Within the depth-psychology corpus, ‘self image’ operates across two interrelated registers that must be carefully distinguished. The first is the pre-reflective, often unconscious image a person holds of themselves — what Murray Stein elaborates as the ‘imago,’ that psychic constellation which, shaped through transformative encounters and archetypal patterning, ultimately defines the individual’s achieved adult character. Here self-image is not a static cognitive schema but a living symbolic structure, emergent through suffering, creative struggle, and the pressure of the unconscious. The second register concerns the falsified or defensive self-image — the inflated, idealized, or armored presentation of self that Karen Horney, Thomas Moore, and the developmental trauma literature identify as a neurotic defense against the authentic self. Between these poles, the Jungian corpus positions self-image as ontologically unstable: it may mask the shadow, misrepresent the persona, or — when forged through genuine individuation — become a vessel for archetypal truth. The artist’s self-portrait, analyzed at length by Stein through Rembrandt and Picasso, provides the corpus’s richest laboratory for tracking how self-image transforms across a life. The broader tension is between self-image as cultural or egoic fabrication and self-image as genuine symbol — the difference between narcissistic fixation and the earned imago of the individuating psyche.
To discover the image of the Minotaur as a self-image is also to become one with the divine (or at least the semidivine) and to gain access to the creative power and energies of the archaic collective unconscious.
Stein argues that Picasso’s mythic self-image is not mere vanity but an archetypal self-portraiture that fuses personal identity with transpersonal, collective-unconscious energies.
, Transformation Emergence of the Self (Volume 7) (Carolyn, 1998thesis
Narcissism gets stuck on certain familiar images of self. We love the surface image we identify as ourselves, but Narcissus discovers by accident that there are other images just as lovable.
Moore, reading the Narcissus myth psychologically, argues that pathological self-image is a fixation on a single surface representation of the self that forecloses the deeper, plural imaginal sources of identity.
, Care of the Soul Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition: A Guide, 1992thesis
In his final self-portraits, he depicts himself as an artist who has joined the company of the immortals… these self-portraits are statements of great personal modesty. The artist is brutally honest about his less than ideal physical appearance, yet he shows his figure as illuminated by divine inner light.
Stein reads Rembrandt’s late self-portraits as the fullest realization of an individuated self-image — simultaneously modest about the physical and luminous with archetypal meaning.
, Transformation Emergence of the Self (Volume 7) (Carolyn, 1998thesis
While I cannot possibly offer a complete account of the development of Picasso’s full adult imago, I will generalize that the main problem was (as it always is) how to combine the opposites he discovered within himself into a unified, if highly complex, image that would embrace his full reality.
Stein identifies the central task of self-image formation as the integration of inner opposites into a complex but unified imago that honestly reflects the whole personality.
, Transformation Emergence of the Self (Volume 7) (Carolyn, 1998thesis
They tell themselves that as long as they maintain a good front, as long as no one knows what is really going on inside, they are safe. The more negatively seductive subtypes feel about themselves, the harder they work at maintaining a good image.
The developmental trauma literature frames a defensively maintained self-image as a dissociative compensation for intolerable negative self-feeling, revealing self-image as a survival strategy rather than genuine identity.
, Healing Developmental Trauma How Early Trauma Affectsthesis
Picasso put his developing imago in terms of mythic images, which have the capacity to combine physical presence with a strong statement of archetypal transcendence.
Stein shows how a transforming self-image must borrow the symbolic vocabulary of myth in order to carry both personal reality and archetypal depth simultaneously.
, Transformation Emergence of the Self (Volume 7) (Carolyn, 1998supporting
After this, however, Rembrandt’s self-portraits change dramatically in style and tone. He has entered another phase of inner development, which we can conceptualize as further deepening and enriching the imago.
Stein traces how the self-image, as expressed in Rembrandt’s self-portraits, is not fixed but undergoes genuine developmental transformation corresponding to stages of inner psychological maturation.
, Transformation Emergence of the Self (Volume 7) (Carolyn, 1998supporting
Whenever an author, a psychologist, or a prophet splits the God-image into a higher and lower aspect… it is an unconscious portrayal of the Self… in an attempt to idealize our own higher self, we deny having any real connection to the dark and archaic urges.
Peterson argues that the idealization of one’s self-image — projecting the ‘higher self’ while denying dark compulsions — is a psychic splitting that mirrors the cultural splitting of the God-image.
, The Shadow of a Figure of Light, 2024supporting
No more than caterpillars ask for moltings or metamorphosis do transformative persons consciously invite these crises… Nor do they choose the final form of the imago.
Stein insists that the final self-image emergent through individuation is not consciously designed but arises from the autonomous pressure of the psyche, much as metamorphosis is biologically compelled.
, Transformation Emergence of the Self (Volume 7) (Carolyn, 1998supporting
Everyone has the opportunity to transform into a full human imago, but the psychopathology generated by trauma and the individual’s inherent sensitivities to environmental conditions prevent this full development from taking place.
Stein situates self-image formation within a developmental framework where trauma may arrest the emergence of the full human imago, introducing a clinical dimension to the concept.
, Transformation Emergence of the Self (Volume 7) (Carolyn, 1998supporting
The image of God that is slowly emerging over the course of eons is turning out to be the most beautiful self-portrait we could ever imagine.
Peterson maps the evolution of the God-image onto a collective self-portrait, suggesting that humanity’s developing image of the divine mirrors and expands its own deepest self-image.
, The Shadow of a Figure of Light, 2024supporting
The existence of a representation of self does not make that self know that its corresponding organism is responding. The self, as described above, cannot know.
Damasio’s neurobiological account complicates depth-psychological assumptions by arguing that a representation of self is not sufficient for self-knowledge, implying that the self-image and the self’s actual state may be radically divergent.
, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, 1994aside
We must make a careful semantic distinction between God as Ultimate Reality and the self, or inner image of God, existing in our psyche.
Sanford draws the critical distinction between the inner image of the divine — which functions as an unconscious self-image of humanity’s highest aspiration — and a transcendent metaphysical God, insisting psychology can only speak to the former.
, Dreams: Gods Forgotten Language, 1968aside