Understanding the Self

Knowing Oneself

• The self encompasses body, thoughts, feelings, and emotions, shaping individuality and identity.
• Personality includes behaviors, feelings, thoughts, and motives that define an individual, featuring stable patterns influenced by both nature (genetics) and nurture (environment).
• Self-concept serves as a broad perception of one's physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and other aspects.
• Actual Self: Reflects characteristics developed through upbringing.
• Ideal Self: Represents the self one aspires to be.
• Possible Selves: Encompass hoped-for, expected, and feared future versions of oneself.
• The Johari Window, created by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in 1966, enhances self-awareness using four quadrants.
• Open/Free Area: Information known to both oneself and others.
• Blind Area: Information unknown to oneself but known by others.
• Hidden Area: Information known to oneself but unknown to others.
• Unknown Area: Information unknown to both oneself and others.
• Self-knowledge can be achieved through introspection or self-analysis, reflective journaling, self-awareness, and self-affirmation like gratitude or self-love practices.
• Trait theory, including the Big Five or Five-Factor Model by Costa and McCrae, explains individual uniqueness:
• Openness to experience: Involves curiosity, interest, imagination, and creativity.
• Conscientiousness: Relates to planning, organizing, hard work, control, perseverance, and punctuality.
• Extraversion: Includes sociability, talkativeness, activity, outgoingness, and a fun-loving nature.
• Agreeableness: Characterized by friendliness, warmth, trust, generosity, and kindness.
• Neuroticism (emotional stability): Signifies calmness, relaxation, and comfort.

The Whole Self

• Adolescence marks a transitional phase to adulthood, involving transformations physically, cognitively, emotionally, and socially.
• Early Adolescence (10-14 years): Starts with puberty, leading to physical and emotional changes.
• Middle Adolescence (15-17 years): Physical growth slows for females but continues for males, accompanied by emotional shifts, self-consciousness, long-term goal setting, and an interest in the meaning of life and moral reasoning.
• Late Adolescence: Features fewer physical changes, more cognitive development, increased emotional stability and independence, rational thinking, future planning, and a stronger sense of identity.
• Holistic development is the combination of physical, mental, social, emotional, and spiritual elements.
• Aspects of self include:
• Physiological: Encompasses physical attributes and the five senses.
• Cognitive: Involves intellectual self, thinking, and mental processes.
• Psychological: Focuses on emotional self, thinking styles, feelings, and behaviors.
• Social: Considers interactions with individuals or groups.
• Spiritual: Encompasses personal consciousness and beliefs, including values and virtues.
• Feelings, moods, emotions, attitude, and behavior are related but distinct. Emotions are reactions to stimuli; feelings come from interpreted emotions; moods are conscious states of mind, attitudes are thoughts, feelings, and emotions about a person, place, or thing,
• Behavior is the outward manifestation of attitudes and thoughts influence feelings and responses. Beliefs influence thoughts, words, actions, habits, values, and destiny.
• Managing emotions, thoughts, moods, and behaviors is important.
• A podcast is a digital medium of audio or video episodes on a specific theme, presented in formats like conversational, monologue, non-fiction storytelling, and theatrical.

Developmental Stages

• Developmental stages are categorized through various theories.
• Sensorimotor (0-2 years): Coordination of senses with motor responses, object permanence.
• Preoperational (2-7 years): Symbolic thinking, imagination, intuition.
• Concrete Operational (7-11 years): Concepts attached to concrete situations.
• Formal Operational (11+ years): Theoretical, hypothetical, and abstract thinking.
• Havighurst's Developmental Stages include conflicts for each stage:
• Infancy (birth to 18 months): Trust vs. Mistrust, caregivers are important.
• Early Childhood (2-3 years): Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt, parents and caregivers are important.
• Late Childhood/Preschool (3-5 years): Initiative vs. Guilt, family and teachers are important.
• School Age (6-11 years): Industry vs. Inferiority, teachers and peers are important.
• Adolescence (12-20 years): Identity vs. Role Confusion, peers and role models are important.
• Young Adult (20-40 years): Intimacy vs. Isolation, partners and friends are important.
• Adulthood (40-65 years): Generativity vs. Stagnation, family and community are important.
• Maturity (65 years to death): Ego Integrity vs. Despair, society at large is important.

Freud's Psychosexual Theory

• Personality development is driven by progression through erogenous zones; failure in a stage can cause fixations.
• Oral Stage: Focus on infant's mouth, rooting, and sucking reflex.
• Anal Stage: Centers on controlling bladder and bowel movements.
• Phallic Stage: Focuses on genitals, discovering gender differences, and involves the Oedipus complex (boys) and Electra complex (girls).
• Latency Stage: Sexual interests are dormant, with focus on other developmental tasks.
• Genital Stage: Strong sexual interest in the opposite sex, interest in others' welfare and the goal of balancing life areas.

Psychosocial Development

• Erik Erikson's theory focuses on social influences on personality throughout life, not just childhood.
• Stage 1: Infancy (birth to 18 months), Trust vs. Mistrust.
• Stage 2: Early Childhood (2-3 years), Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt.
• Stage 3: Late Childhood/Preschool (3-5 years), Initiative vs. Guilt.
• Stage 4: School Age (6-11 years), Industry vs. Inferiority.
• Stage 5: Adolescence (12-20 years), Identity vs. Role Confusion, experimentation and evolving beliefs are common.
• Stage 6: Young Adult (20-40 years), Intimacy vs. Isolation.
• Stage 7: Adulthood (40-65 years), Generativity vs. Stagnation.
• Stage 8: Maturity (65 years to death), Ego Integrity vs. Despair.

Coping With Stress

• Stress arises from mental or emotional strain due to adverse or demanding situations; it involves how we respond to threatening events. Managing stress involves maintaining a healthy mind, body, and environment.
• Sources of Stress include:
• Environmental factors such as life events and daily hassles, natural or human-caused.
• Sociocultural factors like social status, generation gaps, disability, unsafe environments, and economic conditions.
• Stressful events include traveling, socializing, celebrating occasions, graduating, relationships, and leadership roles.
• Classifications of Stress:
• Catastrophes: Sudden, unpredictable events.
• Major life events: Significant personal changes.
• Daily hassles: Regularly occurring annoyances.
• Stress can manifest as eustress (motivating) or distress (threatening). Distress can be acute (intense, short-lived) or chronic (less intense, longer-lasting).
• Coping Strategies:
• Appraisal-focused coping: Using the ABCs (activating event, belief, consequence).
• Problem-focused coping: Confronting the problem, problem-solving, seeking help, time management, assertiveness.
• Emotion-focused coping: Handling emotions, exercise, relaxation, meditation, releasing emotions, enhancing emotional skills, forgiveness, positive thinking, self-control, seeking help, counseling.
• Filipinos seek help and support from family.
• To manage stress, one needs positive reactions, problem-solving, and positive thoughts, as stress affects mental health.