Authenticity, I suggest, is a continuum, a spectrum of stages, that may never end, since the self is a largely unknown thing, and that exploration of self, if done with regular determination, is always going to be revealing “new stuff”.
Jung developed his theory of autonomous complexes in 1908, through word association experiments at the Burghölzli psychiatric clinic in Zurich. By measuring subjects’ reaction times to stimulus words and noting hesitations, slips, and emotional reactions, Jung discovered patterns suggesting emotionally-charged “hot spots” in the unconscious.
Almost all children suffer a sustained and often targeted string of traumatic micro, and macro-aggressions, from the moment they are born.
Most psychotherapies begin with the assumption that you have a stable “self” that has developed maladaptive patterns. Integrative Genomic Schema Therapy (IGST) starts from a different premise: what you call “your personality” may be a survival scaffold built over a pruned authentic self.
It could be suggested, that in some way, our “cells” are connected via quantum entanglement, and this unseen and highly symbolic communication, is the source of Jung’s collective unconscious, which is also quietly, updating our codes?
Our Theory of DNA-Self, includes the concept that, due to a small child’s ability to forget upsetting or uncomfortable moments, adults may well find that they actually have two masks. One will be hidden, and highly automated.
The DNA-Self theory proposes that each new-born enters the world with a pre-populated schema network, this is a complete developmental blueprint encoded in genetic material, shaped by prenatal environment, containing latent traits, skills, and associated needs awaiting activation through exploration.