Self-perception is the anchor point for self-awareness and plays a role especially for psychology. Distortions of self-perception, for example, can trigger clinical pictures such as anorexia or dysmorphophobia. Alienations of self-perception often result in social withdrawal and a sense of futility.
What is self-perception?
In psychology, the term self-perception refers to the perception of oneself. Under the concept of self-perception, psychology understands the perception of one’s own person. The sum of all self-perceptions forms the self-image of a person. Together with self-observation, self-perception is a basic prerequisite for the formation of consciousness and self-awareness. To be distinguished from self-perception is external perception. The perception of oneself by others and the self-perception never completely coincide. The concept of self-perception can be either inward-looking or outward-looking. In medicine, inwardly directed self-perception usually refers to the perceptions of the proprioceptors, i.e. the sensory perceptions of the deep or muscular sense, which are also included under the term body perception. Outwardly directed self-perception, on the other hand, is formed by the impressions of the exteroreceptors. It encompasses all the information about oneself that the visual system, the sense of hearing and the sense of smell allow. Self-perception is highly relevant in psychology in relation to various clinical pictures. In this context, the differentiation of body schema and body image plays an increased role.
Function and task
Self-perception is an important building block for one’s health and, if distorted, has an impact on both mental and social life. People perceive their own bodies thanks to their sensory structures. The neurophysiological body schema is a theoretical construct that describes this act of objective self-perception. Thus, the body schema is composed of the perceptions of the tactile, vestibular, proprioceptive, auditory and visual information of one’s own perceptual apparatus. Thus, the body schema is based on learning experiences and consists of qualities such as body orientation, body extension and body knowledge. This means that thanks to the proprioceptors and learning experience, humans can perceive their own body size, dimension and the construction or function of their body. The so-called body image is opposed to this neurophysiological construct as a purely psychological construct. The body image is relatively objective and does not depend on one’s own mind in the sense of internal processes, but is formed solely by objective sensory perceptions of one’s own sensory systems. The psychological body image, on the other hand, is subjective and depends on the mind and thus on the inner processes of the individual. These inner processes are mainly thoughts and feelings about the perceptions of one’s own person. The body image is thus the mental attitude to the own body and is also called with the term of the body consciousness. For example, the assessment of one’s own attractiveness is an important quality of the body image. This assessment is rarely independent of the assessment of other people. The evaluation by others therefore plays mostly into the mental subjective body image. If there are strong discrepancies between the physiological body schema and the psychological body image, this can disturb the self-perception. To accept foreign images as one’s own images is one of the most important phenomena in this context. Distortions, denials, and repression can occur as a result and trigger self-deceptions, such as those present in anorexia.
Diseases and disorders
Self-perception can trigger serious illnesses due to discrepancies between the objective body schema and the subjective body image, which, like anorexia, have both psychological and physiological consequences. In most cases, wishful images regarding one’s own figure are at the center of such disorders. In addition to one’s own wish images, other people’s wish images can also be adopted and thus, over time, feel like one’s own wish images.In this case, those affected sometimes also adopt erroneous external perceptions of their own body as self-perceptions and, on this basis, develop wishful images concerning their own body. Often they are afraid of being caught chasing the wish images. This fear stems from the sense of shame of not yet conforming to the ideal images. Since self-perception plays a major role in the formation of one’s own identity, distortions and other alienations of self-perception also distort the perceived identity of those affected. Disturbed self-perception not only plays a role in disorders such as anorexia nervosa, but can also manifest itself in disorders such as social phobia. In the context of this disease, the so-called spotlight effect is often an aggravating factor. Those affected thus feel permanently exposed to observation by other people. Disturbed self-perception also plays a role in diseases such as dysmorphophobia. Patients feel unattractive and develop self-rejection up to self-hatred. Panic fear of rejection and the reactions of other people interact with this. Feelings of envy and loneliness, as well as fear of disappointing others, are also important symptoms of reduced self-esteem in the context of dysmorphophobia. The ugliness of those affected exists only in their own eyes, but restricts their social life and often even leads to complete withdrawal from social life. A sense of futility sets in.
