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Healthy: Self-aware,
introspective, on the "search for
self," aware of feelings and inner
impulses. Sensitive and intuitive both to
self and others: gentle, tactful,
compassionate. / Highly personal,
individualistic, "true to self."
Self-revealing, emotionally honest, humane.
Ironic view of self and life: can be serious
and funny, vulnerable and emotionally
strong.
At Their Best: Profoundly
creative, expressing the personal and the
universal, possibly in a work of art.
Inspired, self-renewing and regenerating:
able to transform all their experiences into
something valuable: self-creative.
Average: Take an artistic,
romantic orientation to life, creating a
beautiful, aesthetic environment to
cultivate and prolong personal feelings.
Heighten reality through fantasy, passionate
feelings, and the imagination. / To stay in
touch with feelings, they interiorize
everything, taking everything personally,
but become self-absorbed and introverted,
moody and hypersensitive, shy and
self-conscious, unable to be spontaneous or
to "get out of themselves." Stay
withdrawn to protect their self-image and to
buy time to sort out feelings. / Gradually
think that they are different from others,
and feel that they are exempt from living as
everyone else does. They become melancholy
dreamers, disdainful, decadent, and sensual,
living in a fantasy world. Self-pity and
envy of others leads to self-indulgence, and
to becoming increasingly impractical,
unproductive, effete, and precious.
Unhealthy: When dreams fail,
become self-inhibiting and angry at self,
depressed and alienated from self and
others, blocked and emotionally paralyzed.
Ashamed of self, fatigued and unable to
function. / Tormented by delusional
self-contempt, self-reproaches, self-hatred,
and morbid thoughts: everything is a source
of torment. Blaming others, they drive away
anyone who tries to help them. / Despairing,
feel hopeless and become self-destructive,
possibly abusing alcohol or drugs to escape.
In the extreme: emotional breakdown or
suicide is likely.
Key Motivations: Want to express
themselves and their individuality, to
create and surround themselves with beauty,
to maintain certain moods and feelings, to
withdraw to protect their self-image, to
take care of emotional needs before
attending to anything else, to attract a
"rescuer".
Examples: Ingmar Bergman, Alan
Watts, Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morrisette,
Paul Simon, Jeremy Irons, Patrick Stewart,
Joseph Fiennes, Martha Graham, Bob Dylan,
Miles Davis, Johnny Depp, Anne Rice, Rudolph
Nureyev, J.D. Salinger, Anaîs Nin, Marcel
Proust, Maria Callas, Tennessee Williams,
Edgar Allan Poe, Annie Lennox, Prince,
Michael Jackson, Virginia Woolf, Judy
Garland, "Blanche DuBois"
(Streetcar Named Desire).
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