Nothing is so easy as to deceive one’s self, for what we wish to believe, we readily believe, but such expectations are often inconsistent with the real state of things. Demosthenes c. 384-322 BCE, Athenian Statesman, Orator
Perhaps, 2013 is going to be the year of helping us to better understand self-deception; a normal defense of awareness against feeling weak, at risk, exposed, and helpless. There is no better example to show how self-deception operates in our daily lives than to show what it looks like in its extreme, as in the recent news story of Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o who deceived himself into believing that he had an ongoing three-year love affair with a woman who never existed. Also, there is Lance Armstrong who finally admitted to having had deceived us into believing that he won (seven times) the Tour de France cycling competition fair and square. Although Te’o is the deceived and Armstrong the deceiver, they are really different poles of self-deception, in which people deny or rationalize away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument that says what they are telling themselves is a big, fat lie.
I’m not surprised that some people have wondered if the extent of Te’o’s and Armstrong’s self-deception constitutes a delusional disease (Fox News, Does Manti Te’o Suffer From a Delusional Disease; Miami Herald, Armstrong Delusions Fading Fast), as they both do appear to meet some of the criteria for delusional thinking, which is a persistence false and fanciful, non-psychotic idea that one knows to be untrue, on some level. Plus, outside of delusion, the person is normal.
It’s hard to wrap our minds around the extraordinary self-deception with which one has to engage, to keep a three-year relationship going with a non-existent person. Indeed, most of you do not have the makeup to have to lie to yourself in this extreme way. Nonetheless, each of us deludes ourselves in small ways every day, to reinforce the way that we have come to think about ourselves and the beliefs and values we hold. We are defensive by nature, so that we are all vulnerable to deceiving ourselves, at times.
For example, you may think you are the greatest accountant, but your performance reviews in past jobs does not confirm this. To protect yourself against feeling weak, inferior, and threatened, you tell yourself that your “bosses are idiots and jealous of you”. You are not delusional. You just have a strong emotional investment in the idea that you are the best, which makes you defend against anything that says otherwise. Also, consider, for a moment, a patient of mine. She would not sign off on a performance review, until her boss edited it to my patient’s satisfaction. They haggled over the wording in the review, for months, until my patient felt it represented her work accurately. Was she delusional? Most definitely, I can tell you that she was not. She had little social life, outside of her work. Her work life was the sole source of her self-esteem. Thus, she experienced constructive criticism like a knife that was cutting away at her only source of good feelings ~ her job. And, believe me, she defended against this attack, like a Roman Gladiator who had to kill or be killed. I’m sure her boss viewed her as a huge pain in the butt, just trying to make his life miserable. But, he couldn’t be more wrong. She was trying to feel safe.
The Ego’s Role in Self-Deception and Delusional Thinking
But, that being said, there is a definite line between a temporary defensive effort to adjust normal drops in self-esteem and a full-blown delusional idea that is needed to prop up an ego that is stressed and at risk of failing. The ego is the part of you that keeps you grounded in the real world, and thus, your self-esteem in tact. It knows the extent of your psychological investment in seeing yourself in a certain way. It helps you to deny and distort information to make what’s happening fit with your view of things. And, most of this takes place outside of your awareness. Take, for example, a person who considers herself a non-vindictive person, but has the fleeting thought that she wishes for a coworker who insulted her to get fired. She resolves this contradiction, by denying that she really wishes for harm to come to her coworker. She tells herself that she’s just angry, rather than she may be a little more vindictive than she likes to think.
Daily, you are confronted by impressions that arise within you and through external events that challenge the way you normally think about yourself. You don’t think twice about these mini challenges to your self-esteem, because your defensive way of dealing with them has become second nature to you.
However, the more you have to defend self-perceptions that are not supported wholly by reality, the more energy you have to give toward defending them. This can deprive your body and mind of energy to function well.
Thus, it’s to your benefit to change unrealistic self-perceptions that tie up the ego in weakening defensive maneuvers. The following three tips will help you strengthen your ego so that you cope more effectively with stressful circumstances and have more energy to realize your goals.
Three Tips to Strengthen Your Ego
- Know yourself psychologically. Remember, “No one was ever injured by the truth. But a man injures himself if he lives with self-deception and ignorance.” Marcus Aurelius (121-180, Roman Emperor, Stoic Philosopher. Thus, put in your time in getting to know yourself, psychologically.
- Value reality as much as fantasy. Some of you may find reality boring and tend to live in your imagination more than you do the real world. Remember, there’s nothing wrong with the truth. In fact, you will be more apt to realize some of what’s in your fantasy, by considering what is and isn’t possible to actualize of it.
- Enjoy being an everyday person. I can feel some of you squirming with this one. It’s fine to appreciate your intellect, talents and capabilities. But, some of you put great pressure on yourself to be extraordinary, so that anything short of this makes you feel less than, unlovable, and depressed. Everyday doesn’t mean something bad or that you are not talented and capable. It means, simply, that you can relax. You don’t have to be superman or wonder woman to be lovable. When you give yourself permission to be normal, your ego can stop protecting you from feeling vulnerable. Now, you will have the energy to realize your capabilities, fully.
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