Csikszentmihaly Ideal Self Summary

Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, professor of psychology and author, asked a simple question of “what is the self?” Csikszentmihaly breaks down what some would call “self” and in his writing he states, “The self is a reification….the self is more in the nature of a figment of the imagination, something we create to account for the multiplicity of impressions, emotions, thoughts, and feelings that the brain records in consciousness” (Csikszentmihaly.265). Reification means, “The process of regarding an abstract idea as a concrete object” (265). The self becomes a solid concept due to the fact that we know we have the ability to control what’s happening in the brain and knowing that the brain exists. Csikszentmihaly then went on to explain what we pay attention to and that we must control the mind before it realizes its own power and take itself over. Throughout his writing he breaks down “self” in several sections, and compares it to other situations and instances. …show more content…
In Images of the Ideal Self, the author talk about human imagination and how there are so many different depictions of people such as gods, goddesses, angels, and demons that we try to use as models. Each ideal model is always a reference to a culture, or representation of actual people that we should seek the culture’s aspirations. Csikszentmihaly further express how art has been trying to provide a viable model of the self. Csikszentmihaly states, “In our century, there have been only three currents of idealized images of mankind. Two were political, and the utopias they advocated through their art have both turned out to be horrible failures” (Csikszentmihalyi 276). The section is then ended with explaining the general message of cultures being alternated for as long as it has been remembered, and neither artists nor political movements have been able to provide representations of the self to model for future