Dr. David Raque

Sydney Jourard, a published psychologist, wrote about how to identify a mentally healthy individual through a concept he called the Johari Window. I remember taking my first general psychology class in 1965 and studying the Johari Window (Luft and Ingham, 1955) and thinking this is a really good tool for assessing one’s mental health.

The Johari Window is split up into four quadrants (see below) and our personalities consist of all four panes. Let’s start with the bottom right quadrant labeled “Unknown”, also referred to as the unconscious or hidden part of our personalities. This is a part of our personalities that often comes out in a dream or what is known as the “Freudian Slip”.  In theory, the more one can pull information out of their unconsciousness into awareness the smaller this quadrant becomes.

Above is the “Blind Spot” quadrant. This is the proverbial person in each of us who is unable to see what is going on that everyone else is able to see. As an example, I remember in grammar school a boy sitting across from me who had really bad body odor. He clearly was unable to smell himself but everyone else could. Or, we have all known the person in our life that thought they knew everything but had no idea what a braggadocio everyone knew them to be.  Everyone tunes them out even though they did know a lot.

The bottom quadrant on the left is the “Façade”.  I would choose to call it the secretive part of ourselves we are unwilling to share unless we want to or are being forced to by being under oath. A specific example would be if we were not willing to tell anyone we had been sexually abused or that one of our parents was an alcoholic.  In theory, the more mentally healthy one becomes the more willing they are to share these types of secrets, understanding that even mentally healthy people have secrets they are never willing to share.

And, finally is the upper left quadrant labeled as the “Arena”; I would prefer to call this area as self-disclosure. This is Jourard’s definition of the most mentally healthy individual as the one who has the least to hide from significant others and the fewest secrets to keep. This is the individual who when they have a nightmare or incredibly moving dream they are able to listen to their unconscious, allow it to rise to a level of awareness they attempt to understand, and then push this information into the lower left hand quadrant. As time goes on they may want to share this insight about themselves with a therapist or if not threatened they will share it with someone they love and trust.

Psychotherapy is all about shrinking the “Unknown”, shrinking the “Blind Spot”, shrinking the “Façade” and expanding the “Arena” (self-disclosure). This is why when people call me a shrink I would prefer being called an expander, a person who helps others know themselves better and in so doing can help others become closer to those they love.