Exploring Self-Awareness: The Johari Window

The Johari Window is a tool that can help in improving self-awareness and better understanding relationships. Developed by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham (the term ‘Johari’ is derived from their names) in 1955, the Johari Window is a model that facilitates exploring the conscious and subconscious areas of your life, building self-awareness. 

The Johari Window (pictured) encourages you to examine four different aspects of your relationship with the self, with the goal of increasing self-awareness. You are invited to consider aspects of yourself that you are open about, those parts of yourself that you keep to yourself, aspects that others are aware of while you are not, and the parts of yourself that you are not consciously aware of.

The Four Quadrants

The Johari Window has four quadrants, but the size of each will vary from person to person, depending on how open, private and self-aware they are. These four areas can be described in more detail as follows:

1. The Public or Open Self

This refers to the part of ourselves that we openly share with others, and that can be openly discussed, and jointly understood. This may include aspects of your personality, attitudes, behaviours, emotions, skills, and life views. Disclosing information about ourselves to others can build trust, and can lead to others sharing information about themselves.

2. The Private or Hidden Self

This is the part where information you know about yourself may be kept private or hidden knowingly. This may be because you do not have the ability to share, or because you are trying to protect yourself. Information in this part may include vulnerabilities, sensitive feelings, fears, and secrets, as well as characteristics you may be ashamed of. Of course, you could also choose to hide positive qualities through a sense of humility. You can choose whether to open up and share this information with others at any point.

3. The Blind Self

This refers to the parts of you that are recognised by others, but you are not aware of. This can be in positive and negative ways. For example, others may see your competence, but you may consider yourself to be ‘inadequate’ or ‘dumb’. Or, others may find you difficult to converse with, or a good listener, while you have been unable to recognise this. 

You need to be courageous and be prepared to make yourself vulnerable to address this part, as it requires trusting others to give gentle and respectful, but honest, feedback. Consider asking trusted people to describe you in ways you may not be aware of, so that you can become aware of characteristics perceived by others. This will improve your self-awareness, and the quality of your relationships. However, it’s important to remember that, just because someone has described you in a particular way, does not make it true.

4. The Undiscovered Self

This is the part of yourself that both you and others are not aware of. These include not yet realised or tried abilities, hidden feelings, concealed traumas, conditioned behaviours from childhood, unrealised fears or aversions, and information buried in your subconscious.

How can it help?

The Johari Window can be used as a guide to different aspects of relating, and provide a path to increased self-awareness through openness, connectedness, and communication. In terms of the window diagram, this means increasing the size of the Public or Open Self, or decreasing the size of the ‘unknown’ quadrants.

You can expand your Public or Open Self part by disclosing more about your self (“Tell”), and hence reducing your Private or Hidden self. You could also work towards increasing your awareness of your Blind Self (“Ask”), or exploring your Undiscovered Self (“Explore”) part to make room for future growth.

Completing the Johari Window is a process of self-discovery that requires honest reflection to explore and understand your Private self, Blind Self and Undiscovered Self. By increasing your self-awareness, you can improve aspects of yourself such as your ability to identify and manage emotions, harness your strengths, increase flexibility and build self-confidence. The process may enable you to open areas for growth and free yourself from ingrained choices. Expanding your Public or Open Self can enable you to reclaim parts of yourself that you may have distanced yourself from to protect yourself. You can move closer to being open and authentic, and recognise some of your characteristics that may be causing suffering, resistance to being open and receptive, and be impacting your relationships with others.