Selving

A Relational Theory of Self Organization

Irene Fast

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134891733
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Psicologia applicata

In Selving: A Relational Theory of Self Organization, Irene Fast invokes the basic distinction between the self as "me" and the self as "I" in order to develop a contemporary theory of the self as subject. In a return to Freud's clinical finding that all psychological processes are personally motivated, she elaborates a notion of the "I-self" that is intrinsically dynamic and relational. Within this conception, our perceiving, thinking, feeling, and acting are not what our self does; rather, they are what our self is.

According to Fast, the basic unit of the dynamic I-self --of selving --is a scheme of personally motivated interaction between self and nonself. This notion, which comprehends development (and developmental failure) as a product of integration and differentiation among discrete I-schemes, provides a radically new framework for understanding those dynamic phenomena that Freud included within his structural model of the mind and that contemporary theorists have addressed within object relational perspectives. Via the notion of selving, Fast likewise brings fresh insight to a host of issues that have engaged psychoanalysts and developmental psychologists in recent years. These topics include the place of bodily experience in a relational model of mind, the organization of self as simultaneously individual and relational, the formulation of a constructivist model of psychic structure, among others.

Selving is not only a lucid demonstration of how a relational theory of self can reorder clinical observations in conceptually and therapeutically illuminating ways. It is also a convincing demonstration of how a constructivist model emphasizing the interactive nature of meaning-making provides bridges to Piagetian theory, developmental research, and observational infancy studies.

1	TOWARD THE NOTION OF A DYNAMIC I-SELF

In 1892, William James proposed a way of understanding the self that powerfully shaped self exploration in the succeeding 100 years. He suggested that we think of the self as composed of two major aspects, the self as me and the self as I.

The me-self, or self as object, refers to our self representations. One's me-self might include a current sense of oneself as parent or psychologist, one's remembered self as a seventh-grader, half-hidden notions of oneself as doomed to loneliness or as somehow incomplete, idealized images of oneself as totally good, a fantasied self as tennis star, or dream images of self as circus clown or white-coated scientist. The me-self is the self observed in self observation.

The I-self is the self as subject. It is the observer in self observation. The I-self is dynamic. It includes our ways of perceiving, thinking, feeling, remembering, imagining, acting. It is the self aspect of “I think …,” “I am going to …,” “I feel like …,” “I remember …”

The idea that the self has these two aspects remains fundamental to academic and psychoanalytic psychologies alike. Already in 1892 James found the I-self much more difficult to identify and describe than the me-self. It is a difficulty still unresolved in academic psychology and is one we are only begining to address in psychoanalytic psychology.

Hartmann: Only Self Representations Are Self

In psychoanalytic psychology, the notion of the self as representational has dominated our conceptions. Hartmann (1950) set the stage for its centrality in the distinction he made between self and ego. Freud had used the term Ich (self) to refer to both, but, beginning in the 1930s, in the context of the new ego psychology, confusions of self and ego posed constant problems of clarity of thought in clinical work and theory development. A focus on the ego as one part of the id-ego-superego systems could not accommodate the notion of the ego as the self, with its implication of individuals in interaction with their human and nonhuman worlds. Conversely, the ego as the self could not be squeezed into the confines of the ego identified as one of the three dynamic systems of the structural model.

Hartmann proposed a widely valued solution to this problem. He suggested that ego and self be seen as terms relevant to different domains of discourse: the ego was to be viewed as a structure of impersonal dynamic functions coordinate to the id and the superego of Freud's structural model; self was to be construed as a self representation coordinate to object representations.

Hartmann's conception of the ego cleared away confusions about the meanings of that term and set the stage for his and his colleagues' prodigious work in the development of ego psychology. The implications of his conception for the study of self were also momentous. In its immediate effect, his notion of the self as a self representation helped to organize and clarify a wide range of clinical observations, particularly as psychoanalytic clinicians and theory makers interested themselves more and more in object relations. Among those who expressed their gratitude to Hartmann for this useful distinction in encouraging exploration of self representations were such major figures as Jacobson (1964), Sandler and Rosenblatt (1961), Kernberg (1966), Modell (1968), and Schafer (1976).

In investigations that followed, self and object representations tended to be conceived as initially fused or merged with one another and as gradually achieving independence. Primitive self and object representations observed clinically began to be seen as part-selves and part-objects, which, for various reasons, were not integrated into a whole self and whole objects. The projection and introjection of self and object representations observed in the pathologies of adulthood were traced to normal alternations of introjection and projection in the childhood development of self and object representations. Developmental progressions were traced from introjects to identifications and the gradual establishment of capabilities for self observation.

In this conception, the dynamic processes of the id-ego-superego systems affect self representations in the same way that they influence object representations, distorting them in various ways, interfering with the development from part-selves to a whole self, or resulting in the persistence of primitive introjective and projective processes and the incomplete differentiation of self and object.

But what of the self as subject, the I-self? In psychoanalytic psychology, the cognitive, conative, and affective processes that James ascribed to the I-self constitute the dynamic aspects of the mind. They are the processes Freud included in his model of the id, ego, and superego. Can we agree with James's view of these dynamic processes as self activities? Hartmann et al.(1947)argued strongly that we cannot. In their view, the dynamic aspects of the mind must not be seen as self aspects. They are impersonal functions. In our theoretical thinking, we must not speak of our id passions, our ego activities, our ways of approving of or criticizing ourselves as personal actions rather than as impersonal functions. If we do so, we introduce an unacceptable anthropomorphism into the theory. We apply personal motivations to what are, in fact, functions subject to impersonal laws.¹

Here the conception of Hartmann and his colleagues has influenced psychoanalytic explorations of self in two ways that have proven less useful. First, his conception of the self as nondynamic, as restricted to self representations, flies in the face of experience and of Freud's own use of the term Ich (‘I’). In our personal and clinical experience, our selves are manifestly involved in dynamic functions. They are central to our loving someone, taking pride in an achievement, envying a rival, criticizing ourselves, imagining a desired future, remembering a childhood pleasure, or working toward a goal. For Hartmann and his colleagues, these are not self activities—they are expressions of impersonal forces, self aspects are no more than representations. A representation does not love, take pride, envy, admire, imagine, or remember.

Hartmann and colleagues' conception of self as only a representation is also incompatible with Freud's Ich as self. Freud's Ich is dynamic. It comprises our ways of seeking compromises between id and superego, actualizing our goals in the external world, defending ourselves against anxieties, and finding ways to satisfy our wishes in acceptable ways. The dynamic superego, too, is a self function (das Überich), in which one self aspect criticizes or praises another. The place of the self in id processes is less clear. Freud seems at some times to describe them as physiological forces without self content, but, at others, he appears to identify them as physiologically based impulses expressed psychologically as disavowed wishes with that term's implication of personal motivation rather than impersonal causation.

To Freud's thinking, moreover, the idea that all psychological processes are personally motivated is fundamental. Our ways of loving, taking pride, envying, and imagining are all personally motivated. Every impulse, wish, symptom fragment, masturbatory ritual, dream, or action is an expression of personal wishes, aims, fears, avoidances, or self criticisms. All psychological development and clinical change reflects individuals' personal resolutions of conflicting wishes and aims, with their associated thoughts, feelings and actions. In Freud's conceptions close to his clinical base, and in our common experience but not in Hartmann's framework, James's dynamic I-self could find a ready place.

In a second, somewhat less obvious way, Hartmann's restriction of self to mean self representation has proven a significant obstacle to clinical understanding and theory development. The idea of self strongly invites a relational conception in which self and other are coordinate to one another. It invites notions that when we try to accomplish something we are interacting with our worlds, that our feelings of tenderness occur in relationships, that our self criticisms are interactions between two aspects of self. It is an idea that occurs in Freud's work (e.g., 1914, 1921), but not one he elaborated extensively. Hartmann's emphasis on the dynamic aspects of our minds as impersonal forces cannot easily accommodate an interactional perspective. In his view, striving to accomplish, feeling tenderly, or criticizing ourselves are not fundamentally activities of our selves in relation to our worlds. They are, at root, expressions of the impersonal forces within people that constitute the id, ego, and superego.

Hartmann's idea of self representations as coordinate to object representations might suggest a relational approach. And, indeed, the major developments emerging from his distinction of self and ego have a strong object relational flavor. In Hartmann's own conception, however, self and object representations are not structured in ways that entail, or easily accommodate, relationships. A self representation, in his view, is structured in the same way as an object representation. Both begin as mental registrations of sensory impressions. Once registered in the mind, they may be in various ways modified by the drives. Self and object representations defined as perceptual registrations modified by impersonal functions do not easily accommodate notions of self-other relationships.

Toward Conceptions of a Dynamic Self

Currently a growing thrust of clinical and theoretical thinking in psychoanalytic psychology is directed toward ideas in tune with James's notion of the dynamic I-self. Moreover, in psychoanalytic perspectives, though not explicitly in James's work, this I-self is consistently seen in relational terms.

The very notion of a dynamic self is at odds with our usual ways of thinking. We ordinarily speak of having a self that acts in various ways, perceiving, thinking, feeling, or observing itself. But if we think of id, ego, and superego processes as self functions, we must consider another possibility. Our thinking, feeling, and acting are not what our self does, they are what our self is. It is not that our self loves, takes pride, envies, imagines, and remembers: our loving, taking pride, envying, imagining, and remembering are self.

James (1892) faces this issue head-on. The notion of an I-self invites the idea of an entity that acts in certain ways. But that is not James's intent. He asks whether, in thinking about the I-self, we must think of a substantial self that thinks and feels and wills, or whether the thinking and the feelings are themselves self. He opts for the latter. Philosophers, James observes, often postulate a Thinker or Agent that does the thinking or perceiving or feeling. It seems to them that the multitudinous and transient impulses that characterize our experience cannot account for our feelings of identity at a particular moment and over time. But, James argues, the notion of a Thinker or Agent only pushes the problem of identity back a step. We are now faced with the problem of how this entity might provide the continuity and identity that we experience in the I-self. Better, he suggests, that we find the identity of the I-self in the processes themselves, the ways they are integrated into the unified experience of a present moment, and the ways the remembered past provides a sense of identity over time.

We do not need to postulate an I-self who thinks and feels and knows. It is the thinking itself, the feeling, and the willing that are the I-self.

Kegan (1982)also elaborates this attractive but difficult idea. He suggests that we are tempted by our language to experience our selves, as we do the rest of the world, as things that act: we each have a self that does various things. He argues that we must resist that temptation. We must think of self as an activity rather than as a thing. We tend to think of ourselves as human beings, he writes, but we might better think of our selves as our ways of being human. His aim is to explore the evolving self, not as the doing that a self does, but the doing that a self is.

Put another way, if we are to think of the dynamic aspects of the mind as self, we must find ways to think of self, not in terms of nouns and adjectives, but in terms of verbs and adverbs. We must learn to think of ourselves not as having a self, but of doing self things or, for lack of a more suitable word, perhaps of “seiving.”

This perspective is not altogether unfamiliar to psychoanalytic psychology. Freud did not propose a self that does things. Freud's Ich is itself dynamic. It comprises our ways of thinking, defending ourselves against anxiety, working toward accomplishments, and so forth. It is not an Ich that does these things— these doings are Ich; they are our selves.²

Can we argue that we are “serving” when we are loving someone, watching the rain, or remembering an ancient shame? Can we find ways to conceive these processes and all the others we familiarly consider aspects of id, ego, and superego as self activities? Can we do so, keeping in mind that we must also account for self representations (the me-self) in relation to the dynamic I-self, and that in psychoanalytic frameworks the notion of self tends to occur in the context of self-other relationships? This is the case that must be made, I believe, if we are to think of the dynamic processes of the mind as the I-self.

It will not be easy. Our language and thought forms so dominate our usage that we are virtually compelled to notions of the self as a subject that does various things. Already in the foregoing, “the self” has been referrred to more than once. And in the rest of this book, that will happen often. It may be that we will have to satisfy ourselves with an uneasy truce in which, on one hand, we accept that speaking of “the self” is perhaps inevitable; but, on the other, we remain alert to remember that we are speaking of a constellation of activities.

Attempts to Formulate Id and Ego Activities as Self

In psychoanalytic psychology we are in the early stages of our attempts to find ways to account for the I-self and its relationships in terms of the “doings” that Freud framed in his structural model, particularly of the id and ego. Nevertheless, these ideas are taking interesting directions.

Kernberg (1966) approaches the problem in the context of his clinical observations of borderline character organization. He observed that his patients seemed to split their experience into disparate states, altogether irreconcilable with one another. At one moment, for example, a patient might experience himself with Kernberg as a rejected, depreciated little boy in relation to a harsh and haughty adult; at another, as a longing, guilt-ridden child with an all-forgiving, all-loving grown-up. The two states seemed altogether distinct. The patient could hardly remember his positive views of Kernberg when feeling negatively toward him, and when he idealized Kernberg he could hardly recall his earlier negative views.

Each of these discrete states seemed to Kernberg to represent a complete transference paradigm in which a specific object relationship was activated. It was as if they were discrete ego states, almost like two selves completely separated in their emotions. It was Kernberg's sense that these relationship units were pathologically fixed remnants of the normal processes of early development. These observations led him to a novel conception. The basic organizations that structure our minds, he proposes, are dynamic interaction units composed of a self aspect and an object aspect linked by an affect. From such relationship units the id, ego, and superego processes as well as object relationships develop.

Could these basic structures of the mind, these ways of interacting with the world be units of self structure? When the patient feels like a rejected little boy before a haughty adult or longs for the all-forgiving Kernberg, is this an I-self activity? Kernberg sugges...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• CONTENTS
• Preface
• 1. Toward the Notion of a Dynamic I-Self
• 2. Basic Structures
• 3. The I-Self: Our Ways of Making Meaning
• 4. Selving Without a Sense of I-Ness—I: Encoding Experiences in Global I-Schemes
• 5. Selving Without a Sense of I-Ness—II: Id Experiences in Global I-Schemes
• 6. From Selving Without a Sense of I-Ness to First-Person Experiencing—I: Toward an Internal World
• 7. From Selving Without a Sense of I-Ness to First-Person Experiencing—II: Toward an External World
• 8. What Sort of a Self Is This Dynamic I-Self?
• References
• Index