Psychology 101: Everything that irritates us about others, leads us to an understanding of ourselves…

 Psychology 101: “Everything that irritates us (causes us psycho-emotional discomfort and displeases us) about others, leads us to an understanding of ourselves…”

(Dr Carl Jung)

January 16, 2022

**By Hector Williams Zorrilla

This biological fact is amazing and miraculous:

The globe has almost 8 BILLION human beings inhabiting planet earth right now.

With some exceptions, each human being genetically possesses 23 chromosomes from the father and 23 chromosomes from the mother, which is the material that provides the genetic codes of the human species, and it is also the one that supplies the genogram or famiogram of the biological lines of the families.

Here it is where the amazing and miraculous biological fact of this bio-chemical equation that defines the "so-called human race" resides:

Each human being has a unique and unrepeatable biological and genetic code, symbolized in his DNA. Each human being has his/her own, unique and personal fingerprints.

But on the other hand, from the psycho-emotional point of view, every human being in front of me is a mirror where I can see myself.

Psychologists who specialize in marital or couples therapy say that, unconsciously, couples choose "their worst nightmare" as romantic partners, because, when falling in love, they look in the mirror and what they observe in the couples of those who they fall in love with is the “I or real self that people in love would like to be or become”.

And believing that they have found "their other selves", the persons in love "dazzle and vanish full of illusions and fantasies" believing that they found "the other half or better half". That is to say, that they finally found "the perfect being who, now in love, will help them to find their own path to perfection and happiness forever."

Couples in love discover, sooner or later, that the images they saw in the mirror were false, because the people they fell in love with are as imperfect as themselves. It is at that moment when "they discover that they have fallen in love with their worst nightmares", but it is already too late to break "the romantic enchantment", which finally serves for couples to commit to having children and forming families, to which they love even if they come from the romantic union “with their worst nightmare”.

Hence, being aware of the psychological principle of Dr. Carl Jung, one of the most prestigious neopsychoanalysts that the human intellect has produced, is wise and intelligent.

"Everything that irritates us (causes us psycho-emotional discomfort) from others (that we see in the mirrors of people outside of us), leads us to an understanding of ourselves."

Every human being that we are able to perceive in our psycho-social and cultural environment is ultimately a mirror of ourselves.

In other words, we are genetically unique and unrepeatable, but at the same time, as humanity, each human being is our mirror to observe from the outside important components that all human beings carry inside, and we can only see through others who are outside of us.

And from this perspective, even the "self-deception of falling in love with our worst nightmare" contains its positive aspects.

**The author is a psychologist, university professor and writer