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Essential self definition


Essential Self | Ridhwan

Differentiating the Self of Ego from the Essential Self

On the other hand, the usual sense of self, the self of ego, is an emotional content, an affect based on past experience. It has an emotional coloring that differentiates each person's sense of self from the other. It is, however, not as clear and definite as the sense of Essential Self. It is usually somewhat vague and amorphous, and most individuals do not become truly aware of it unless they first experience its absence.

Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 267

Essential Self and Essential Identity:Two Names for the Same Presence

To recognize the factor responsible for the sense of identity, one must recognize a certain essential quality, the essential aspect of Identity. The Essential Identity is one of the pure forms in which presence manifests in the soul. (In previous books we have referred to this quality as the Essential Self. ) When we know the Essential Identity, the Self of Essence, it becomes possible to see and understand the behavior and attitudes that express it.

The Point of Existence, pg. 134

Essential Self Has No Physical-Mental Wisdom

On the Being level the Essential Self has no limitations, but the child comes to believe that his body and mind have no limitations, which is obviously a delusion. The delusion is not the feelings and attitudes of grandeur and omnipotence, for these are the actual feelings of the Self of Being. The delusion is in attributing them to the body-mind. We can see from this that the Essential Self has no physical-mental wisdom.

Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 278

Essential Self is a Platonic Form

One needs to know the experience of the essential aspect of Self. Self or identity is a specific aspect of Being, a Platonic form, a pure and immutable ontological Presence. When one knows the true Self, the Self of Essence, it becomes possible to see and understand the behavior and attitudes that express it.

Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 265

Experiencing One's Own Pure Identity

The experience is not only of pure identity, but of one's own identity. One does not recognize the self only as identity, but also as oneself. One realizes that the vague sense of identity that one has always been aware of or identified with indirectly is only a reflection, a distant reminder, of this singular and unique self. One recognizes oneself immediately, as the original source and prototype of one's usual but vague sense of identity.

Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 269

Experiencing Oneself as a Brilliant Point of Light

The Essential Self is a clear example of a definite Presence with no boundaries; this is inconceivable under ordinary circumstances. Imagine a radiant point of light. It is definite, precise, clearly differentiated; it is a non-dimensional point. However, because it is a radiant point of light, it does not have separating boundaries. It is the source of light, and it is the light itself. The radiant light goes on forever; it is not bounded by spatial distances. Now if we imagine the light to be consciousness or awareness, then we have a very good impression of a definite conscious Presence that is boundless. One experiences oneself as a brilliant point of light, consciousness and awareness. Since one is a dimensionless point, one feels singularly definite, but one has no sense of boundaries. The Essential Self feels like a concentrated Presence, a precious and pure Presence of consciousness, with the characteristic sense of self.

Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 272

Simple Presence with the Specific Feeling of Identity

The Essential Self, on the other hand, is a simple presence with the specific feeling of identity. One feels simply “I am present, that is me.” The sense of identity is very distinct, very clear, very definite and very precise. It cannot be described, but it can be recognized, just like love can be recognized when it is felt. That is what it means to be an essential aspect. This aspect is the purest, most specific, most exact, most differentiated feeling of the particular category of experience. It is a completely differentiated and discriminated perception of a particular category of experience. This complete definiteness and delineation of experience is not possible on the ego level; it is the domain of Essence. The Essential Self is experienced as the most definite of all aspects of Essence. It is supremely singular, and amazingly unique. This unique singularity is recognized readily as one’s true Self. One recognizes oneself in a very direct and simple manner, with a feeling that one has known one’s Self always, even though one has always identified with the vague sense of identity belonging to the ego. The sense of pure identity, of pure selfhood, is completely devoid of, and independent from, any emotion or image from the past. It is the presence of Being, in the specific aspect of Self.

Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 268

The Essential Self is Distinct from the Personal Essence

The Essential Self is a central aspect of Essence, distinct from the Personal Essence. The Personal Essence feels like an individuality, a person, while the Essential Self feels like an identity, a feeling of self. The Personal Essence feels like "I am," while the Essential Self feels like "I." The Personal Essence has some sense of identity, but not as specific and distinct as the Essential Self. The sense of beingness, of the "am" is much more dominant than the sense of identity, the "I," while it is the reverse for the Essential Self. The Essential Self is a very simple and pure sense of Presence. It is so simple that it becomes subtle and difficult to differentiate from other feelings.

Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 267

Finding your Essential Self and Connecting with your True Identity

 by Pete Wiley

Always be a first-rate version of yourself and not a second-rate version of someone else.

~Judy Garland

Who are you at your core?

If you strip away all the extraneous stuff in your life, what would be left?

In modern society, it’s hard to connect to our true identity because of all the static. The expectations, the influences, the demands: all this external pressure makes it difficult to know our true selves.

It can be helpful to take a step back and think about your essential self. By essential self, I mean the person at your very heart, the person you have left after you strip away everything not essential to your being.

Getting to know your essential self

But how do you get to know this person? How can you meet this essential self? The process involves considering all the elements in our lives and identifying those that are part of us in a direct and fundamental way. We need to identify elements in our lives that are truly essential, which might include…

  • Personality traits
    How do you interact with other people when there is no agenda or goal in play? How do you behave when you’re with those you’re most comfortable with, when you’re totally relaxed? The version of yourself that you show to other people might be different depending on who you interact with, but who are you really?
  • Outlook
    How you see the world is an important part of your essential self. Your perception of the world, the environment (including people), and your place in it make up a big part of who you are. How you operate and interact with people on a day-to-day basis is totally dependent on this.
  • Your inner self
    Do you have a good sense of who you are at heart? Are you at peace? Is your inner dialogue positive and constructive, or do you have a lot of negative inner commentary going on? Do you have a strong sense of your spirit, your energy? This is perhaps the most important aspect of your essential self, but it’s also the hardest to understand. It takes a lot of reflection and introspection—and it takes honesty.

One important thing to remember about these elements is that none of them are permanent. Our personalities evolve over time, as do our interests, our outlook, and the people in our lives. If there’s something about our inner selves that we’re not happy with, we can focus our energy and attention on it and develop it over time. Our essential nature is dynamic, and realizing that will also help us understand and embrace the changes in our lives.

Spending time with your essential self

Another way to connect with your true identity is to spend a large chunk of time alone.

What do you do if you want to get to know someone? You spend time with them. You pay attention to them. You listento them. The same is true for yourself—you have to spend quality time alone. And not just watching TV—you have to be mindful, mindful of your reactions to the world around you and the world inside you. Take notice of your feelings and thoughts when you’re not distracted by people or responsibilities. It’s not something that will happen in just one sitting. You have to do this often over months and years. If you can do that, you’ll get to know yourself—well.

Who you are and what you do

We all engage in activities that we feel are part of our essential selves, activities that we feel we could absolutely not live without or we feel that we were born to do. When you engage in these activities, you lose track of time, and they become part of you. The line between who you are and what you’re doing blurs. It comes as naturally as breathing, and you couldn’t imagine not doing them. It might be your work, a creative endeavor, or it might be raising your children. What are the activities in your life that you couldn’t imagine not having?

These kinds of activities are critical to understanding our essential selves, but they are not part of our essential selves. Elements of our essential selves brought us to these activities and made them part of our lives, but if we stopped engaging in these activities, it would not take away any of part of ourselves. We would likely find something else to express that part of who we are.

For example, I love the game of baseball. I have been a fan, a player, and a coach for all of my life. For the last 13 years, I’ve been coaching my son’s teams. I’ve always assumed that I would keep coaching after he grew up and left for college; I love being on the field and around the game, and I love teaching the game. This year, he went to college, and I had a bit of a crisis. My drive to be on the baseball diamond every day had diminished considerably, and I was questioning whether I wanted to continue coaching into the future. A large part of what I was struggling with was the fact that, in my mind, baseball is part of who I am. I thought if I stopped coaching, I’d lose that. But then I realized that the elements of my essential self that brought me to baseball—as a fan, as a competitor, and as a teacher—are still there. My essential self is still intact and evolving. How I express that part of myself is also evolving. Once I came to that realization, I was able to make the decision to quit coaching with less angst.

Knowing who you are will make you stronger

Understanding our essential selves will help us deal with life’s challenges and tragedies. If we understand that all the external forces and events in our lives are fleeting and temporary, it won’t be so much of a shock when our circumstances change. We will always have the person we are at our core. If we get to know our essential self well, that part of who we are will be more resilient.

Understanding who we are will also make us more confident in ourselves and when we interact with other people. If we have a firm understanding of our true selves, we will not question our thoughts, words, and actions because they will be based on a firm understanding of our values, beliefs, and outlooks.

Get to know your essential self, and be true to that identity. Don’t let anything come between you and who you truly are.

Who is the essential you?

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Personal self-determination in early youth

Personal self-determination in early youth

The basis from which the author approaches the solution of the problem of self-determination is the idea of ​​the value-semantic nature of personal self-determination.

For such an understanding of the problem of personal self-determination, an extremely significant provision should be noted: the level of personality is the level of value-semantic determination, the level of existence in the world of meanings and values. As B.V. Zeigarnik and B.S. Bratus point out, for the individual "the main plane of movement is moral and value. Let us emphasize a few more provisions of these authors (see also B.S. Bratus, P.I. Sidorov), which are close to understanding these problems by M. R. Ginzburg and allow a better understanding of his approach to self-determination.So, the first point is that the existence in the world of meanings is existence at the proper personal level (this was also pointed out by L. S. Vygotsky); the area of ​​meanings and values ​​is that the area in which the interaction of the individual and society takes place; values ​​and meanings are, in fact, the language of this interaction.The second point is the leading role of values ​​for the formation of personality: The confession of values ​​consolidates the unity and self-identity of the individual, for a long time determining the main characteristics of the individual, its core, its morality, its morality. Value is acquired by a person, because "... there is no other way to deal with value, except for its holistic personal experience. Thus, the acquisition of value is the acquisition by the personality of itself. And the third is the functions of semantic education allocated by B.V. Zeigarnik and B.S. Bratus: the creation of a standard, an image of the future and an assessment of activity from its moral, semantic side.

Value orientations are elements of the personality structure that characterize the content side of its orientation. In the form of value orientations, as a result of acquiring values, the essential, the most important for a person, is fixed. Value orientations are stable, invariant formations ("units") of moral consciousness, its main ideas, concepts, "value blocks", semantic components of the worldview, expressing the essence of human morality, and hence general cultural and historical conditions and perspectives. Their content is changeable and mobile. The system of value orientations acts as a "folded" program of life and serves as the basis for the implementation of a certain model of personality. The sphere where the social turns into the personal and the personal becomes social, where there is an exchange of individual value and worldview differences is communication.

Value is one of the main mechanisms of interaction between the individual and society, individual and culture. This provision is central to the so-called humanistic-axiological approach to culture, according to which culture is understood as a world of embodied values; "the scope of the concept of the value of the human world of culture and social reality". Values ​​are generalized ideas of people about the goals and norms of their behavior, embodying historical experience and expressing in a concentrated way the meaning of the culture of the era, a certain society as a whole, all of humanity. these are the landmarks that exist in the minds of each person, with which individuals and social groups correlate their actions. Within the framework of this approach, as it seems to us, the question of the relationship between values ​​and goals is adequately resolved: “Value, first of all, is what gives the ideal (i. e., not really implemented yet) goal the power of influencing the method and nature of human activity, motivating force." Thus, values, value consciousness underlies goal-setting. "... the target determination of human activity is a value determination. Goals can affect human activity not really causally, but as ideal values, the implementation of which a person considers his urgent need or duty"

P. Gerstmann points out the fundamental difference in the nature of the elements of a person's idea of ​​his future, from which the difference in their function follows. He distinguishes two types of goals in the composition of the life plan: final (ideal) and auxiliary (real, specific). Ultimate goals are ideals understood as values; these goals are stable. Real goals are characterized by specificity and reach, they can change depending on success or failure (Gerstmann P. according to M.R. Ginzburg). Thus, Gerstmann directly points to the connection between the life plan and values.

As we can see, the idea of ​​one's own future is connected with values. Values, being socio-historical in nature, are a means of introducing the individual to the genus (generic human abilities), thereby allowing to overcome the finiteness (temporality) of human existence. Values, in turn, are closely related to the idea of ​​the meaning of life (see, for example,), which is both the basis of personality development and its result.

So, we noted that self-determination is associated with values, with the need to form a semantic system in which the problem of the meaning of life occupies a central place, with a focus on the future. Now we can formulate these connections more specifically. A person’s definition of himself in society as an individual is definition of oneself (self-determination, taking an active position) in relation to socio-cultural values, and thus the definition of the meaning of one's existence. Defining oneself as a person, personal self-determination has a value-sense nature. Values, on the other hand, set orientation to the future (more on this below). Such an understanding of personal self-determination is consistent with the understanding proposed by M. M. Shibayeva of "personal self-determination in culture". So, M.M. Shibaeva notes "... the importance of the process of self-determination of a person in culture in order to highlight and justify for oneself the value-sense foundations of one's own life concept, as well as the choice of methods and forms of its implementation."

The notion of the value-semantic nature of personal self-determination is the basis from which MR Ginzburg approaches the solution of this problem in the aspect of age. And now let's consider those characteristics of adolescence and youth that give rise to such an approach.

There is no study of older adolescence that does not emphasize that the basic need of the adolescent is the desire to occupy a certain place in society. However, in itself, the desire to occupy a certain place in society is not at all a specific feature of adolescence. As is clear from the works of L. S. Vygotsky, D.B. Elkonin, L.I. Bozhovich, D.I. Feldshtein, the desire to take a new social position is characteristic of all inter-age transitions and is, in fact, one of the mechanisms of these transitions. Specificity should be sought not in the very desire to find a place in society (social position), but in the qualitative features of the system of relations that develops at a given age between the child and society. This specificity, among other things, also lies in the fact that, as P.P. Blonsky rightly noted, with each subsequent age stage, the circle of communication of the child expands; this means that the addressee of this communication, the representation of society as a whole in this communication, is expanding. In addition, its content and means are also changing. In older early adolescence, society as a whole becomes such an addressee; the young man enters into communication with society (more broadly with the world of human culture) directly.

So, in the works of D. I. Feldshtein it is shown that adolescence is sensitive for the formation of motivation for socially useful activity, i.e. activities for the benefit of the whole community. The "nodal frontier" in the social development of the individual is the adolescent's occupation of the position "I and society". Substantially, this means that at this level, the adolescent solves the problem of the relationship between himself and society, the definition of himself in society and through society. And this, as we have shown, is possible only in the field of values ​​and meanings. Thus, at this level, the task is solved as a task of personal self-determination.

The very fact of the generalized nature of youthful aspirations, their connection with the destinies of society and mankind as a whole, has been repeatedly noted by researchers. Interest in global problems of the meaning of life in general and one's own existence in particular, interest in "last questions" (FM Dostoevsky) is an essential characteristic of the emerging self-determination. In addition to the fact that these problems are of concern to young men and women, they are also widely discussed by them with their peers and those adults whom they consider worthy of their trust. The presence of interest in the meaning of life and its active discussion, according to M.R. Ginzburg, indicates an actively ongoing process of self-determination; their absence is about its distortion.

In search of the meaning of one's existence, the value-semantic nature of personal self-determination manifests itself in the most general form. The need for the meaning of life characterizes adult forms of behavior and therefore cannot be bypassed when we are dealing with the process of growing up a person, the formation of the human "I". Viktor Frankl considers the desire for a person to search for and realize the meaning of his life as an innate motivational tendency inherent in all people and being the main engine of behavior and development of an adult. The need for the meaning of life, according to K. Obukhovsky, forms that "knot" that allows a person, firstly, to integrate numerous requirements coming from different spheres of his life, building life not as a sequence of disparate accidents, but as an integral process that has goals and continuity and, secondly, it helps a person to integrate all his abilities, to mobilize them as much as possible, following the tasks that are set for him in accordance with the developed self-concept and the concept of life.

The discovery of the inner world in early youth is associated with experiencing it as a value. The discovery of oneself as an inimitable unique personality is inextricably linked with the discovery of the social world in which this personality has to live. Youthful reflection is, on the one hand, awareness of one's own "I" ("Who am I?", "What am I?" "What are my abilities?", "What can I respect myself for?"), And on the other hand, awareness of one's position in world ("What is my life ideal?", "Who are my friends and enemies?", "What do I want to become?", "What should I do to make myself and the world around me better?"). The first questions addressed to himself are raised, not always conscious of this, already by a teenager. The second, more general, worldview questions are raised by a young man, in whom introspection becomes an element of social and moral self-determination

The difficulty lies in the fact that early youth, while creating internal conditions favorable for a person to begin to think about what he lives for, does not provide sufficient means to solve it. It is well known that the problem of the meaning of life is not only ideological, but also quite practical. The answer to it is contained both inside a person and outside him in the world where his abilities are revealed, in his activity, in a sense of social responsibility. But this is exactly what forms the deficit, which is sometimes very painfully felt in youth. Thus, closing in on itself, the search for the meaning of life is, as it were, doomed to remain only an exercise in youthful thinking, which creates a real danger of stable egocentrism and withdrawal into oneself, especially in young men with features of neuroticism or predisposed to it due to the peculiarities of the previous development (low self-esteem, poor human contacts) .

However, despite all the subjective difficulties, these searches contain a high positive potential: in the search for the meaning of life, a worldview is developed, the system of values ​​expands, that moral core is formed that helps to cope with the first everyday troubles, the young man begins to better understand the world around him and himself, becomes in fact himself.

So, the basis of self-determination in older adolescence and youth is personal self-determination, which has a value-sense nature, an active definition of one's position in relation to a socially developed system of values, the definition on that basis of the meaning of one's own existence. M. R. Ginzburg believes that in early adolescence, personal self-determination (i.e., value-sense, self-determination in relation to values) is genetically initial, determining the development of all other types of self-determination (which are discussed below). The consciousness of an older teenager does not at all represent a "value chaos". Of course, the value-sense orientation of an adolescent is very different from the value-sense orientation of an adult. Personal self-determination is by no means completed in adolescence and early adolescence, and in the course of further development a person comes to a new personal self-determination (redefinition). But the dialectic here is such that personal self-determination is the basis of one's own development.

This understanding allows us to build a holistic picture of self-determination in adolescence and youth, within which the motley mosaic of various "self-determinations" found in the literature takes on meaning. Personal self-determination sets a personally significant orientation towards achieving a certain level in the system of social relations, the requirements for it, i.e. sets social self-determination. On the basis of social self-determination, requirements are developed for a certain professional area, professional self-determination is carried out (of course, not without the influence of many other factors).

On the basis of the stated positions it is possible to explain both the dual nature of self-determination, which was pointed out by LI Bozhovich, and the "transition from a romantic orientation to a real choice", noted by SP Kryagzhde. “Deprived of concreteness of search”, “romantic character”, the absence of any kind of temporal attachment of ideas about the future of older adolescents and younger youths is explained by the fact that we are dealing with personal self-determination occurring at the level of values. Value, on the other hand, is fundamentally timeless; giving a person an idea of ​​the future, it does not correlate it with the time axis, with chronology, because that other dimension is the dimension of the "meaningful future" (MM Bakhtin). Temporary future, i.e. more or less precise planning of one's life in time (life plan, understood as a system of goals), apparently, arises at the level of social self-determination. In the future, these two types of ideas about their future coexist, performing various functions: the semantic future, the function of meaning formation, and the temporal regulatory function. Hence the duality of life plans, life prospects, which is noted by many researchers.

So, let's summarize the main provisions on the problem of personal self-determination, which are reflected in our work:

1) personal self-determination as a psychological phenomenon occurs at the border of the older adolescence and early youth;

2) the need for personal self-determination is the need for the formation of a semantic system in which ideas about oneself and the world are merged;

3) personal self-determination has a value-semantic nature. active determination of one's position regarding the socially developed system of values, determination on this basis of the meaning of one's own existence; the acquisition by a person of his value-sense unity and its realization is the definition of oneself in the world of self-determination;

4) an essential feature of personal self-determination is its focus on the future, and two types of future are distinguished: semantic and temporal future;

5) personal self-determination underlies the process of self-determination in older adolescence and youth, it determines the development of all other types of self-determination (social and professional).

Based on all of the above, we can determine the relationship between the concepts of "I-concept" and "personal self-determination". Since the most capacious definition of personal self-determination will be the process of forming a single semantic system in which generalized ideas about oneself and generalized ideas about the world are merged, we can say that the self-concept (as a dynamic system of ideas about oneself, associated with their assessment ) is a factor in the process of personal self-determination.

source: azps.ru

Self-determination as a structural and functional quality of personality

ABSTRACT

The article attempts to show the relationship between the main, basic characteristics of personality. The attention is focused on the structure of personality. The spheres in which the life process of the human individual unfolds are shown. The relationship of social position and self-determination of the individual is substantiated.

ABSTRACT

The article presents the endeavor to show the relationship among main and basic characteristics of a personality. The attention is focused on the structure of personality. The spheres of the life process of a human individual are shown. The relationship of social position and self-determination of a personality is substantiated.

Key words: individual, personality, activity, activity, qualities, self-determination, self-realization, responsibility.

Keywords: individual, personality, activity, activeness, qualities, self-determination, self-realization, responsibility.

One of the main functions of the individual is the creative assimilation of social experience and the inclusion of a person in the system of social relations. All aspects of personality are manifested only in activities and in relationships with other people. Personality exists, manifests itself and is formed in activity and communication. Hence, the most important characteristic of a person is the social state of a person, which, with all its manifestations, is connected with the life of the surrounding people.

If an individual's activity is organized in such a way that, by carrying out it, he gets the opportunity to become more fully involved in the system of social relations, to take a "new step" on the path of his movement in this system, then we can count on the formation of certain socially significant properties in him . Effective activity should be organized in such a way that its performance by a person reveals certain positives of social relations for him, includes him in these relations, ensures the development of the life of the individual in the system of social relations and their reflection in his mind.

It is important that the realization and development of its potential essentially depends on what connections with other people and how this person is included. In joint activities, factors such as competition and cooperation (as varieties of achieving the best result) come into force. Competition plays the role of a kind of "catalyst" for the development of abilities, and cooperation (since it provides for the distribution of functions) has a significant impact on the specialization of the abilities of different participants in joint activities.

V. F. Safin believes that the core characteristic of the personality is its self-determination: "self-determination of the personality in relation to its social activity and civic maturity acts in relation to them as an independent functional and procedural core, which has the ability to prevent the real behavior of the individual and organize it behavior" [17, p. 23].

The growth of the level of organization of the individual necessarily leads to a change in the life goal set by the person. Any level of a higher order (quality) finds its manifestation in the self-determination of a person. An important socio-psychological regularity in the development of the individual is that the individual is the bearer and spokesman of public and collegiate interests. But it can be their conscious subject only at a certain level of social maturity, when a person has self-determined and, in this regard, improves his activity and increases responsibility.

In many scientific sources on problems related to personality, there is an idea about the identification of the concepts of self-determination and life position of the individual. A life position is a way of attracting a person to the life of society; a set of views, beliefs, socially significant, primarily professional, skills and appropriate actions of the individual, which implement its attitude to the world around. That is, the life position of a person is determined not by any of her actions or actions, but by a set of typical behavioral acts, a persistent line of behavior and activity. In particular, O. V. Kirichuk defines an active life position as "a system of the moral attitude of the individual, first of all, to nature, of which he is a particle; to society as a whole and the communities to which he belongs; to the main types of activity through which internal connection with nature and society" [6, p. fifteen].

Self-determination has a close relationship with the life, in particular the social position of a person's personality.

In accordance with the main areas of life in the structure of self-determination, one can distinguish its relatively independent varieties: social, professional, socio-political, family, in the field of communication. Central here is social self-determination - the integration of young people into the main components of the social structure of society. Social self-determination is directly related to the choice of a profession, the result of which is not only the acquired profession, but also a new labor collective, into which young people enter [15, p. 42]. Consequently, social self-determination includes life self-determination.

VI Zhuravlyov, analyzing the development of the personality of schoolchildren, uses the following concept of life self-determination: "The process of changes in the social state of education on the verge of school and after school period, which are regulated by pedagogical and social factors, a process that is characterized by certain features. " [5, p. 185]. As we can see, the life self-determination of young students is characterized mainly by its professional orientation, which is associated with the goal of becoming a qualified worker and getting out of the situation of "inferiority" as a member of society.

Social self-determination characterizes a person as an individual. This determines individuality, value, professional orientation, and the like. A person strives to make the right life choice, and at the same time to influence the processes of the life of society at a certain level of his competence, to feel the influence of society.

Exploring the problem of the integral development of the personality, E. A. Yakuba considers social maturity as an indicator of the preparedness and readiness of the individual to implement social functions, which is an expression of social activity as a quality of the individual, its culture" [19, With. 7].

The activity of a person is the unity of reflection, expression and realization of external and internal tendencies of society. It is a socially mature person who is able to steadfastly demonstrate the value method of modeling, the content of socially significant activities, communication and behavior, in which the person acquires the possibility of an independent existence of the system in the interpersonal space. In the process of forming social activity, a person actively seeks, creates and transforms the conditions for satisfying socially significant needs in accordance with the position of the person, his values ​​and the requirements applied to him. Social activity acts as a personal way of comparing oneself with other people, determining one's position, and characterizes social self-determination in the same way.

A socially mature person realizes his social self-determination, and through it responsibility and activity in the process of interaction with the outside world. The source of such activity is social needs. In social needs, a certain state of the individual's psyche is manifested. To resume the achievements and shortcomings recreated by the psyche, it is necessary to resume the expenditure of the corresponding forces by identifying social activity depending on a certain level of social self-determination of a person's personality. In society, these needs largely depend on the content and level of education received, on the influence of the surrounding social environment.

Based on the fact that the social maturity of a person is manifested in the presence of logical relationships of social self-determination of a person’s youth, their social activity and social responsibility, we believe that these relationships determine the level of social maturity of personality depending on the level of development of society. According to some authors, social activity "expresses the level of implementation of the functional features of the social community, the level of the general sociality of the individual, his inner need" [12, p. 6].

Such a state of its elements is determined precisely by the fact that self-determination, activity and responsibility can be realized in practical activity if there are interconnections between them in the personality structure.

The growth of consciousness, self-awareness, self-determination of a person today, on the one hand, the complication of the situation and the expansion of the space for its effective functioning, on the other hand, stimulates an increase in a person’s need to single out, define and “assert” himself in society, in realizing his capabilities, creativity and recognition.

The process of growing up and maturation of a person is characterized by the development of processes that are heterogeneous in nature and the interaction of all manifestations of a person as a biopsychosocial being. This complex process of holistic development is inextricably linked with its educational activities, with the satisfaction of basic human needs for knowledge necessary for life and its knowledge. Such integral structural and functional formations as criteria for the integral development of a person are formed at the intersection of heterogeneous processes of development of a growing person, his ontogenesis and sociogenesis, maturation and education, self-development and upbringing.

Psychologists associate the professional picture of the world with a person's abilities, which determine the choice of a profession and professional development. In scientific developments, the well-known concept of D. E. Super, which boils down to this: people are characterized by different abilities, interests and personality traits; each person corresponds to a number of professions, and a profession to a number of individuals; professional development has several successive stages and phases; the features of this development are determined by the socio-economic level of the parents, the properties of the individual, his professional capabilities [10].

Self-realization is a process of priority change in the depths of a person's holistic personal and activity state, in the process of which its spiritual essence is self-revealed, updated and improved. This is possible only as a result of a lot of purposeful work on oneself, with one's own personality, that is, understanding the true goals of one's life, and then highlighting them using the qualitative, basic principles of one's personality and individuality. Therefore, self-realization is creativity and a form of existential revelation of a person.

Many researchers consider self-realization as the result of a person's self-realization in various fields of activity. That is, we can say that "acme" is the degree of realization itself. At the same time, the main factor in achieving the state of "acme" in the end, as a result of self-realization, is the self-development of the individual.

Based on the acmeological approach, it is advisable to consider "acme" and self-realization not as ideal images, but as a person's constant movement towards them through the correlation of the real characteristics of a person's development with the optimal model of self-development. Man does not simply realize himself by making a choice between reproductive modes of development; he qualitatively transforms himself, removes psychological barriers, rethinks life expectations, looks for an opportunity for the development of acmeologically significant qualities, produces his own trajectory of self-development.

In a person who effectively forms social maturity, such qualities as the ability to self-transcendence, responsibility for self-realization and readiness for self-development and self-recovery, the constant emergence of new forms and ways of satisfying the need for self-realization are formed. These personal qualities, predetermined, on the one hand, by the level of social and professional maturity, and from the other, act as determinants of effectiveness in achieving acme and the very implementation.

At the same time, from an internal position, social maturity is a personal new formation that predetermines the formation of a person as an integrity, the productivity of its self-realization and the optimality of the individual trajectory of achieving "acme" as degrees of self-realization. A high level of social maturity allows a person to comprehend the process of self-development as a life value, create conditions for self-improvement and self-realization in the process of life, to learn, analyze, and creatively reveal their "self".

BF Lomov draws attention to the fact that in psychology, when studying activity, the study of its subject, means, conditions should be carried out only to understand the processes, states and properties of the subject. He notes that "often the mental phenomena that arise and develop in the process of performing an activity by an individual are considered as its products. object, material or ideal" [9, With. 203]. Evaluation of this subject (its quality, size, etc.), its social and individual value, usefulness, significance for professionalization, and the like is a criterion of professional ability, the level of professionalism of the subject.

Analyzing the problem of self-determination of the personality of a future specialist as one of the criteria for the formation of its social and professional maturity, we will find out some aspects of the study of self-determination in the scientific literature. K. K. Platonov respects: "professional self-determination is the degree of self-esteem of oneself as a specialist in the relevant profession; the content side of the personality orientation, which acts according to vocation; an important object of personality formation in the process of professional orientation" [14, p. 125-126].

Researchers consider self-determination of personality from the point of view of the influence of various social factors on its development. The combination of such factors forms a conditional space (educational environment), in which the self-determination of the individual has the opportunity to be effectively realized. Criteria signs of self-determination of a student's personality are educational and life self-determination.

Life self-determination of students is a complex scientific problem that has a multifaceted content. According to G.P. Nikov: "More difficult and responsible in the life of young generations is the period when their upbringing under the guidance of adults is completed, and they are guided by an independent path. This means that guardianship by elders ends, the degree of freedom of young people, their independence in decision-making: it is time for social maturity." [11, c. 58]. Self-determination should be considered as a specific sign of personality.

Psychological research indicates a correlation between responsibility and self-determination. As V. F. Safin rightly notes, responsibility is a defining and system-forming feature of self-determination of a person. He notes: “a self-determined personality is a subject who consciously and constantly compares his own goal with the goal of a group, a society that knows how to actively defend its ideals. Therefore, self-determination is a process, a relatively independent stage of socialization, the significance of which is to form an individual's awareness of the purpose and content of life, readiness for independent life through the ratio of his desires, existing qualities, opportunities and requirements that apply to him from the environment and society" [17, p. 151].

Independence is a backbone sign of self-determination of a person. “For any social standards, adulthood means, on the one hand, social adaptation, overcoming youthful maximalism, and on the other hand, independence and responsibility,” writes I. S. Kon [7, p. four].

Demonstration of the social activity of the individual consists in the transformation and self-activity in all areas of public life. Based on this, self-determination, self-expression, self-affirmation, self-government and self-education of the individual are formed.

The nature of activity is determined and mediated by higher vital needs. The role of activity, in relation to coordination, is to mediate between the elements of the system (activity, communication, etc.), to the extent necessary for social and personal interactions, with the help of which they are optimally implemented. If the activity has not yet been formed, if the personality itself, its higher vital needs, have not yet taken shape, activity can act not as a coordinator, but as a disintegrator of a person's life.

Psychological aspects of individual social activity are studied by K. A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya [1]. She pays special attention to two aspects of social activity: organizing personal time and building a life strategy. In the first case, activity is considered as a practical and effective form of time realization. As a concept, personal time contains a subjective way of realizing the subjective, a form, intensity, quality of realization. Activity is the real organization of life time, that is, the structuring of objective social and natural time, the transformation of their influence, the removal of restrictions, the expansion of opportunities, the change in directions.

If the activity provides for social normative forms, structures, methods and requirements that are applied to achieve the result, then the activity is always specific and individual and means the independence of the subject that carries out the activity. It is advisable to consider activity both as a form of manifestation and as a way of carrying out activities.

In the pedagogical analysis of the category "social activity of the individual" we adhere to the point of view according to which the unity of the environment and its assessment are determined by the practical, transforming activity of the individual as a subject of social processes.

We adhere to the position that the social activity of a person, on the one hand, is the level of his development, and on the other hand, it is a hierarchy of activities that, at successively variable stages of personality development, become leading for the successful solution of tasks of study and education.

Social activity fights off the contradiction and unity of the social and individual needs of a person. In activity lies the focus on serving the interests of society, the professional community, the acquisition of knowledge that is needed to attract them to active work is formed.

Activities can contribute to the most complete development of the inner world of the individual. An indicator of a high level of activity is the correspondence of a conscious, purposeful, active and creative attitude of the individual with activity. The quality of an individual's activity in society is manifested through social activity on the basis of transformation and initiative in all spheres of society's life.

For a teenager, it is important to help in the formation of a life strategy that is focused on success, on achieving the highest levels of professionalism in work, in the chosen specialty. It is necessary to remove the negative attitudes and concerns of the teenager, to analyze together with him the connection of his orientations (provided that they exist) with spiritual and moral values.

At the senior school level, the pedagogical process and pedagogical support for the development of a teenager are aimed at creating conditions and ensuring the process of realizing the social maturity of the graduate, his readiness for life self-determination. The defining socio-moral qualities of the personality of this period are: independence of action, independence of judgment, responsibility for the choice made, intellectual development, the ability for creativity and self-development.

Indicators of social maturity as an acmeformi of a school graduate are: the systemic knowledge of the world, the integrity of the worldview, to which knowledge about a person belongs; persistent professional choice and high motivation to achieve success in life; abilities for self-regulation of behavior, adaptation in society and self-realization in legitimate activities; readiness to maintain one's health in intensive conditions of study and work, to create a healthy family, responsibility for decisions made; stability of social and moral orientations, civic position, high spiritual and moral potential of personality development.

Subjective experience becomes possible only as a result of relating to oneself as an object. External objects become objects for the subject only when the first, elementary act of self-knowledge appears.

The relation itself develops not as a property that independently functions in its genesis and development, but as a construct of the process of becoming a new reality of being - the "self" of a person, and therefore provides for its implementation in the system of others, in the only movement of the deployment of the "self", considering it mandatory moments of its structuring identification, the corresponding level of self-understanding and self-determination. Self-understanding and self-determination are distinguished from the ability to relate to and be aware of oneself as such. Such abilities are special, they are caused by the need in the process of anthropogenesis by those that objectively exist structural and content characteristics, in the process in which a complete integrity was formed, which ensures the production-reconstruction of a person as a fundamentally new living phenomenon, which implements a new "type" of social being. , its development, and consequently, the development of "selfhood".

When the problem of personality arises, its self-determination, it is only by going beyond the psychology of consciousness, into the sphere of the spirit, that one can recognize the core of a personality that is capable of self-determining its destiny, its character.

A person can control not only his behavior, but also transform himself.

Personality self-determination is the realization of a conscious choice. A person is able to influence his character, manage his states, mental processes, as well as his motives and meanings, arbitrarily change the significance of various alternatives.

The subject of perception and self-assessment can be certain aspects of the personality, those or those of its manifestations. Personal development provides for its continuous evolution as a whole. In addition, a person can influence the evolution of his personality.

Some authors consider identification as a special social phenomenon, as a special ability of a person to define himself and relate to himself in comparison with others and in relations with others, and argue that it precedes all forms of identification and self-determination of the individual, expressing the objective need for adaptation to society as real environment of its existence and at the same time defining it.

The need for self-understanding, self-knowledge, actualization itself, self-realization itself and other phenomena of "self" - develops along with the expansion of a person's knowledge about the world and about himself, with the growth of subjective capabilities and the complication of tasks that appear before a person.

Self-realization in scientific research is considered as a structural formation of social self-determination and social activity. "In the scientific literature, in accordance with certain levels of the social essence of the individual, it is legitimate to separate the universal, cultural and civilizational, national, social group, individual and other aspects of self-realization" [14, p. 25].

Self-realization is "that integrating factor, which is associated with the solution of the problems of life self-determination, the choice of living environments, the most adequate for the very implementation and formation of life strategies" [3, p. 7], and "the desire for creative self-realization is a manifestation of the true nature of man, which leaves no choice" [3, p. 25].

There is a cultural-historical range, within which there is a transition from self-realization as a concomitant phenomenon, as an obligatory component of any interaction of the system with the environment, to self-realization as a conscious way of existence of a person. Self-realization begins to determine the lifestyle of the individual, and the multidimensional world of a person acts in its value coordinates - as a space for self-realization, self-fulfillment and self-creation" [3, p. 41].

In the most general sense, self-realization as a process of self-realization is the realization of oneself in life and everyday activities, the search and assertion of one's own special path in this world, one's values ​​and the meaning of one's existence at any moment of time. Self-realization is carried out when a person has a strong stimulating motive for personal growth" [8, p. 52].

or vice versa [2].It is the manipulative "I" that carries out self-determination, takes responsibility for the process and the result, brings conservation into the result, and then carries out the construction of behavior that corresponds to the result of self-determination. This "I" provides for the purposeful self-organization of a person and obedience to the requirements of the norm, as well as correcting behavior to the norm or responding to a change in the situation. 0003

Consequently, in order to carry out civilizational self-organization, self-determination, self-relationship, self-correction and the like in educational activities, it is necessary to precede the formation of the civilizational "self" of the individual.

References:
1. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya K. A. Life strategy / Abulkhanova-Slavskaya K. A. - M .: Thought, 1991. - 299 p.
2. Anisimov O.S. Methodology and spiritual development in the XXI century / O.S. Anisimov. - M., 2008.
3. Galazhinsky E. V. Systemic determination of personality self-realization: diss. … dr. psychol. Sciences / E. V. Galazhinsky. – Tomsk, 2002.
4. Encyclopedia of education / Acad. ped. Sciences of Ukraine; chief editor V.G. Flint. - K. : Yurinkom Inter, 2008. - 1040 p.
5. Zhuravlev VI Issues of life self-determination of secondary school graduates / VI Zhuravlev. - Rostov-on-Don, 1972. - 206 p.
6. Kirichuk O. V. Formation in active life positions / O. V. Kirichuk. - K .: Radianska school, 1983. - 136 p.
7. Kon I. S. In search of oneself: personality and self-consciousness / I. S. Kon. – M.: Politizdat, 1984. – 335 p.
8. Korostyleva L. A. Psychology of self-realization of personality: marriage and family relations / L. A. Korostyleva. - St. Petersburg: Publishing House
St. Petersburg. Univ., 2000. - 292 p.
9. Lomov B.F. Personality in the system of public relations / Lomov B.F. - M.: Academy, 2005.
10. Mikhailov I.V. The problem of professional activity in the works of D.E. Mikhailov // Questions of psychology. - 1977. -
No. 5., p. 110–122.
11. Nikov GP Life self-determination as a pedagogical problem / GP Nikov // Questions of self-determination of personality and its activity. - Ufa, 1985. - S. 58-64.
12. Novikov BV Social activity as a measure of individual self-activity / BV Novikov //. Novikov BV Creativity and Philosophy. - K., 1989.
13. Platonov KK A brief dictionary of the system of psychological concepts: [proc.

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