Self: Plunging into the Other Side of the Mirror Essay

Hays (2008) discussed privilege and biases based on culture and how these privileges and biases can affect a therapist’s work. Having a healthy understanding of self-identity can help understand the role of privilege and biases. In order to help self-reflect, Hays (2008) presented the ADDRESSING model which includes age, disability (born with), disability (acquired), religion, ethnicity/race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, indigenous status, nationality, and gender. This ADDRESSING model will be applied in this paper.

The areas of productiveness in this session for me included the paraphrasing and minimal encouragers. Throughout this session I felt that my paraphrasing was clear and concise. It allowed the client to think about what he had said, while being able to provide me with feedback and allowed for the conversation to flow naturally.

Most people in today’s society are not pleased with their image, whether it is physically or how they form their character. In “Enhance Your Body Image” (2015) Rebecca J. Donatelle opens her essay with “When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see? If you feel disappointed, frustrated, or even angry like Ali, you’re not alone.” She continues with a study depicting 80 percent of women are dissatisfied with their appearance (p.339). This does not only mean physical appearance; Santiago Quintana in “The Space In-Between” (2015) talks about how he did not belong in his social environment because resulting in him being bullied. A person’s values are molded by cultural influence, friends and family; furthermore, to be appreciative of

Like most college students, my self-esteem is less than stellar. However, in the poem, “I have come to claim Marilyn Monroe’s body” by Judy Grahn the realization that hyper-sexualizing runs rampant in our society becomes apparent. Therefore, it is possible that my body is not the problem. In fact, if the narrator can use a classic symbol of beauty like Marilyn Monroe to, “Bust his camera with your long smooth thigh”, then I or any other subject of our culture’s warped sense of beauty is to blame for negative body image.

Since the dawn of time, women have been judged based on their looks. In today’s society, women who are conventionally beautiful are seen as less capable than the rest of the population, especially men. As a girl in today’s society, I’ve been judged based on my looks since the day I was born. Every woman on television, in movies, or in magazines is harshly photo shopped to fit the standards society has set for physical beauty. When you grow up in that sort of environment, you have no say in whether or not that affects you. Orual, Redival, and Psyche are experiencing the same situation in Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. In their own ways, each girl’s thoughts and action were determined solely be the world’s impression of them.

From the different cultural beauty standards, to the double standards between males and females, to the dangerous ways to achieve these “ideal looks”, should these factors really define your beauty? In the essay, Pigott constantly changes the way she looks because she feels that in order for her to be defined as “beautiful”, she needed to be acknowledged by her peers and friends; in other words, she felt the need to conform herself to societal norms in order to feel “accepted”. Due to this, Pigott unknowingly wears a mask and hides her true self from the world. The societal pressure she experienced has blinded her from seeing her beauty and has lost her self-worth as a beautiful woman, as she believes that pleasing others and receiving compliments are the only factors that make her “beautiful”.

We live in a world where we have socially constructed what beauty is and it can manifests onto what our physical appearance “should” look like. Lucy’s biggest challenge was accepting how her face looked. She deals with this tremendously throughout her life from the countless surgeries, negative remarks from her peers, lack of affection and self-love. Her deformed face starts to consume her life as she struggles with her self-concept and self-esteem.

In Lucy Grealy’s narrative Mirror, Lucy tells us a distraught story which makes everyone know about how body images ruin one’s life. In her childhood, Lucy experienced a painful surgery that cut half of her jaw, leaving her struggling to fix her face for the rest of her life. In addition to physical sufferings, she also tolerated the unfriendly and vicious sights and languages from strangers, catching her in endlessly depressed emotions. In fact, body images do mean a lot, because most people in the world focus on their faces and worship beauty. However, perfectness doesn’t exist, and no matter how much effort and money we spend on dressing, we can always find the flaws on our faces and shapes. Physical appearance can make us feel happy, but it also creates upset and troublesome feelings. In order to not let the body images dominate our minds, we have to accept the truth that we are all imperfect and learn to focus on the strength we have. Only when we accept the flaws, can we find the beauty of ourselves.

I feel strongly and I am convince that the fact that I had a headache and blocked sinuses affected my learning during the course time.

Maintained through self-reflection, this identity of the self

The poem “The Mirror” is told from an interesting perspective. In this poem the story is being told from the point of view of the mirror itself. The author uses personification to bring the mirror to life. It tells us what it sees and how it perceives things. The first stanza of the poem is intriguing and optimistic as the mirror describes itself. The mirror is “silver and exact” (L 1) alluding that it is perfect, and makes no mistakes. It will show exactly what it sees with no bias towards who or what it is reflecting. It is truthful not cruel. It also refers Itself as “the eye of a little God” (L5) meaning that the mirror reflects truth, sees all things and sees who we truly are. This stanza represents youth and naivety. The poem then takes a depressing turn. Throughout the

Treasure, Janet L., et al. "Images of Thin Fashion Models Play a Role in Eating Disorders." The Fashion Industry, edited by Roman Espejo, Greenhaven Press, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context,

Almost everyone has a moment in their life when the world ceases to turn, when the clouds still and the very breath of the soul stands frozen. Revelation, realization and inspiration all collide in an epiphany of tumultuous truth. A split second when one’s life is displayed, not as the guise so artfully rendered day in and day out, but in brutal, Technicolor honesty. The lies that bind so tightly unravel and leave you bare, at least to yourself. Some call it insight, I just call it ugly. Because that is all I saw when the mirror shattered my soul, leaving me metaphorically bleeding and bereft. There was no warm person asleep inside of me waiting to wake up, no golden intent I could draw on for comfort, or even a spirit guide caught beneath

When flipping through a Victoria’s Secret magazine, one of the things that come out of every teenage girls mouth is “ Why can’t I look like that?” “I wish I looked like that”. According to the National Institute on Media and the Family “ at age thirteen, 53% of American girls are unhappy with their bodies, this grows to 78% by the time girls reach seventeen.” Sometimes most of us struggle to understand our feeling towards our bodies and our appearances. That is normal because of all of us have a body image. Body image is how we look at ourselves and also how we think people see us.

What concepts, principles, or ideas that you have learned, do you think you will remember the most after you leave this class?