Persona – Concept by CG Jung

Text: Bruno Ricardo Pereira Almeida

Dear readers of PSYCHOLOGY ONLINE, Psychology MSN.com

As I wrote in the last text about Shadow – one of the main concepts of Analytical Psychology – now I will talk about Persona.

Persona means mask. The word comes from Greek theater, where each character wore a mask to build their character. The word character, in turn, came from the word persona. In Latin, per-sona means to say through sound.

The persona is like a role for us to play to be seen by others.

Jung realized that we act differently in each social environment, that we need to be accepted to belong to the group, and we have to adapt depending on the circumstances.

As an example: I’m a student at college and I want to show my professors that I pay attention, I don’t talk, I don’t miss classes, I get good grades; at home I am a son, I have to respect my mother, help with some chores; With my girlfriend I try to be perfect in every aspect. Each of these roles is a persona, a mask for my self. Trying to reach his goal of being well seen and accepted.

It may happen that the individual uses the persona in such a way that he lives as he would like to be, and not what he really is. Example: a police officer who is a lieutenant lives this persona everywhere. In his house he treats his family as if they were in a general headquarters with rules, punishments and everything else.

But what if I happen to live without persona? The person will not be accepted by society, will not be able to relate to anyone or live in any environment, as he will never be able to adapt to circumstances, and will never be receptive to new positions and points of view.