The.Johari.Window



One of the greatest gifts you could give yourself is to seek, find, and apply truth in your life. This is the path to becoming a healthy person. Aligning yourself with the truth permits a better person to eventually emerge from within. If you happen to agree then you will love the Johari Window. Years ago two gentlemen came up with this little creature. Their respective names were Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham. The Johari Window helps you to categorize conscious and subconscious areas of your life. The window works much like a grid. It goes from the obvious and more conscious areas of your life to the less obvious areas that your may not be aware of.

The Johari Window can be looked at from many angles and provides four basic forms of the Self (the Public, Private, Blind, and Undiscovered Self).

The Public Self is what you and others see in you. You typically do not mind discussing with others this part of you.Most of the time you agree with this view you have and others have of you.

The Private or Hidden Self is what you see in yourself but others don’t. In this part you hide things that are very private about yourself. You do not want this information to be disclosed for the reason of protection. It could also be that you may be ashamed of these areas due to vulnerability to having your faults, weaknesses, and dysfunctions exposed. This area equally applies to your good qualities that you don’t want to advertise to the world due to modesty.

The Blind Self is what you do not see in yourself but others see in you. You might see yourself as an open-minded person when, in reality, people around you consider you an anatomical posterior (wink). This area also works the other way. You might see yourself as a “dumb” person while others might consider you incredibly bright. Sometimes those around you might not tell you what they see because they are scared of you, fear offending you, or might consider it a waste of time. It is in this arena that people sometimes detect that your talk and your walk don’t match. Sometimes body-language shows this mismatch.

The Undiscovered or Unknown Self is the self that you cannot see nor others around you. In this category there might be good and bad things that are out of the awareness of others and yours.

The Johari Window is a very helpful internal and external communication grid (intra-psychic and interpersonal). You may find it quite useful as you journey forward into the discovery of who you are.