The Observing Ego
One of the most important skills you can learn in therapy is how to develop an observing ego. Your observing ego has the ability to watch yourself, to observe your unfolding process, and in this way to know yourself on many levels.
The observing ego can be used in many ways: (1) It can be used ‘after the fact’ – like when you have remembered something upseting, perhaps in therapy or perhaps not, and gone through your immediate feelings. Then it is most helpful to look back at what you thought and felt and understand what that all means about you. (2) Your observing ego can be used “in vivo.” This is when your ability to see your self comes into action while you are in the middle of real life and you need to understand what’s bothering you, what’s propelling you to act a certain way, etc. (3) A more difficult use of the observing ego, but a skill very much worth developing, is using it in relationships with other people. I call this “Minding The Store” and it has to do with observing what is going on between you and the other person. (4) Then there is the whole skill involved with having the ability to quite literally tune into your inner child, and see or hear what the child in you is thinking, feeling, needing, wanting, pursuing,etc. There is a blog called “An Ongoing Relationship with your Inner Child that teaches how to do this , step by step. This lovely skill has many uses, including a method you can employ on a daily basis that amounts to developing a positive relationship with yourself and simultaneously healing the child in you from a difficult childhood or trauma. Once mastered, this skill allows you an instant glimpse into your own psyche and your child within’s experience of whatever is going on in your present unfolding life.