**5. Real self and ideal self**

The personality is a representations organization that that everyone own [13], and in this regard we can state there are various self form among which we can mention:

• Real self: the one who reflects the individual true qualities, his aptitudes, inclinations and characteristics.


Evaluate yourself means also to compare with your inner canons (also called the self guides), these comparisons can arouse negative or positive feelings about yourselves; it is also appropriate to specify that while most of the time our thoughts are turned outward, some events can create a state of intensified self-awareness, which confronts you with your inner canons (this may be the case of the comparison with with some social idols, like the perfect rich top model). Focusing the attention on the self makes also obvious discrepancies with respect to the self guides: this happens because the knowledge of the self includes beliefs about you, and also about the comparison with the royalties to which you try to conform to. Self-esteem is therefore influenced not only by what happens outside, but also by what happens "inside us", that is the comparisons with the ideal self, which includes the traits that help to achieve some aspirations, and the imperative self which instead includes the traits that spur to fulfill one's obligations. The self guide are useful for the auto-adjustment function: the discrepancy theory says that there is a the difference between the self guide and what people think to be, and this discrepancy can influence the individual emotional state and the well-being, it also influence our self-esteem. Focusing on these topics, we can assert that the ideal self represents the positive outcomes that people try to achieve, therefore their goals for advancement: discrepancies with respect to the ideal self can produce disappointment feelings, sadness and depression. On the contrary, when you actually achieve progress targets the emotion that derives is joy. The imperative self is focused on the negative outcomes that people try to avoid, that are the prevention goals. The deviations from the self imperative stimulate anxiety and restlessness feelings. Achieving the objectives of the imperative self produces instead relief and relaxation feelings [17]. Thinking about our inner canons can make us aware of our self discrepancies, activating an emotional response among those mentioned above, and one's own canons can also focused by thinking to specific people who represent them, that is, who can embody idols (i.e. a perfect top model). The construction of ideal self and imperative self often refers to idols supported by the propagation dynamics of globalization both in the Western and Oriental Countries. The propagation of certain myths and idols can therefore constitute a real problem when the real self and the ideal and imperative self come into conflict: the person experiences incongruity: an unpleasant experience, which causes a sense of inadequacy, anxiety, malaise and maladjustment [16]. Incongruent experiences with respect to the self, on the other hand, are perceived as threatening and anxious, and often activate some defense mechanisms, such as the distortion of the meaning of the experience, i.e. the manipulation of the experience itself (because this dynamic can make it compatible with the self), or even denial of experience. On the contrary, a smaller the discrepancy between the real self and the ideal self and imperative self can create wellness: the subject is in harmony with himself. The so-called "white psychosis" can have a diffusion in these conditions of discrepancy. They are characterized by confusion, loss of the sense of reality, denial of reality itself, disorganization. These states are also called "private psychoses", perhaps also to underline the dimension of individual closure that generates them, the inability to open up in a sane way to the world and to the other, maintaining their own authentic individual identity: they therefore reveal themselves conditions that prevent a process of healthy individualization [18]. A cause of psychological malaise can therefore also be living constantly

#### *The Real Self and the Ideal Self DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98194*

trying to correspond to the environment expectations, precisely to fill the incongruity between the real self, the ideal self and imperative self. As a matter of fact, the self, in its formation and evolution follows the law of congruence: it constantly aims to seek coherence between its own self-perceptions and between these and external reality [16, 18, 19]: when the self is congruent with experience, the individual is fully functional and healthy. On the contrary, when the incongruity between the self and personal experience is so strong that it does not allow the successful application of the defense mechanisms, the person can develop a psychological state of disorganization, as anticipated.
