potential: intellectual, social, emotional and physical one. In the field of scientific research, therefore, an attempt has been made to identify indices that can be measured in this regard; when examining the characteristics of the Welfare reported in these various theoretical formulations, it is noted that the various authors have spoken of similar features. A certain number of indicators of good psychic development were therefore obtained, subsequently putting them to the scrutiny of empirical experimentation. Thus, the following six dimensions were identified:


This is non-definitive list and will certainly be reviewed or expanded [17, 22–24], but in any case we can say that regardless of the reference culture there are some dimensions which focus on a healthy individualization: the overcoming of the limits of a selfish ego, the conquest of love, objectivity and humility and respect for life, until the end of life is there life itself and man becomes what he is in potential [25]. The malaise can instead be represented by the alienation from ourselves, a malaise creeps into the awareness that life slips from our hands like sand, that we will die without having lived. Today there is also a more and more frequent paradox: while narcissistic individualism as an unlimited self-affirmation increases on a world scale, the idea of a subject who feels he is part of a human and natural totality often disappears. As a matter of fact, being an individual often coincides with the claim of the right to the immediate and mandatory satisfaction of one's desires, where the one who has more economic power, can impose himself on the weaker people. We must also consider in this regard, as Byung-chul Han reminds us, that we live in a society that is becoming increasingly narcissistic, and narcissism is definitely not a form of self-realization or self-love; following this narcissistic attitude today almost nothing has a long shelf life, and everything is disposable, also relationships, and this has harmful consequences [26, 27]. We can therefore ask: what can psychoanalysis can offer to those suffering from sickness of the century (ie. narcissism and alienation)? This is an aid that must be different from the only treatment aimed at the removal of symptom, which can preserve the normal performance of social functions. Because for those who are alienated (ie for those who are far from living fully their real self), the goal cannot be only in the absence of disease, but in the presence of wellness. A first definition of Wellbeing can therefore be the following: wellbeing is being in harmony with the nature of man. However, if we go beyond this formal statement, a question arises: what does it mean to be in harmony with the conditions of human existence? And what are these conditions? The human existence arises a problem. Man is thrown into this world not by his will and so he is torn from it. According to Fromm [1, 25], unlike the animal, man does not have an immediate innate mechanism in his instincts, which allows him to adapt immediately and completely to nature. The questions that life poses are many: how can we overcome the pain, slavery, shame caused by the experience of isolation? How we can find the harmony with ourselves, with our fellow humans, with nature? Man is required to give some answers; he even responds in case of madness, rejecting external reality and living completely enclosed in his selves, to overcome the fear of loneliness. Therefore, the solutions that can be worked out, in response to the existential questions, are basically reducible to two. One is to overcome isolation, to find unity through regression to the state of primordial harmony, existing before the awareness development (ie before birth). The other solution consists in being metaphorically completely born, in strengthening one's awareness, one's reason, one's ability to love to the point of overcoming one's self-centeredness and narcissism and thus reaching a new harmony, a new communion with the world. However, most proceed along the life pattern are far from wellness: attached to their family (in a symbiotic way), or attached to the state, the social rank, to idols, myths, and etc. To be able also to understand the individual patient, and d in general any individual,

it is important therefore to understand what his response than human existence to these question, ie what is the object of all his passions and all his efforts. According to Fromm what are considered psychological problems are often consequences of this fundamental answer: it is very important to know the fundamental answer that the subject has given to the existence problem, in a certain sense his secret and private religion. As a matter of fact, man often tries to compensate for his depression with idolatry, with destructive tendencies, or with the fame desire and the desire for possession. And when any of these solution fails, his fragile sanity crumbles. The cure for potential madness therefore lies in the passage from alienation to the creative perception of the world and harmony with it: a man cannot be truly free if he is a slave to his passions. He can be free only if he has an ideal and a philosophical attitude which makes it possible for him to have a consistent activity in life [1, 25]. By ideal we obviously do not mean an idol. As Zoj a stated [28] modern culture is characterized by the conviction that in each of us there exists a personal psychological dimension, which everyone has the right to explore and to consider a source of knowledge, aiming to broaden it. However, it often happens that this disposition arouses a sense of solitude and incompleteness. The current situation of frequent alienation can therefore be considered as a symptom, not to be healed in order to return to a previous situation, considered healthy, but as a signal and message: the subject produces a symptom, as a sign of a discomfort that has now exploded, so that he himself can change the its situation. The first step, therefore, is to become aware of the current limit condition: the split between self-perception, emotion and thought, which has become the norm and narcissistic closure in one's own needs. The further step is the acceptance of the limit of our human being not as a condemnation, but as a push to increase knowledge and creativity in the essential relationship with others with whom we are linked in a common destiny.
