Authenticity (authenticos - Greek "original", "genuine", "real", "main") is customary to refer to the correspondence to the original or the original. The translation text, made or approved by the author, is authentic. Comments to the law given by its creator are considered to be authentic in law. But the broadest understanding of the category of authenticity is found in philosophy.
In the works of modern psychologists and psychotherapists, authenticity is considered as an integrative ability of a person. The tradition of this method goes back to the works of M. Heidegger and J. P. Sartre. K. Rogers, for example, defines authenticity as the ability of a person to reject the proposed social roles and the manifestation of the present, inherent only to a given personality, thoughts, emotions and behavior. In this sense, authenticity becomes a necessary component of true communication, in contrast to the usual "talk and chatter" (M. Heidegger), understood as "perversion of the act of communication" and leading to a false understanding.
The psychological ambiguity of the boundaries of the definition of authenticity leads to a terminological dispersion of synonyms for the category:
- a fully functioning personality (K. Rogers);
- freedom (F. Allport);
- self-actualization (A. Maslow);
- self, integral personality (F. Perls);
- congruence (J. Grinder).
The most correct psychological definition of authenticity can be recognized as a complete and integral interconnection of all psychological processes of a personality that determine its functioning. The manifestation of authenticity is considered to be the experience of individual experience, not distorted by social protective mechanisms, involvement in what is happening and the direct manifestation of their emotions.
Coordination of thoughts and actions with emotions in modern psychology is usually called congruence, or coherence. Thus, the authentic person is congruent.
Geshalt therapy involves an awareness of the relativity of social mechanisms and behavioral patterns before achieving authenticity, or selfhood, leading to the assertion of one's own value and the need to manifest any emotions. At the same time, this does not relieve the individual from taking responsibility for the authenticity of social behavior.
