Explanation and Causality in Counselling: Consequences and Alternatives

Despite calls for counselling to take greater cognizance of the social context in which we live, it remains primarily monadic in its approach, focusing on individual pathology rather than on contextual links. This is explored in a discussion of behavioural, cognitive, and humanistic approaches to counselling which — despite their differences — exhibit remarkably similar features when viewed from a perspective outlining patterns of causality. A systemic approach is presented which attempts to provide a framework for describing human behaviour that acknowledges the interaction between intrapsychic dynamics and patterns of communication. The likely consequences of the traditional and systemic approaches are then discussed within a framework of 'self-fulfilling prophecies' .     

Between Minimal Self and Narrative Self: A Husserlian Analysis of Person

The distinction between minimal self and narrative self has gained ground in recent discussions of selfhood. In this article, this distinction is reassessed by analysing Zahavi and Gallagher’s account of selfhood and supplementing it with Husserl’s concept of person. I argue that Zahavi and Gallagher offer two compatible and complementary notions of self. Nevertheless, the relationship between minimal self and narrative self requires further clarification. Especially the embeddedness of self, the interplay between passivity and activity, and the problems of uniqueness and persistence are better understood with Husserl’s analysis of person and its central concepts of position-taking, habitualities, and overall style. The embeddedness of self is elucidated by outlining how person is related to its environment, to other people, and to its past. This relational notion of self is both passively constituted and actively shaped: person mediates between minimal self characterized by perspectival ownership and narrative self based on authorship.     

Theology and the Fragmentation of the Self

Modern Christian anthropology frequently adopts from socio-cultural theory the thesis that modern selfhood is fragmented. This 'fragmentation thesis' should be placed within a framework which sees modernity not as homogeneous but as stranded. Four conflicting construals of modern selfhood can be discerned: the bestowed self, the rational self, the boundless self and the effective self. In promoting versions of the bestowed self through communitarian and Trinitarian ideas, contemporary theological anthropology often fails to meet the challenges posed by other construals of selfhood, or to take seriously lessons learnt from contemporary forms of Christianity like the evangelical–charismatic upsurge.     

Introduction to Diving Beneath the Waves: In Memory of Tom Ravenette

Recent explorations of the relationship between narrative and self, particularly those tied to social constructionism, have served as a valuable corrective to the still prevalent tendency in psychology to divorce the self from its social surround. Yet certain of these explorations, by privileging the social over the individual, have led to a vision of selfhood that is problematic in its own right. Specifically, it is argued that, even though the "tools" employed in the construction of selfhood are social in nature, the configurational acts through which this construction occurs are better conceived in poetic terms, as imaginative labor seeking to give form and meaning to experience. In considering the poetic construction of selfhood, this article attempts to articulate further the relationship between narrative and self, the cultural dimension of personal experience, and the importance of the idea of narrative for expanding the scope of psychological knowledge.     

Ideology,Affect, Semiotics: Towards a Non-personal Theory of Personality

Personality theories, as Giordano (2014) argues, often treat Western versions of the self as having universal import. Eastern notions of self, however, offer a dramatically different basis for thinking about what personality might be. This paper, nonetheless, seeks to offer a general framework for theorizing about the epiphenomenon of personality in any culture, asserting that it is an effect of specific histories of ideological practices, semiotic networks and systems, and affect, which engage each other in dialogic and dialectical ways. The interactions of these factors, guided by ideology, regularize behavior and affective dynamics, largely in non-personal ways. Subjects are produced and reproduced from these complex interactions, which are situationally specific and simultaneously transpersonal. The subjects formed through these interactions are the basis for the folk psychology of personality, which treats the transient, varying effects of these interactions as more or less reified qualities that form a basis for the construction of selfhood, however conceived.     

Psychopathology and the self: Human actors,agents, and authors

The articles included within this special issue of the Journal of Personality all conceptualize psychopathology as the result of problems in human selfhood. As such, they implicate a wide assortment of self-related constructs, from self-objectification to self-esteem, in the etiology and maintenance of psychopathology, and they point to interventions designed to alter these self-processes in order to alleviate suffering. In this commentary, I reinterpret and reorganize many of the ideas presented in the articles from the standpoint of a tripartite perspective on the reflexive human self. The self is first and foremost an inherent duality of I and Me. Psychologically speaking, the I/Me dynamic plays out in three different guises—the self as (1) social actor, (2) motivated agent, and (3) autobiographical author. Problems in human selfhood as they pertain to psychopathology may be profitably reconceived in terms of the corresponding performative styles expressed by social actors, the motivational agendas of values and goals that energize human striving and determine self-esteem, and the internalized life stories that human beings, as authors of the self, fashion and narrate to make sense of the reconstructed past and imagined future.     

Re-conceptualizing Self,Speaker, and Body: Applying an Enactive and Conversation Analytic Approach to Selfhood and Cognition

In this article I review significant contributions to the subfield of Embodied Cognition that formulate an inclusive account of the body's role in cognitive processes. I argue that a reconceptualization of the mind–body problem must take into account some notion of the self as a nonlocalized, transient phenomenon that emerges through day-to-day interaction. Drawing on literature from epistemology, phenomenology, and Conversation Analysis, I aim to revise contributions that rely on essentialized notions of the self and speaker, in terms of an enactive and Conversation Analytic approach to selfhood and cognition.     

Biosocial selfhood: overcoming the ‘body-social problem’ within the individuation of the human self

In a recent paper, Kyselo (2014) argues that an enactive approach to selfhood can overcome ‘the body-social problem’: “the question for philosophy of cognitive science about how bodily and social aspects figure in the individuation of the human individual self” (Kyselo 2014, p. 4; see also Kyselo and Di Paolo (2013)). Kyselo’s claim is that we should conceive of the human self as a socially enacted phenomenon that is bodily mediated. Whilst there is much to be praised about this claim, I will demonstrate in this paper that such a conception of self ultimately leads to a strained interpretation of how bodily and social processes are related. To this end, I will begin the paper by elucidating the body-social problem as it appears in modern cognitive science and then expounding Kyselo’s solution, which relies on a novel interpretation of Jonas’s (1966/2001) concept of needful freedom. In response to this solution, I will highlight two problems which Kyselo’s account cannot overcome in its current state. I will argue that a more satisfactory solution to the body-social problem involves a re-conception of the human body as irrevocably socially constituted and the human social world as irrevocably bodily constituted. On this view, even the most minimal sense of selfhood cannot privilege either bodily or social processes; instead, the two are ontologically entwined such that humans are biosocial selves.     

Wave of Memory

This article explores theories of selfhood by juxtaposing them against an individual's lived experience. As Ronald Manheimer reflects upon his friendship with Hildegard, a student from one of the classes that he taught at a senior center in Olympia, Washington, he compares this experience with that described by various theories of selfhood. Building on the linguistic self, the narrative self, and the relational self, Manheimer posits a self that exists through time within a network of relationships, not a fixed determined self, but a dynamic self, subject to revision and reimagining.     

The Relational Genesis of Community: Self–Other Dialogue

Of late, there is increasing interest in the dialogical foundations of the self and community. Indeed, dialogical theory points to the embeddedness of community in self–other relations. This article proposes a dialogical approach to community that draws upon four key themes of discourse: the sociality of the self, the realm of interindividual relations, the constructive role of social representations, and the emergent properties of collective action. The ‘between’ constitutes a valuable concept for theorizing fundamental processes of relational existence and responsive meaning‐making, including the co‐constitution of community. In the process of coming into dialogic relation with one another, individuals construct meanings, experiences, and actions that profoundly shape both selfhood and community. Thus conceived, community is founded on dialogic interaction and intersubjective representation, thereby becoming the conscious object of reflection and action. The intention here is to theorize the relational genesis and continued transformation of community through self–other dialogue. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

If I am only my genes, what am I? Genetic essentialism and a Jewish response

With the advent of the Genetic Age comes a unique new set of problems and ethical decisions. There is a tendency to take the scientific developments presented by modern genetics at face value, as if the science itself were value-neutral and not influenced by cultural and religious images. One example of the fallout of the Genetic Age is the development of a "genetic self," the idea that our essential selfhood lies in our genes. It is important to understand the assumptions of the Genetic Age, the development of genetic selfhood, and the broader cultural trends and assumptions that underlie modern genetic thinking. It is equally important, however, to shape a reaction to the concept of a genetic self. Judaism has long carried on a unique discussion about the nature of selfhood in different times and places and about the relation of the corporeal self to the essential self. Insights from Judaism therefore may help to craft a reaction to the modern genetic self that incorporates the best of modern genetics as well as the integrity of a more transcendent selfhood.     

The self in prejudice

The self as a psychological construct, and the self in relation to the other has been discussed in psychological and sociological literature for decades, but not much attention has been given to the psychological development of the self in relation to the social construction of prejudice. The primary aim of this article is to explore the self in prejudice and thus the psychological processes involved in the development of self within the social context. Consequently, the aim is to explore the self in the construction and expression of prejudice from both a social and psychological approach, and to explain selfhood influences at the individual, group and community levels. I use the conceptual framework of Kohut's self psychology as a lens to present the development of the self and thus the idea of the development of the self in relation to the other. In such exploration of self in prejudice, I present some of my ideas which include prejudice as an outcome of self-definition in the context of the other, as well as linking self in prejudice and group dynamics to attachment theory and the notion of “selfgroup’ in terms of overidentification with the in-group. While the social and the psychological in terms of the development of the self cannot be separated, I have therefore attempted to merge at some point the two bodies of thought in relation to the self in prejudice.     

Reconsidering Relational Autonomy: A Feminist Approach to Selfhood and the Other in the Thinking of Martin Heidegger

This paper examines a convergence between Heidegger's reconceptualization of subjectivity and intersubjectivity and some recent work in feminist philosophy on relational autonomy. Both view the concept of autonomy to be misguided, given that our capacity to be self-directed is dependent upon our ability to enter into and sustain meaningful relationships. Both attempt to overturn the notion of a subject as an isolated, atomistic individual and to show that selfhood requires, and is based upon, one's relation to and dependence upon others. The paper argues that Heidegger's notion of authentic Mitsein (being-with) rejects traditional notions of autonomy and subjectivity in favor of a relational model of selfhood. Ultimately, it provides a new point of entry into contemporary debates within feminist philosophy on Heidegger's thinking and defends Heidegger from certain feminist critiques.     

II. Hamlet without the prince of Denmark revisited: Pörn on Kierkegaard and the self

Ingmar Pörn (Inquiry 27 [1984], nos. 2–3) claims that certain ideas of Kierkegaard's can illuminate a notion of the self articulated in action‐theoretical terms. Through a reconstruction of Kierkegaard's concept of despair, couched in these terms, Pörn aims to show how these ideas can contribute to the study of the self. Because he misconstrues an important distinction in Kierkegaard's account of selfhood, Pörn fails to show this. It remains uncertain what use the study of the self would have for Kierkegaard's notion of selfhood, and whether an action‐theoretical analysis is capable of bringing out whatever may be of interest in it.     

The Place of Self‐Respect in a Theory of Justice

This essay provides a critical examination of Rawls' (and Rawlsians') conception of self‐respect, the social bases of self‐respect, and the normative justification of equality in the social bases of self‐respect. I defend a rival account of these notions and the normative ideals at stake in political liberalism and a theory of social justice.

I make the following arguments: (1) I argue that it is unreasonable to take self‐respect to be a primary social good, as Rawls and his interpreters characterize it; (2) secondly, drawing on a distinction made by Darwall, I argue that recognition respect provides a far more suitable notion of respect for a theory of justice than Rawls' notion of appraisal respect; (3) thirdly, I argue that Rawls' treatment of self‐respect and the social bases of self‐respect as empirical conceptions should be rejected in favor of normative notions of a reasonable or justified self‐respect and equality in reasonable social bases of self‐respect; (4) I argue that Rawls' notions of political liberalism and public reason provide a way of grounding a notion of the reasonable social bases of self‐respect in political ideals of the person implicit in modern economic institutions, and family relations, ignored by Rawlsians—but as central to reasonable social bases of self‐respect and justice, as Rawlsians' ideal of persons as free and equal citizens.     

The epistemological basis of selfhood

Multiple definitions and conceptualizations of selfhood have appeared in psychological literature over the years. A fundamental debate that had risen as a result is whether the self is made of universal properties that transcend local factors or whether it is a construction particular to specific conditions of history, culture and individuality. This article begins with a review of different ways by which the self has been understood and construed; it then proceeds to suggest an epistemological framework that generates four distinct types of selves: monolithic-monoformal, relativistic-relational, dialectical-deconstructive, and integral-inclusive. It is claimed that these basic structures consist of much of the cross-cultural and intra-cultural variation in the construction of selfhood.     

The Cocreation of Crazy Patchworks: Becoming Rhizomatic in Systemic Therapy

In the field of systemic therapy, there has been much discussion recently about the narrative self. This concept refers to the idea that the self is narratively constructed in and through the stories which someone tells about him/herself. The story is thereby not only viewed as a metaphor for selfhood: Selfhood is not compared to a story, it is a story. But what kind of story are we talking about here? If the self is a story, what does that story look like? These questions are explored in this article. Starting from the possibilities and limitations of traditional and postmodern visions on the self as a story, an alternative vision is illustrated. By considering the self as a rhizomatic story, we not only create a useful view of the way narrative selfhood is constructed within a therapy context, but we also stimulate therapists to coconstruct—together with their clients—patchworks of self‐stories. By using story fragments of our own practice, we illustrate the rhizomatic thinking and its possibilities in therapy.     

The moral development in Stoic oikeiôsis and Wang Yang-ming’s ‘wan wu yi ti’

The Neo-Confucian notion of wan wu yi ti 万物一体 (‘form one body’) and Stoic oikeiôsis (‘appropriation’) both come up with a motivational basis for the expansion of concern, but one of the toughest problems in them is how to elaborate on selfhood and self–other relation in moral development. This paper takes a comparative view of Hierocles’ fragments and a few other relevant Stoic texts and Wang Yang-ming’s Inquiry on the Great Learning, and argues that doing so helps eliminate some confusions concerning selfhood and self–other relation. My claim is that the concept of the Stoic oikeiôsis and the concept of Wang’s ‘wan wu yi ti’ have different ideas on selfhood and the self–other relation while showing similarities in basing the ideal of self-development on the original unity between self and world.     

Ibsen's Nora and the Confucian Critique of the “Unencumbered Self”

Criticisms of the liberal‐individualist idea of the “unencumbered self” are not just a staple of communitarian thought. Some modern Confucian thinkers are now seeking to develop an ethically particular understanding of social roles in the family that is sensitive to gender‐justice issues, and that provides an alternative to liberal‐individualist conceptions of the “unencumbered self” in relation to family roles. The character of Nora in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House seemingly exemplifies such conceptions of the unencumbered self in her rejection of her housewife role for a more authentic selfhood. Drawing upon the capabilities approach to justice, and positive early Japanese bluestockings’ responses to Ibsen's play, I argue that Nora's character is better understood as exemplifying an ethically compelling disencumbered self in potentially cross‐cultural circumstances: a self criticizing and rejecting social roles that are found to be unjust according to universal, as opposed to particularist, “Confucian” ethical standards.     

Gender and individualistic vs. collectivist bases for notions about the self

This article provides a critique of traditional psychological theories of the self that emphasize autonomy, separation, and independence, and ignore the inherently social character of the self Evidence from an empirical investigation of selected experiences of 84 white adult women and men who evidence two different notions of the self (autonomous individualism and social individuality) suggest that the culturally dominant notion of the self, rooted in assumptions of autonomy, independence, and separation, is but one orientation to the self A contrasting notion, social individuality, reflects a dialectical understanding of individuality and sociality grounded in an experience of social relations characterized by inequalities of power Preliminary research suggests that differences between women's and men's notions of the self are grounded in their different experiences of power These findings support a larger argument that research on the self in psychology must be grounded in an analysis of material social reality and reflect the dialectical relation of individuality and sociality