Let's think about Ego from its Latin etymology, as Self or I.

Let's think about this reference point that every human being has.

Then, let's also think about the questions that inevitably arise, such as: what allows me to recognize myself and be identified?

In one of my books dedicated to this subject, I wrote: "We are in the world, and we relate to it. A relationship is a context from which everything can be focussed, configured, thought about and perceived. The self is a reference system. Archives, dictionaries, indexes, icons, catalogues, maps and compasses exist in this system. Memory is the psychological process responsible for maintaining it. Neurologically, cases of amnesia are exemplary for showing the role of memory in maintaining the self. Without memory, there is no self, no familiarity. Records are erased, the individual doesn't know who they are, they lose their ego - their self - their references. Being in the world, there are always new reference systems. The self emerges, whether new or old - it is the self."

So, what I'm saying is that the "I" is a reference system structured by the perception of the other, of the world and of oneself. The greater the fragmentation generated by self-referencing, the smaller the reference systems become, since, as they are focused on specific points, there is no synchronization and no contradiction. It is precisely there, in this fragmentation, that many contradictions that could be configured and understood are rejected. For example, the father who abuses his daughter is considered by her to be good, so he can't be denounced or criticized because her view of him is that he does everything out of love, "maybe even as a didactic, teaching her the intricacies of sexuality". The lack of criticism, and the divisions, are not questioned. Everything is there for the common good, for an amicable solution.

The more human beings self-reference, the more they relate to the world, to others and to themselves through their reference system. The more they filter, the more they dilute what is in front of them in their references, and consequently, they lose dynamics, start to have less possibility of transformation, and more adjustment, more adaptation.

This process of scattering and fragmenting the Ego is the way in which individuals are dehumanized by processes of submission in the function of references that are considered to be saviours, such as money, love, protection and social recognition, for example. This is the rule that hinders or helps them. Maintaining certain images, and certain socially acceptable masks leads individuals not to realize their relational contradictions. It makes them "kiss the hand that spanks", it makes them hide aggression and oppression so as not to tarnish or expose their family's good name, as well as so as not to hinder their trajectory of success. Hiding the executioner is a way of saving one's own skin, but it is also the process that constitutes the scattering of the Ego, it is the burning of archives that saves everything, but destroys references and trajectories, placing in the limbo of the future what needs to be faced in order to unify divisions, dilution, scattering.

The fact is that the possibilities are infinite for human beings; they just need to not stop at the positions of the "I" and accept the dynamics of the relational process. The human essence is the possibility of relationship and this possibility is exercised in the relationship with the world and with others. This relational process is perception, so when we talk about psychological life, we talk about perceptive life, and consequently, psychological problems are perceptive issues. When the individual positions himself, he establishes a self-referenced context from which relationships are structured; he starts to fight for what he creates and produces (family, work, goods, creativity in general); he transforms possibilities into needs; in other words, he generates commitments, he starts to avoid questioning, contradictions, and changes.

Avoiding contradictions is a way of preventing unification, it's an exile from oneself, that is, from one's own possibilities for relationships, possibilities that have thus been transformed into needs to be satisfied, or into acceptable images to be manufactured and maintained.