Nietzsche’s psychology of the self: the art of overcoming the divided self

Abstract

In Nietzsche’s early to middle works, he has some interesting things to say about the psychology of the self. Indeed, Nietzsche explores the psychological consequences of the self that consists of a synthesis of competing opposites that are in a constant of flux. In order to make sense of the self, Nietzsche draws from the Hellenistic tradition of philosophy to conceptualise a therapeutic art of self-cultivation (Bildung) where the individual’s life is their work of art because every work of art is first turned toward the self and then toward others. This is why Nietzsche develops a mode of self-cultivation that is intimately connected with the painful labour of self-analysis in the hope of the self’s overcoming (Übergang); however, this is not enough by itself because it requires an understanding of the unconscious self that we have suppressed and repressed from ourselves, as well as the psychopathologies that they give rise to. To Nietzsche, the reason why we must undertake this difficult task of self-cultivation is the realisation that we need to free ourselves of narcissism, and its pathological symptoms found within the self, particularly if we are going to achieve a temperate and mature ego that is healthy for both the self and others.