William James’ Me Self and I Self Concept of Self 1890 Father of American Psychology Aspects of the Self: “I-Self” “ME-Self” “I-Self” • concerns with metaphysics – the existence of the self • reflects the soul of a person or what is thought of as the mind • the self as a subject of experience • it is the thinking and feeling self • refers to the self that knows who she or he is • “I” experience my thoughts as not mine. My thoughts feel as “not-mine,” however, it’s still me (or: “I”) who thinks of them as “not-mine.” I-self Individual Self Individual traits, abilities and possessions • Spiritual self and aspects of the material self (body, possessions,initials) • Example: I am tall. I am shy. Relational Self Other people with whom we have a personal relationship • Aspects of the social self • Example: I am Noah’s dad. Collective Self Social roles, social categories, and social group membership • Aspects of social self • Example: I am a Filipino. “Me-Self” • The empirical self • the self as an object of experience • the totality of all content of consciousness that is experienced as selfrelated • It can be illustrated with sensory experiences; collection of types of experiences, which includes: visual; auditory; tactile; olfactory; experiences of hot and cold; pain; taste; other bodily experiences • Refers to describing the person’s personal experiences: Material Self, Social Self, and Spiritual Self Me-Self Material Self mine, “my arm, my bag” • Tangible objects, people, or places that carry the designation of mine • Bodily self & Extracorporeal self (beyond the body, e.g., emotional investment) Social Self “ours” e.g., our parents, siblings, romantic partners • How we are regarded and recognized by others • Relational self: interpersonal relationships Inner or psychological self, subjective being Spiritual Self • Self-perceived abilities, attitudes, emotions, interests, values, motives Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) • was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND • Sigmund Freud emphasized the importance of the unconscious mind, and a primary assumption of Freudian theory is that the unconscious mind governs behavior to a greater degree than people suspect. • The goal of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious. The LEVELS of CONSCIOUSNESS and the Three (3) Personality Structures THREE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND / PERSONALITY STRUCTURES • Freud believed that the id, ego, and superego are in constant conflict and that adult personality and behavior are rooted in the results of these internal struggles throughout childhood. • He believed that a person who has a strong ego has a healthy personality and that imbalances in this system can lead to neurosis (what we now think of as anxiety and depression) and unhealthy behaviors. Freud saw the self, its mental processes, and one’s behavior as the result between the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages • Freud believed that the nature of the conflicts among the id, ego, and superego change over time as a person grows from child to adult. • Specifically, he maintained that these conflicts progress through a series of five basic stages, each with a different focus: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. • He called his idea the psychosexual theory of development, with each psychosexual stage directly related to a different physical center of pleasure. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages • Across these five stages, the child is presented with different conflicts between their biological drives (id) and their social and moral conscience (superego) because their biological pleasure-seeking urges focus on different areas of the body (what Freud called “erogenous zones”). • The child’s ability to resolve these internal conflicts determines their future ability to cope and function as an adult. • Failure to resolve a stage can lead one to become fixated in that stage, leading to unhealthy personality traits; successful resolution of the stages leads to a healthy Donald Woods Winnicott (1896-1971) • an English pediatrician and psychoanalyst who was especially influential in the field of object relations theory and developmental psychology True Self VS False Self: Defense Mechanisms False self defends the True Self • Winnicott contends that everyone is divided into these two selves. • People develop a false self to protect their inner, more vulnerable true self. ❑ The true self refers to a sense of self based on authentic experience, and the feeling of being truly present and alive. ❑ The false self is a defensive façade, behind which the person can feel empty, its behaviors being learned and controlled rather than spontaneous and genuine. ➢ For Winnicott, the mother is the infant’s universe, and the mother-baby relationship forms the basis of the child’s subsequent development. ➢ The ideal parenting model for Winnicott is the ‘good enough mother’: ❑ one who provides a ‘facilitating environment’, in which the child’s inner potential to develop a ‘true self’ can unfold. ❑ The ‘good enough mother’ doesn’t need to be perfect, but she doesn’t neglect the baby, nor does she overprotect him. ❖ Winnicott’s term for an excessively attached caregiver is the ‘ordinary devoted mother’, who hampers the infant’s emerging capacity to embody a secure ‘true’ self by not adequately responding to its spontaneous needs. ❑ The ‘good enough mother’ is both there for the infant whenever needed, and capable of separating herself sufficiently so the infant can develop into His or her own self. • Healthy development requires us to fully experience this time when we have no concern for the feelings and opinions of those looking after us. • However, if as babies we are denied this opportunity to be ourselves, we learn to modify our impulses in a bid to receive the love we crave and start constructing a false self. • This manifests in various dysfunctional behaviors in adults: ❑ from feeling unanchored and lacking in spontaneity to suffering extreme psychological disorders such as schizophrenia. • The stress of the external world is indirectly brought to the child. • As a strategy for dealing with this anxiety, the child tries to win back the mother’s attention and love by falling into line with her needs, and thus suppressing his or her own desires. • The infant begins to create a false self, where ‘other people’s expectations can become of overriding importance, overlaying or contradicting the original sense of self, the one connected to the very roots of one’s being’. • This false self is inauthentic because its spontaneous desires are hidden away. He or she has learnt to comply far too early and become obedient at the expense of his or her ability to feel authentically. ❑ When the interaction between mother and baby fails, the ‘experiences of existential continuity’ occur. ➢ This means there has been a radical interruption of the baby’s spontaneous development. ➢ This is what gives rise to the false self: the baby learns to show only what his mother wants to see; he becomes something that he isn’t Degrees of Falseness: • Different degrees of responsive mothering determine true and false self-development: ❑ levels of ‘falseness’ ➢healthy ➢unhealthy HEALTHY FALSE SELF • A healthy false self enables us to be polite and comply with rules and regulations, even when we don’t want to. UNHEALTHY FALSE SELF • Disconnected from their true self. They tend to intellectualize reality and are largely devoid of authentic emotions and creativity. • Winnicott asserts that a healthy false self is necessary and desirable for us to exist in the world. • They struggle to feel valued as they feel it is their false self who has achieved any successes they may have had . • This creates a breakdown with themselves and with the world. • A healthy false self allows us to live our lives but protects the true self. • A major component of the healthy false self is an awareness of personal boundaries. • A healthy false self is one that works with and stays committed to the true self. It is a form of useful self-protection - in that it shields us at times when vulnerability would not be appropriate or might even be harmful. • For Winnicott, a false sense of self underpins all serious dysfunctional behaviors, including narcissism, addiction and schizophrenia – where the person is separated from himself to the point that his real self virtually disappears. • In these cases, the person uses all the resources available to them to build and maintain their false self so that they can face a world that is perceived as unpredictable or unreliable. INTERVENTION When a false self has come to be dominant, wellbeing is only achievable through a reclaiming of the true self. PSYCHOTHERAPY is a great way regain confidence in our honest expressions. It can help us untangle our false self from our true self by regressing to that time before we learnt to be false. Albert Bandura (December 1925-July 2021) • Canadian-born American psychologist and originator of social cognitive theory who is probably best known for his modeling study on aggression, referred to as the “Bobo doll” experiment, which demonstrated that children can learn behaviors through the observation of adults. The Self as Proactive and Agentic Bandura’s Social-Cognitive Theory Agency refers to the human capability to influence one's functioning and the course of events by one's actions. • According to Albert Bandura, humans have the ability to act. They are able to produce experiences on their own. • The main agents that drives these experiences are the following: 1. Intentionality 2. Forethought 3. Self-reactiveness 4. Self-reflectiveness 1. Intentionality ➢ deals with the forming of intentions that “include action plans and strategies for realizing them” ➢ Enables us to behave with a purpose. 2. Forethought ➢ Includes more than future-directed plans. People set goals for themselves and foresee likely outcomes of prospective actions to guide and motivate their efforts anticipatorily. ➢ When projected over a long-term course on matters of value, a forethoughtful perspective provides direction, coherence, and meaning to one’s life. When projected over a long-term course on matters of value, a forethoughtful perspective provides direction, coherence, and meaning to one’s life. 3. Self-reactiveness • Self-reactiveness broadens the role of the agent to be more than just “planners and fore thinkers” (Bandura, 2009a, p. 8) and includes processes of self-management and selfmotivation, as well as emotional states that can undermine self-regulation: The translation of plans into successful courses of action requires the self-management of thought processes; motivation to stick with chosen courses in the face of difficulties, setbacks, and uncertainties; and emotional states that can undermine self-regulatory efforts. (Bandura, 2009a, p. 8) 4. Self-reflectiveness • Self-reflectiveness is the ability of an individual to reflect upon oneself and the adequacy of one’s thoughts and actions. • In everything that we do, we must remember to reflect to our experiences, these experiences that we have collected will guide, make us better person, and equipped with new knowledge, views and opinions that would make us group not just as an individual but as a human being that is capable of change and new things. CARL ROGERS (1902-1987 American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach in psychology. Person-Centered Theory Rogers’ Person-Centered Theory (1) There is a tendency for all matter, both organic and inorganic, to evolve from simpler to more complex forms called formative tendency (2) There is a tendency within all humans and other organisms to move toward completion or fulfillment of potentials (i.e., wholeness) called the actualizing tendency Real and Ideal Self-Concepts (3) Actualizing tendency is the only motive people possess. Self-Concept • Self-concept is an individual's knowledge of who he or she is. • "the organized, consistent set of perceptions and beliefs about oneself.“ • is active, dynamic, and malleable. It can be influenced by social situations and even one's own motivation for seeking selfknowledge. • The self is the humanistic term for who we really are as a person.
