The “ego” is a concept in psychology, which in common parlance means what kind of person one perceives oneself to be. But the “self” is often abstract and vague, and we are always confused about who we are, so we often need to use others to understand ourselves indirectly from others’ feedback to us, such as: am I a lovely person? We always learn from others in interpersonal communication, “Are they all friendly to me”, “Am I popular with them, are they willing to call me to participate in any activities”, and so on. If I have a lot of friends and can establish friendly relationships with strangers quickly, we give ourselves a signal that “you are lovable” and experience pride, pleasure, and other positive emotions. The ideal state of growth is that we can recognize our “self” at all times, and this is what people mean by self-knowledge. We develop a set of ideals, a set of visions of what I want to be when we grow up, which may come from the moral values of society, for example, to respect science and become a scientist, or from the influence of our parents’ actions and behaviors, just as children growing up in traditional families tend to develop high moral constraints. Psychologically, this is called the “ideal self” and it influences every decision we make in our lives. This is a good thing, it is the motivation and goal we strive for. But unfortunately, the ideal self and the real self are not always the same. For example, a high school student, whose ideal self is to become an artistic genius like Lang Lang, subconsciously believes that he can succeed if he works hard, and he often prepares for the moment when he becomes a shining star, which is such an intoxicating moment for him! So much so that he was completely immersed in it, disregarding the reality of his situation. Not knowing that one’s success is multifaceted, not to mention whether you have the musical talent, whether your family can provide you with the high financial base needed for training, and even if you have all of these, you still need to recognize the talent and show the opportunity. Inevitably, this becomes the beginning of his nightmare, he will be extremely sensitive to every setback and failure, because in his mind is already the future of the new star, I refuse to fail, which is contradictory to his “ideal self” want, is forbidden, he is always under heavy pressure. At this point the ideal self has become the “devil’s contract”, which provides you with the motivation to aspire to success, you may succeed, but the condition is that you lose your true self forever. What’s even more frightening is that when one day he finds himself unable to reach that divine height in his heart no matter how hard he tries, what should he do, severe anxiety comes like a flood, helplessness, self-depreciation 。。。。 I don’t know how many people can re-accept the reality of themselves, whether they succeed or not they can still love themselves. But a lot of people come into our ward, he needs a way to relieve his anxiety, he does not admit his failure, at least not at the psychological level, so he chooses to “get sick”, dizzy, panic, cold limbs, inexplicable nervousness, worry and other discomfort, his focus is to see a doctor, how to cure the disease. He was no longer bothered by the inability to become the ideal self, so he finally had a moment of relaxation, not in anxiety and self-condemnation; even if inadvertently thought of the glory of the dream, “disease” can become the last piece of shame: “not I failed, because I was sick, if not now sick I have done.” Once again, the anxiety is successfully relieved, of course, these are all happening at the subconscious level, not professional psychologists most of the time did not notice. The “illness” becomes a way to relieve the anxiety originating from the ego, a form of psychological defense. However, this approach is short-sighted, so it is important to intervene psychologically in addition to medication for mental illness.