On Moral Fiction. By John Gardner. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1978. 214 pages. $8.95.

The authentic personality: A theoretical and empirical conceptualization and the development of the Authenticity Scale.

“…Although the foregoing discussion has focused on the person-centered conception, the concept of authenticity is considered essential to understanding the human condition in psychodynamic (e.g., Horney, 1951; Winnicott, 1965), existential (e.g., May, 1981; Yalom, 1980), developmental (e.g., Harter et al, 1996), social psychological (e.g., Kernis & Goldman, 2005; Lopez & Rice, 2006), positive psychological (e.g., Sheldon, 2004), and clinical perspectives (e.g., Ehlers, Maercker, & Boos, 2000; Joseph & Linley, 2005). We have focused on the person-centered definition of authenticity simply because it appears to provide the widest and most comprehensive explanation of the construct.…”

Meaning-Making View of Extreme States

“…It is proposed that mental distress and extreme states can instead be seen as pointing toward the neglected aspects of one’s sense of being. Rollo May argues that the being cannot be reduced to introjection of social and ethical norms—it is instead the precondition for the ego and it presupposes “Eigenwelt,” the “own world”—the relation of a person to herself or himself (May, 1983, p. 102). In other words, while the ego is only the part of the personality, the sense of a being relates to one’s whole experience (May, 1983, p. 103).…”

“…Rollo May argues that the being cannot be reduced to introjection of social and ethical norms—it is instead the precondition for the ego and it presupposes “Eigenwelt,” the “own world”—the relation of a person to herself or himself (May, 1983, p. 102). In other words, while the ego is only the part of the personality, the sense of a being relates to one’s whole experience (May, 1983, p. 103). In this manner, the ego tends to be weak in childhood in proportion to the child’s relatively weak assessment of and relation to reality, while the sense of being might already be very strong later in life, when the child learns to diminish himself in the encounter with social conformist tendencies, the ego tends to grow stronger, while the sense of being tends to weaken (May, 1983).…”

“…In other words, while the ego is only the part of the personality, the sense of a being relates to one’s whole experience (May, 1983, p. 103). In this manner, the ego tends to be weak in childhood in proportion to the child’s relatively weak assessment of and relation to reality, while the sense of being might already be very strong later in life, when the child learns to diminish himself in the encounter with social conformist tendencies, the ego tends to grow stronger, while the sense of being tends to weaken (May, 1983). As May (1983) puts it:My sense of being is not my capacity to see the outside world, to size it up, to assess reality; it is rather my capacity to see myself as a being in the world, to know myself as the being who can do these things.…”

“…In this manner, the ego tends to be weak in childhood in proportion to the child’s relatively weak assessment of and relation to reality, while the sense of being might already be very strong later in life, when the child learns to diminish himself in the encounter with social conformist tendencies, the ego tends to grow stronger, while the sense of being tends to weaken (May, 1983). As May (1983) puts it:My sense of being is not my capacity to see the outside world, to size it up, to assess reality; it is rather my capacity to see myself as a being in the world, to know myself as the being who can do these things. It is in this sense a precondition for what is called “ego development.” The ego is the subject in the subject-object relationship; the sense of being occurs on a level prior to this dichotomy.…”