Psychoeducational Assessments Edmonton – Discovering Your True Self
My name’s Dr. Kelly Clark, and I’m a psychologist. My topic today is, is there such a thing as a true self? So we’re gonna talk about true self today. I’m wondering if, if you’ve thought about that, I mean, it’s something that psychologists think about quite a bit is, is, is what’s the true nature of humans? How do we think, how do we reason what behaviors indicate who we are?
And so if I asked you, you know, do you think you have a true self? What are you, like? What kind of person are you? How would you come up with that? How would you describe who you are to somebody? Would you think that it’s something that you do work? Is it athletic things that you do, hobbies, how you relate to people, these kind of things, hopes, dreams shortcomings.
All of these things can reflect who we are. But if I asked you to, to think about who am I? And to describe how you, you are with people with yourself would that be tough? Would that be difficult to come up with? And so I want to, I want you just to, to think about that when you’re thinking about, is there a true me? How would you define that? How would you come up with that?
So, I’m gonna ta talk about that a bit today. You may know the book called The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. And in this book, I read it years ago, I remember being in a coffee shop and overhearing some people talking about the book. And they said it was a great book. So I went out and, and bought the book. And in this book, it’s about a young shepherd, Andalusian shepherd called San Diego Santiago.
People should have dreams and pursue them
And on this in his life, he’s a shepherd. And so he’s doing his work as a shepherd, and he’s thinking about everything that he’s doing in his life. And, and basically he’s unsatisfied. And so as he’s thinking about all of these things, he’s, he’s thinking, what would’ve I rather done in life? And what he comes up is he’s rather be a traveler. He has this recurring dream of him going to Egypt and and finding treasure.
So with this dream, this is like written into his soul. He’s captivated, he’s gotta do something about it. So eventually he sells everything that he has, and he pursues his dream of, of being a traveler, trying to find this, this treasure. I won’t get into the book too much, but what really captivated me was is was that in the book, he had a sense that this has been written into almost like his soul from when he was young.
Always remain true to yourself and your beliefs
And and Paulo really goes into the, to this, in the book that described that when we are really true to ourselves, as in the character Santiago that’s something that’s really deep within us since we’re, since we’re children. And so in the book, he goes on, and this is what impressed me, is that it was written into Santiago and through things like teachers or parents or other influences, the dreams kind of taper off and we, we do something else.
And so I was kind of hit by that. I was impressed by that. The book goes on with many other lessons that Santiago learns in his life and, and is, you know, definitely worth a read. But what was impressive to me was this idea that there’s something written in the fabric of who we are. And, and is that true? Is there something that’s kind of defined in us from early on from childhood and that maybe through training other experiences, life’s letdowns or just being, you know, encouraged in a different directions, we lose that that that kind of internal destiny.
And so what do psychologists say about that? And so I was thinking about this to, you know, to ask people that I work with, do you know if your life is satisfying to you, are you living the life that is consistent with, with who you are? And so, again, a lot of people may not kind of think about what that means for them, but as a psychologist, I will think about.
Do people change, or is it just a myth?
So the idea of that there’s something possibly designed in us is, is that something that psychologists would say is accurate? Well, in reading a, a recent study that that I was interested in there’s one study, a 26 year long study, they call these studies longitudinal studies because they tracked someone from early on for 26 years. And in that study, they looked at 14 month old babies and looked at characteristics.
They had to see if, is it true that after 26 years, they’re kind of the same person? And so you may ask yourself that, were you the same since you were a baby? While your parents will be telling that, I know I’ve sat down with friends of mine. And they’ll say, yeah, you know, some of the characteristics we’ve seen of our children are similar to what they are as an adult.
Understanding behavioral inhibition
It’s pretty unique to notice one of those things that we have the pleasure of is with, as parents, we see our kids from early on, and we want them involved into adults. And so did they, did they maintain characteristics from, from the time they were young? And in this 26 year long longitudinal study they did, they looked at something called behavioral inhibition, and they noticed that kids at 14 months that had strong behavioral inhibition, in other words, they’re more reserved and pulled back that as they, as they got older, they had more difficulties in social relationships.
They had more difficulties with with other, you know, emotional things like depression, anxiety, particularly if they were very error driven or did a lot of monitoring around their error in that, in that case, they became even more anxious and or depressed. But they found those that had less behavioral inhibition were more inclined to have romantic relationships and, and stronger social success.
So they did notice from early on that these kids seemed to do better, or they, they struggled more based on early characteristics. And in psychology, we call those things temperaments. And so interestingly, you know, when we’re looking at early children or children when they’re young babies and growing up soon after birth, you’ll notice there’s characteristics that seem to be inherent, that they are just biologically driven. They’re part of who they are because they haven’t had a lot of experiences as far as environment to change those characteristics.
Nature over nurture
So there’s some inherent, just almost knee jerk reactions of how they are that are biologically driven. We call that temperament. And so as, as kids get older, of course they interact with the environment. And this is the difference between temperament and personality. Temperament is more biologically driven. Personality is still biologically driven. We are still like our, the temperament we were predisposed to, but the environment, culture, these kind of things start to influence our personality. Personality is thought of things like how we interact with others mood states, behavioral patterns, those kind of things are related to personality. So back to the idea of true self.
Well, what would happen, you know, if in the situation, which is clear from the research as well, if they were more extroverted, animated louder, and he had parents that were supporting that, that would, that would cause that child to be more congruent with, with their temperament and develop personality characteristics that are more consistent with, with how they were born and, and and how they were set off with within their home environment.
Now, in the case of say, whereas a child has abuse or there’s not a nourishing environment, or there’s racism or cultural expectations that may squash certain qualities, then you may have someone feeling a sense of dissatisfaction as they’re growing older.
Understand where those shortcomings are coming from
And so what I wanted to talk about is, is when I have some people come to work with me or to work in, in on themselves they will talk about how they, they were an animated child, but you know, as they got older, they were less happy. They’re, they’re be becoming more irritable, and they have the sense that this is not how I want to be. This is not the way I want to, that I feel that is consistent with myself. So I, I really, I like the idea of helping people to understand where those shortcomings are or where they feel like they’re not living congruent with themselves.
Because ultimately, as as parents, we want to, I like the analogy of we want to create an environment where it’s kind of like a, a garden as opposed to the, you know, the machinist lathe where you’re chiseling out you know, a product that you want to see, whereas the rich kind of guard environment the child is flourishing. You’re allowing them to become and to grow the way they were, they were meant to be. That’s the idea of temperament, developing an inter personality.
So, what is our ‘true self’?
So back to the idea of of, I wanted to talk about the true self. Some of the people that will come will just, again, feel this kind of general malaise. Something is not quite right. And, you know, interestingly for me, when I was a kid, I really loved Star Trek. And you know, I, I don’t have a Starship right now that I can fly around.
But that adventure, that discovery that was part of me as a kid, back to the idea of, of Santiago, there was definitely a quality of me that really wanted to discover. And, and I think that that’s one of the things that I really enjoy when I’m doing my work with, with individuals who feel this kind of sense of, I’m not quite sure I’m living the way I want to, and I, I have feelings of dissatisfaction of you know, sadness, I’m more irritable, these kind of things.
Well, for me, I get a lot of enjoyment out of helping people discover parts of themselves, their temperament and personality characteristics that were maybe meant to more evolve and discover those areas in a healthy environment. So I wanted to encourage you today to think about becoming your true self. Is there something that you’re missing? Is there something that is not quite consistent or congruent with the way you are living? And there’s this general malaise or a sense that it’s not, it’s not the way I want to live.
Contact to learn more
So I really like the idea of discovering this part, and that’s what I wanted to talk about today. So if you’d like to learn more about yourself, discover more about those qualities that you think are, would be more related to who you are, reach out to me on drkellycalrke.com.