Introspection—The Key to Navigating Life Effectively

Source: Story Sculptor

Let’s start with a few definitions.

Self-Awareness: An awareness of one’s own personality or individuality.

Introspection: A reflective looking inward; an examination of one’s own thoughts and feelings.

Empathy: Understanding another’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

Self-Awareness

Way back in 2012, I wrote a short piece on the transition from infant to toddler. The Idea was that three issues emerge to herald the arrival of the toddler: mobility, self-awareness, and language. The well-known infant researcher Daniel Stern noted that evidence of self-awareness begins to be seen around 18 months: for example, infants’ behaviors in front of a mirror, their use of labels for self, and empathic acts.

Introspection

The term self-awareness also leads us to later developments, including the term introspection. Introspection can be defined as a reflective looking inward; an examination of one’s own thoughts and feelings.

However, “accurate” introspection is harder than it sounds. Why? Because, it turns out that humans have three important information-processing systems: Feelings (affects), cognition (thinking and learning), and language. All three information-processing systems have profound liabilities as well as assets. They are what I call “messy systems.” Each is a double-edged sword, with conscious as well as unconscious aspects. Psychology taught us long ago that feelings and internal information may be distorted, repressed, altered, and more.

Why is introspection so important?

Because our actions are motivated by, caused by, our feelings, cognition, and aspects of language. The better we understand ourselves, the more chance we have of accomplishing what we want, attending to our interests and priorities, understanding others, and so on.

And here is where it really gets interesting. All this is complicated by the fact that the efforts at introspection may be influenced by unconscious issues—hence the importance of various therapies, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, etc., and getting help with our own blind spots and early happenings of which we are not consciously aware.

Heinz Kohut, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, focused on the ideas of introspection and empathy. At one point, he termed introspection as positive narcissism—that is, Kohut felt it was important and beneficial for humans to understand themselves better, their feelings, thoughts, and actions. Kohut was not calling for narcissistic grandiosity, but rather a greater understanding of the human self and its workings.

Kohut’s work, combined with the efforts of many others past and present, has led to the school of thought termed self-psychology. This introspection enhances the capacity to understand one’s interests and feelings (curiosity, rage, shame, etc.), and more successfully achieve aspirations and cope with obstacles.

Empathy

Introspection leads to the concept of empathy. Empathy is a crucial concept, relevant to individuals as well as to societal issues, such as interactions between groups and countries. Empathy implies being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing another’s feelings, thoughts, motives, and experiences.

Empathy does not include judgment of those feelings. Empathy is often fueled by curiosity, that is, the affect of interest. Empathy can be used to enhance or harm others.

Affect, cognition, and language are intimately connected with the concept of empathy: All are involved in the capacities needed for empathy and for conveying of empathy. Kohut suggested that empathy is accomplished by gaining direct access to our ideation, to our feeling states, to our tensions, our affects, and to those of others via vicarious introspection.

Wrapping Up

Self-awareness, introspection, and empathy are fascinating topics, essential to the development and survival of our species and significant for our relationships and personal development. Looking outside of ourselves is very important, but looking inside at and understanding our internal world may be just as important if not more so.