Self (psychology)


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The self is a key construct in several schools of psychology, broadly referring to the cognitive and affective representation of one's identity. The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology from the distinction between the self as I, the subjective knower, and the self as Me, the object that is known.[1] Current views of the self in psychology diverge greatly from this early conception, positioning the self as playing an integral part in human motivation, cognition, affect, and social identity.[2] Self following from John Locke has been seen as a product of episodic memory[3] but research upon those with amnesia find they have a coherent sense of self based upon preserved conceptual autobiographical knowledge.[4] It may be the case that we can now usefully attempt to ground experience of self in a neural process with cognitive consequences, which will give us insight into the elements of which the complex multiply situated selves of modern identity are comprised.

Contents

The Cognitive and immunological Self

The biological phenomenon that most resembles the human concept of selfhood, is perhaps, immunological response. Ó Nualláin[5] analyses the subject-object distinction in quantum mechanics, consciousness studies, and philosophy before concluding that the immunological metaphor is informative. He adduces simulated and experimental data suggesting that our construction of self arises from ego-alien material arising in samples taken at intervals in the range of a tenth of a second from the much faster processes occurring continually in the brain. In related work [6], he argues that the meditative process arrests this sampling process and, if intermittently, allows identification with the process of pure observation, subjectivity itself. In his cognitive science textbook “The Search for Mind” [7] this argument is presented is a genetic epistemology context; the Biosemiotics journal, Vol 3 (2010) [8] is to feature a synthetic paper making explicit the dialogue with spiritual and philosophical traditions hinted at in Ó Nualláin(2006)[9]. Briefly, this work combines the classical notion of the "interpreter", the left hemisphere process that continues to narrate on our experience in a way that predicates agency and consistency of ourselves, with the immunological idea.

Kohut's Formulation

Heinz Kohut[10] initially proposed a bipolar self compromising two systems of narcissistic perfection: 1) a system of ambitions and, 2) a system of ideals. Kohut called the pole of ambitions the narcissistic self (later, the grandiose self[11]), while the pole of ideals was designated the idealized parental imago. According to Kohut, these poles of the self represented natural progressions in the psychic life of infants and toddlers.

Kohut argued that when the child's ambitions and exhibitionistic strivings were chronically frustrated, arrests in the grandiose self led to the preservation of a false, expansive sense of self that could manifest outwardly in the visible grandiosity of the frank narcissist, or remain hidden from view, unless discovered in a narcissistic therapeutic transference (or selfobject transference) that would expose these primitive grandiose fantasies and strivings. Kohut termed this form of transference a mirror transference. In this transference, the strivings of the grandiose self are mobilized and the patient attempts to use the therapist to gratify these strivings.

Kohut proposed that arrests in the pole of ideals occurred when the child suffered chronic and excessive disappointment over the failings of early idealized figures. Deficits in the pole of ideals were associated with the development of an idealizing transference to the therapist who becomes associated with the patient's primitive fantasies of omnipotent parental perfection.

Kohut believed that narcissistic injuries were inevitable and, in any case, necessary to temper ambitions and ideals with realism through the experience of more manageable frustrations and disappointments. It was the chronicity and lack of recovery from these injuries (arising from a number of possible causes) that he regarded as central to the preservation of primitive self systems untempered by realism.

By 1984,[12] Kohut's observation of patients led him to propose two additional forms of transference associated with self deficits: 1) the twinship and, 2) the merger transference. In his later years, Kohut believed that selfobject needs were both present and quite varied in normal individuals, as well as in narcissistic individuals.

To be clear, selfobjects are not external persons. Kohut and Wolf, 1978[13] explain:

"Self objects are objects which we experience as part of our self; the expected control over them is, therefore, closer to the concept of control which a grownup expects to have over his own body and mind than to the concept of control which he expects to have over others. (p.413)"

Kohut's notion of the self can be difficult to grasp because it is experience-distant, although it is posited based upon experience-near observation of the therapeutic transference. Kohut relied heavily on empathy as a method of observation. Specifically, the clinician's observations of his or her own feelings in the transference help the clinician see things from the subjective view of the patient -- to experience the world in ways that are closer to the way the patient experiences it. (note: Kohut did not regard empathy as curative. Empathy is a method of observation).

The Jungian Self

Further information: Self (Jung)

In Jungian theory, the Self is one of several archetypes. It signifies the coherent whole, unifying both the consciousness and unconscious mind of a person. The Self, according to Jung, is realized as the product of individuation, which is defined as the process of integrating one's personality. For Jung, the self is symbolized by the circle (especially when divided into four quadrants), the square, or the mandala.

What distinguishes Jungian psychology from previous iterations is the idea that there are two centers of the personality. The ego is the center of conscious identity, whereas the Self is the center of the total personality--including consciousness, the unconscious, and the ego. The Self is both the whole and the center. While the ego is a self-contained little circle off the center contained within the whole, the Self can be understood as the greater circle.

The Self besides being the centre of the psyche is also autonomous, meaning that it exists outside of time and space. Jung also called the Self an imago dei. The Self is the source of dreams and often appears as an authority figure in dreams with the ability to perceive the future or guide one in the present.

Critiques of the concept of selfhood

'Selfhood' or complete autonomy is a common Western approach to psychology and models of self are employed constantly in areas such as psychotherapy and self help. Edward E. Sampson (1989) argues that the preoccupation with independence is harmful in that it creates racial, sexual and national divides and does not allow for observation of the self-in-other and other-in-self.

The very notion of selfhood is an attacked idea because it is seen as necessary for the mechanisms of advanced capitalism to function. In Inventing our selves: Psychology, power, and personhood, Nikolas Rose (1998) proposes that psychology is now employed as a technology that allows humans to buy into an invented and arguably false sense of self. Rose believes that freedom assists governments and exploitation.

It is suggested by Kohut that for an individual to talk about, explain, understand or judge oneself is linguistically impossible, since it requires the self to understand its self. This is seen as philosophically invalid, being self-referential, or reification, also known as a circular argument. Thus, if actions arise so that the self attempts self-explanation, confusion may well occur within linguistic mental pathways and processes.

Memory

It has been suggested that transitory mental constructions within episodic memory form a self-memory system that grounds the goals of the working self[3]. Research upon those with amnesia has modified this by finding such people can have a coherent sense of self even without supporting episodic memories based upon semantic facts and so conceptual knowledge rather than episodic memory.[4]

Both episodic and semantic memory systems have been proposed to generate a sense of self identity. In this personal episodic memory enables the phenomenological continuity of identity, while personal semantic memory generates the narrative continuity of identity.[14] "The nature of personal narratives depends on highly conceptual and ‘story-like’ information about one’s life, which resides at the general event level of autobiographical memory and is thus unlikely to rely on more event-specific episodic systems."[14]

See also

Main article: Outline of self

References

  1. ^ James,W. (1891). The Principles of Psychology, Vol.1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1890)
  2. ^ Sedikides, C. & Spencer, S. J. (Eds.) (2007). The Self. New York: Psychology Press
  3. ^ a b Conway MA, Pleydell-Pearce CW. (2000). The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychol Rev. 107(2):261-88. PMID 10789197
  4. ^ a b Rathbone CJ, Moulin CJ, Conway MA. (2009). Autobiographical memory and amnesia: Using conceptual knowledge to ground the self. Neurocase. 21:1-14. PMID 19382038
  5. ^ O Nuallain, Sean (2008)Subjects and Objects: Metaphysics, Biology, Consciousness, and Cognition. Biosemiotics, Vol. 1, No. 2. , pp. 239-251
  6. ^ O Nuallain, Sean (2009) Zero Power and Selflessness: What Meditation and Conscious Perception Have in Common Cognitive Sciences 4(2) pp. 49-64
  7. ^ O Nuallain, Sean (2003) The Search for mind; third edition. Intellect Exeter, England
  8. ^ Ó Nualláin , Seán(2010) "Ask not what you can do for yourself" Biosemiotics, Vol 3, in press
  9. ^ Ó Nualláin , Seán(2006) Inner and outer empiricism in consciousness research New Ideas in Psychology Volume 24, Issue 1, April 2006, Pages 30-40
  10. ^ Kohut, H. (1966) "Forms and Transformations of Narcissism" in Self Psychology and the Humanities, ed. C. Strozier. New York: Norton, 1985 pp. 97-123
  11. ^ Kohut, H. (1971) The Analysis of the Self. New York: International Universities Press
  12. ^ How Does Analysis Cure Insert ed. A Golberg and P Stepansky. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
  13. ^ Disorders of the Self and Their Treatment. International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 59: 413-425
  14. ^ a b Addis DR, Tippett L J. (2008). The contributions of autobiographical memory to the content and continuity of identity. In F. Sani (Ed.), Self-Continuity: Individual and Collective Perspectives (pp. 71–84). New York: Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0805857016

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