Our Self

The next time you watch a star performer on stage or TV, look for this inner quality. I don't care whom you pick -- all great show business personalities have it. It is their winning self-image that allows them to rise above the thousands of others in their field who never get their careers off the launching pad. ~ R.L. Shook


The self is a key construct in several schools of psychology. Ideas are different for many theorist and in fields of study, but in general the self refers to the conscious reflective personality of a person. If we develop a higher thinking for ourselves the beliefs and values between the real and ideal self will expand and therefore we can make more developed morals and reasons, when we know who we are. The study of the self involves significant methodological problems, especially concerning consciousness. Some of these are taken up in philosophy of mind and metaphysics.

Our self is not truly a fixed object. It is a changing mix of sensations (of the body), emotions (and desires), thoughts (of facts and information), perception (the way information is organized and presented to consciousness) and consciousness - the 5 "combinations" of the mind.

Self is merely a pattern, a configuration, a hologram, a mixture or a system. The connections link between these systems link the self together.

Without these connections, the self does not function and the person remains asleep. With very few connections, the self becomes dispersed and does not "awake" or become active, thus the person "sleepwalks". With unbalanced connections (too many in some areas and too little in others), the self becomes distorted and the person will live an unbalanced life.

A psychological school of thought focused on the self was originally proposed by Heinz Kohut (1913-1981).

'Selfhood' or complete autonomy is a uniquely 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 sees that freedom assists governments and exploitation.

It is said by some 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.




The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. ~ Samuel Smiles