Week 4-THE SELF ACCORDING TO PSYCHOLOGY
Week 4-THE SELF ACCORDING TO PSYCHOLOGY
Week 4-THE SELF ACCORDING TO PSYCHOLOGY
TO PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology
William James is a well-known figure in Psychology who is considered as the founder of functionalism. He brought prominence to U.S. psychology through the publication of The Principles of Psychology (1890) that made him more influential than his contemporaries in the field
James made a clear distinction between ways of
approaching the self – the knower (the pure or the I – Self)
and the known (the objective or the Me – Self). The
function of the knower (I-Self) according to James must be
the agent of experience. While the known (Me-Self) have
three different but interrelated aspects of empirical self
(known today as self-concept): the Me viewed as material,
the Me viewed as social, and the Me viewed as spiritual in
nature
The material self is consists of everything an individual
call uniquely as their own, such as the body, family, home
or style of dress. On the other hand, social self refers to
the recognition an individual get from other people.
Lastly, spiritual self refers to the individual inner or
subjective being
Real and Ideal Self
Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers is best known as the founder of client-centered therapy and considered as one of the prominent humanistic or existential theorists in personality. His therapy aimed to make the person achieve balance between their self-concept (real-self) and ideal self
The real self includes all those aspects of one's identity
that are perceived in awareness. These are the things that
are known to oneself like the attributes that an individual
possesses
The ideal self is defined as one’s view of self as one
wishes to be. This contains all the aspirations or wishes of
an individual for themselves
A wide gap between the ideal self and the self-concept
indicates incongruence and an unhealthy personality.
Psychologically healthy individuals perceive little
discrepancy between their self-concept and what they
ideally would like to be
Multiple versus Unified Self
According to Multiple Selves Theory, there are different aspects of the self
exist in an individual. From here, we can say that self is a whole consist of
parts, and these parts manifest themselves when need arise.
Gregg Henriques proposed the Tripartite Model of Human Consciousness,
wherein he described that self is consist of three related, but also separable
domains these are the experimental self, private self, and public self.
The experiential self or the theater of consciousness is a domain of self
that defined as felt experience of being. This includes the felt consistency
of being across periods of time. It is tightly associated with the memory.
This is a part of self that disappears the moment that an individual enter
deep sleep and comes back when they wake up.
The private self consciousness system or the narrator/interpreter is a
portion of self that verbally narrates what is happening and tries to make
sense of what is going on. The moment that you read this part, there is
somewhat like a “voice” speaking in your head trying to understand what
this concept is all about.
Lastly, the public self or Persona, the domain of self that an individual
shows to the public, and this interacts on how others see an individual.
Henriques’ Tripartite Model attempts to capture the key domains of
consciousness, both within the self and between others.
Unified being is essentially connected
to consciousness, awareness, and
agency. A well-adjusted person is able
to accept and understood the success
and failure that they experienced.
They are those kinds of person who
continually adjust, adapt, evolve and
survive as an individual with
integrated, unified, multiple selves.
True versus False Self
Donald Winnicott
Donald Winnicott was a pediatrician in London who studied Psychoanalysis with Melanie
Klein, a renowned personality theorist and one of the pioneers in object relations and
development of personality in childhood
According to him, false self is an alternative personality used to protect an individual’s true
identity or one’s ability to “hide” the real self. The false self is activated to maintain social
relationship as anticipation of the demands of others. Compliance with the external rules or
following societal norms is a good example of this. false self can be a healthy self if it is
perceived as functional for the person and for the society and being compliant without the
feeling of betrayal of true self. On the other hand, unhealthy false self happens when an
individual feels forced compliance in any situation
On the contrary, true self has a sense of integrity and connected wholeness that is rooted in
early infancy. The baby creates experiences of a sense of reality and sense of life worth
living. Winnicott claimed that true self can be achieved by good parenting that is not
necessarily a perfect parenting.
The Self as Proactive and Agentic
Albert Bandura