Are there particular situations in which you experience incongruence? why do you think this occurs? does your feeling of incongruence help to motivate you to do more, or is the discomfort simply...

Are there particular situations in which you experience incongruence? why do you think this occurs? does your feeling of incongruence help to motivate you to do more, or is the discomfort simply disruptive? (For example, some students procrastinate on starting an assignment because they worry the end result will not achieve their desired mark.) in order to experience congruence, we must defi ne our ideal self in terms of goals which foster growth, but which are not based on standards which are impossible to achieve.

Sometimes, our culture creates expectations that can become part of our ideal self. an example of this is the concept of the ‘superwoman’, which was popularly discussed a few years ago: the concept imagined a woman who could hold down a full-time job, raise several children with constant attention, be a loving and desirable partner to her spouse, cook gourmet meals each evening, have several creative hobbies, and so on. it’s exhausting to even read this list, yet many women aspired to this ideal, and berated themselves when they found they could not attain it. they found their self-esteem sinking as they told themselves about all the things they ‘should’ be doing and couldn’t seem to manage. given how unrealistic this ideal is, why do you think some women took it seriously as part of their own ideal selves?