11. Fundamental Experience #5: The Ideal Model

Once our will to explore our inner worlds is activated, it is helpful to set a direction for how to go about it. To this end, Assagioli developed his ideal model. It is a method which takes help from the imagination and intuition to set our transpersonal development in motion.

What is this model about then? Think of it as trying to capture an inner vision for the arduous work of self-realization. In practical terms, the Ideal Model consists of a series of visualizations around your experienced sense of identity. Each step uncovers one aspect of who you think you are in body, feelings, mind and soul. Each of these inner images has its own foundation and rationale, and each is more or less clear to us.

The questions Assagioli encourages us to work with are:

1. Who do you believe yourself to be?
2. Who would you like yourself to be?
3. Who would you like to appear to be to others?
4. Who do others believe that you are?
5. Who would others like you to be?
6. What self-images do others evoke and produce in you?
7. Who can you become? Realistically?

The Ideal Model works at two levels simultaneously:

1. It increases awareness of the dynamic and multi-faceted nature of our experienced identity. We see, through these perspectives, that identity is not fixed, but rather constantly evolving. This tends to help people own their projections and assumptions of themselves and others, which opens up for further development.
2. This exercise also helps us disidentify from all fixed notions of identity that we hold in these inner images. This starts a dynamic process, which, if we can maintain the discipline, over time enables us to free the potential of our psyche. Over time, the practice develops our ability to hold space for the intangibility of our soul.

A practical path… toward an intangible dimension of life

There are many possible models to work with on the path to self-realization, from Tikh Nath Hahn’s mindfulness practice to yoga on to prayer or poetry. The point, as Assagioli reinforced, is this: choose a model, commit your will to it, and embody it fully.

Note: I like using a simplified version of Assagioli’s Ideal Model, that Marshall Goldsmith has proposed. He calls it the 4 identities matrix. Even though it’s simpler, it still brings rich insights about how we construct our sense of identity through multiple perspectives.