ABSTRACT
The ‘as-if’ personality and narcissism signal the necessity of taking the psychological journey, especially accentuated in our ego-driven era. Superficiality and the absence of internal reflection are accentuated in the current emphasis on social media ego/persona images. Unconsciously and pervasively this creates an illusionary world where a loss of self tends to prevail. The phenomenon parallels the marked increase of narcissism signified by the mass absorption with ‘likes’ on the Internet. The internal reality, anguish or panic, absence and void, reveal life is not sustainable merely on the surface as the illusory world of ‘as-if’ eventually wears out. Examples of people engaged in Jungian analytical therapy, dreams and the life and writing of American poetess Sylvia Plath illustrate internal splits and fractured selves and also the process of their integration. This is expanded with the concepts of absence and lack as articulated by French psychoanalyst Andre Green. From the distance set up between who one is and who one wants to be new pathways can emerge to encourage us to more complete modes of being.
