Use the Johari Window to Foster Self Awareness_Final
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>> Hey there.
I'm back to teach you
about one of my favorites awareness raising exercises.
Have you heard of the Johari window?
This exercise is a great way
to shake things up with your clients
while increasing their awareness
about how they perceive themselves
versus how others view them.
The Johari window is a tool
to help increase one's level of self-awareness
and understand personal relationships with self and others.
It's a great exercise to use in groups
where clients have come to know one another.
To maximize the potential of this great resource,
I've also adapted it to use with your clients one-on-one.
The Johari window was created in 1955
by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham,
hence the name Johari.
Get it?
In this lecture,
I'll explain to you what exactly the Johari window is
and how it works.
First, I'll describe how to complete the exercise
in the traditional group format it was designed for.
Afterwards,
I'll show you how I've personally adapted this model
to use one-on-one in private sessions.
The Johari window is a square with four quadrants.
Starting with the top left and moving clockwise,
these represent the public self, the blind self,
the undiscovered self, and the secret self.
These are also sometimes referred to as the arena,
blind spot, unknown, and facade.
The public self refers to the aspects of ourselves
that are known to both ourselves and others.
The blind self represents the parts of ourselves
that others are aware of but we ourselves are not.
The secret self is what we know to be true about ourselves
but we hide from others.
And the undiscovered self refers to the parts of us
that are completely unrecognized or undeveloped.
For example, I know that I'm intelligent,
and I publicly demonstrate this
in my interactions with others.
This is an aspect of my public self.
As my secret self, I know that I'm self-conscious,
but I hide this from others.
I see myself this way but I don't allow others to.
My blind self would be things that I don't identify with
or notice as qualities in myself but other people do.
These are things I've learned about myself
from receiving feedback.
Like, for example, I don't see myself as brave,
but other people have told me that I am.
My undiscovered self is made up of those qualities
that neither myself or others identify me as
either because they don't currently resonate with who I am
or they just haven't been developed yet.
For example,
I've never identified myself as a sensible person,
and others have never used that label to describe me either
as far as I'm aware.
But it's possible that this is a layer of myself
I just haven't exposed or developed yet.
As I mentioned, this tool was originally designed
to be used in a group setting
where participants are familiar with each other.
Luft and Ingham created a list of 57 adjectives
to use along with the diagram.
These are included in the corresponding handout
The Johari Window along with a blank diagram
for you to use with your own clients.
To adapt this exercise for your own use,
you may choose to tweak the original word list.
If you want to do this, go for it.
But if you do, I strongly urge you to take caution
not to populate the list with negative qualities,
especially if you're using it with a group.
Let me tell you why.
While it might be insightful for a client to reflect upon
how they view and express themselves,
it can be harmful for them to learn that people in the group
view them in negative ways.
For example, if a client discovers through this exercise
that half of her fellow group members view her as bossy,
she might get defensive and shut down
both verbally and emotionally for the rest of the session
and perhaps even for the rest of the program.
You always want your clients to feel safe
and free of judgments when they're working with you.
Keep it positive, and if you think there's any chance
that a word might bring up feelings of judgment,
just leave it out.
So moving forward, to do this in a group format,
start by explaining that you'll be leading the group
through an exercise that's designed to raise their awareness
of how they see and present themselves
versus how others observe them.
Pass out a word list to each group member
and instruct them to circle all the adjectives on the list
they believe to apply to themselves.
Next, have them make a list of the adjectives
that apply to each of the other people in the group.
Give them about 5 to 10 minutes to do
so depending on the size of the group.
If the group is large,
you may choose to break your clients down
into smaller groups of four or five.
When everyone's done with their answers,
hand out the Johari window diagram to all group members
and explain what each quadrant means
and how to fill in the diagram.
You can even work off of the transcript from this lecture
as a guide.
So adjectives that both individual and others identify
go under the public self.
Those words you used to label yourself
but no one else used to label you
go into the secret self quadrant.
The adjectives that other people identified you as
but you didn't label yourself with
should be recorded under the blind self.
And the remaining adjectives go in the undiscovered self.
Notice that adjectives in the undiscovered self category
may end up there because they simply don't apply.
For example, if someone's public self is outgoing,
shy likely ended up in the undiscovered self category.
Adjectives that feel wholly irrelevant can be crossed out.
However, other adjectives end up in that category
because maybe, for example, you want to be a loving person
but you just haven't cultivated that part of yourself yet.
Once everyone is clear on what to do,
have your clients go around the circle
to share their answers.
Each participant should pay close attention
so that they can take the answers that apply to themselves
and plot them into their diagram accordingly.
When everyone's answers are plotted
and their windows are complete,
instruct your clients to take a critical look at their chart
and pay attention to what stands out most for them.
Guide them to pay attention to both the answers themselves
and the amount of answers in each box, or in other words,
the size of each of these personas.
Have them share their findings and reflections
either in small groups, paired shared discussions,
or as large group share.
Now I'll walk you through how to adapt this exercise
to use one-on-one with your clients.
Only do this activity with clients who you've established
a good rapport with and have gotten to know well.
You can introduce the activity similarly
as you were to a group
by asking if they would like to do an exercise with you
that'll better help them understand how they view themselves
versus how they present themselves to
and are seen by the world.
Give your client a word list
and instruct them to circle all of the qualities
they believe to be true about themselves.
Tell them that you'll do the same,
that you'll be circling all of the qualities
that you observe to be true for them.
Be sure to make clear
that you're only going to be selecting things
based on your observations,
not based on judgments or assumptions.
When you're both done,
take out the diagram and explain to your client
what each quadrant of the window is called
and what it represents
just like the way I explained it you earlier.
Share your answers with your client
and have them share their own.
Instruct your client to write the words
you both identified in the public self quadrant,
then have them write the words
that only they identified under the secret self.
Next, they should write the qualities that you identified
but they didn't in the bind self,
and the remaining adjectives should be written
in the undiscovered self.
When you're all done,
spend some time discussing the outcome of this exercise.
This resource leaves you in a position to ask
so many great high-mileage questions
that your clients are now primed to explore.
For example, you could ask, "What stood out for you?
Were you surprised by anything I noticed about you?
What?
Why?
Tell me about the parts of yourself you hide from the world
and why you choose to do so?
Are there aspects of your public self
you wish you could make secret or get rid of altogether?
What are they?
Are there any qualities of your undiscovered self
that you'd like to cultivate?"
It can also be really challenging for clients
to see how full or empty
each of the quadrants are on their diagrams.
Are they relatively transparent as a person
or are they more masked in their identity?
Is the way they see themselves
congruent with how others see them
or are they primarily masked
showing a different facade to the world
no matter what's going on for them internally?
Guiding your clients to notice and discuss this
can help trigger insight around
how much they know themselves
and how much they let others see who they truly are.
Overall, whether done individually or in a group,
the aim of this exercise is to help your clients see
how they perceive themselves
in relation to how others perceive them.
The ultimate goal of the process is for clients
to use this information to become more self-aware
and increase the scope of their public self.
Sewing this, in fact, will shrink the other areas
or in other words,
they'll become more congruent on the inside and the outside.
Are you ready to go check out
the Johari window now for yourself?
As I mentioned earlier, the Johari window handout
provides you with a blank template for this exercise
along with the traditional list of 57 adjectives
which you can opt to you use or tweak to your liking.
This week, try out the exercise with a client
or pair up with a classmate, friend, or family member,
and test it out.
Let us know how it goes by commenting in the Facebook group.
Thanks for watching.
See you next time.