The professor of Psychiatry at the University of Zaragoza, Javier García Campayo, offers this Sunday, at 10:30 a.m. in Riojafórum, the conference ‘The ego and its deconstruction’, within the XIII Spirituality Forum organized by the Popular University of Logroño. Coordinator the … master’s degree in Mindfulness and the Chair of Contemplative Sciences, as well as organizer of the International Mindfulness Congress, García Campayo also works as a psychiatrist at the Miguel Servet hospital in Zaragoza.
– Can an excess of ego be a serious problem?
– It can be a cause of suffering because we become very attached to the labels of the self. This identification makes us try to convince everyone around us of the importance of these labels of political, religious, nationality…, of the vision of the world in general. And it takes us an incredible amount of time trying to convince others. If it is the case of my profession, for example, and someone messes with it, then I am continually defending it. Many of our negative emotions occur because they challenge labels of the self. If my son is angry with me, he challenges that I am a good father; My boss criticizes me, he challenges me as a good worker… When you are attached to those labels of the self, when you are very attached to the ego, you have those problems and you can work by detaching yourself.
– And can it lead to a psychological or psychiatric problem?
– An excess of ego is narcissism, but, without reaching that, depression or anxiety also have to do with it. If I have a bad image of myself it is because I am very self-critical, because I am continually trying to impress others. Many times anxiety is produced by self-demand, if I want everyone to appreciate the labels. I usually ask what we have specialized in that makes them love us. Each of us has specialized in something we are good at in life, which is one of our strengths, and that is why we are loved more. We have to see how the ego is structured, what the labels are, how we defend them and what problems they cause us. The polarization that occurs today at a social level has to do with labels because we identify a lot with a political party, a religion or a nationality. And sustained polarization can lead to fanaticism and degenerate into terrorism. Everything is structured on the self. Many current conflicts have to do with that, and before it was not like that. Now a YouTuber is dying trying to take a photo to get likes. Nowadays one is capable of anything because of an ego label.
EXCESS OF EGO
«If I have a bad image of myself it is because I am very self-critical or because I am constantly trying to impress»
FALSE MODESTY AND VANITY
«We all have an ego and it wants to express itself. And one of its labels may be trying to be humble.”
– And doesn’t that need to be loved and admired have to do with insecurity?
– Clear. We do not use happiness where it is, within us, in that personal work, that meditation, but we continually look for it outside, in consumer society, which tells us that it lies in having a lot of money, a house, success, prestige… And people are crazy trying to get those external reinforcements.
– And how do we deconstruct the ego?
– You have to work on it through psychological techniques and aspects of meditation. For example, ‘mindfulness’ manages to reduce internal dialogue, which is the great maintainer of self-labels. With meditation practices, that internal dialogue of “I am such. “I am like…” is diminishing and the “I” loses a lot of strength. There are also compassion techniques that make one not look outside, but understand that what is important is within. This connects with stoicism. Then there are other types of deconstructive meditations that show that we are not those thoughts but those who observe the thoughts, we are separated from them and the self thinks that it is the self. Through some practices we see all this because the vision we have of the self is distorted.
– But we are all vain, we even hide vanity under false modesty.
– Yes. We all have an ego and it wants to express itself. And one of your labels may be trying to be humble. One can see all this through meditative techniques. It is not that one strives to have an ego, it is that one does not care, stops looking for happiness outside and connects with what is within oneself, abandons the hamster wheel, the absurd fight for respect, image and success to have a new vision of the world.
– If you’ll excuse the joke, can the ego cause us to end up not only being unbearable to others but also not even being able to stand ourselves?
– It’s not a joke, it’s like that! As a psychiatrist, the third most frequent consultation will be that of the person who asks for help to stop thinking, to support themselves. Sometimes, when going to bed, without external stimuli, a dialogue occurs with yourself and there are people who are desperate to silence that internal voice. And that voice is crucial in maintaining the ego, it produces a lot of suffering and is controlled with the practice of meditation.
