Self-estrangement is an idea spoken about by Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

 in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 are a series of notes written between April and August 1844 by Karl Marx. Not published by Marx during his lifetime, they were first released in 1927 by researchers in the Soviet Union.The notebooks are an early expression of Marx's analysis of...

 as well as in Das Kapital

Das Kapital

Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...

 and it comprises a part of Marx's theory of alienation

Marx's theory of alienation

Marx's theory of alienation , as expressed in the writings of the young Karl Marx , refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to put antagonism between things that are properly in harmony...

. This is where a person is first alienated from the products of labour (i.e. alienation from the things that we buy in stores or produce in factories or offices). A person might then be alienated from the process of work, which is an alienation from creativity. Following this, self-estrangement can be defined when a person may feel alienated from themselves as a result of these previous two circumstances. Additionally a person may come to feel alienated from others and society as a whole.