Integrating Existential and Narrative Therapy: A Theoretical Base for Eclectic Practice

6. An Integrative Understanding of Self

80 6 An Integrative Understanding of Self THE EXPERIENCE OF SELF Individuals’ sense of “self” as they experience it in daily living is curiously simple, so much so that people tend to take it for granted. That simplicity and self-evidence vanishes as soon as psychologists turn an inquiring eye upon the idea of “self” as a theoretical concept. In this arena, controversy abounds. But for individuals going through their daily round of activities, there is a sense of givenness about their personhood . When psychologists ask people to describe themselves, they may be at a bit of a loss at first and will then typically respond with a list of identifying characteristics, usually beginning with things such as gender, occupation, perhaps ethnic/cultural identification, and, if pressed for more, will often move into a listing of traits, preferences, and values. But this is not how people experience themselves as they go through life. It is a result of having been asked to step outside of self and observe or objectify it. The curious thing about “self,” then, as people experience it in daily living is that they do so very unself-consciously. People experience themselves in what they do. “I” (self) am the one who is painting the house, talking with my friend, taking a walk, seeing the sunset. One way to describe this sense (although describing is not the same as the lived sense itself) is that in daily life, self is simply the point of my meeting the world at this moment. Of course, even without a psychologist’s prodding, people are capable of and do reflect upon An Integrative Understanding of Self 81 and objectify their “selves.” In quiet moments, they may ponder the bigger picture, asking themselves questions such as “Who am I?” or “Where am I going?,” and the results of such reflections can have great impact upon the way in which they meet the world. Yet even in those reflections, self is still the point of meeting the world; only in these ponderings, it is themselves that individuals meet. The heart of self is thus an agent meeting the world. Various authors (e.g., Allport 1955; Rogers 1951) have commented that as people experience themselves, there is a sense of continuity and stability in the face of constant change. Although individuals recognize the differences among their selves at ages 7, 17, and 77, there is no question for them that even across time, “This is me.” Similarly, there is coherence in the experience of self in the face of great diversity. In spite of the enormous variety of roles that people play and the widely divergent nature of the behaviors that they display and emotions that they experience in a day, much less a lifetime, there is for most people a sense that all of this is “me.” One may be proud of some aspects and ashamed of others, but it is all one’s own. Such continuity and coherence are understandable if self is not an object but a process—the process of (or point of) meeting the world. THEORETICAL ISSUES REGARDING THE CONCEPT OF SELF As mentioned. the relative clarity and taken for granted quality that marks each person’s experience of self vanishes when “self” becomes an object of study. The complexity of the issues surrounding the concept of self and the diversity of points of view concerning them borders on staggering. Even considering only the perspectives offered in existential, humanistic and narrative theories, substantial differences exist. Humanistic Perhaps because their phenomenological stance has kept them close to the individual’s experience, humanistic theories have generally accorded great importance to the concept of self. Some humanistic conceptualizations of self, for example Rogers’s early work, posit self as a content, specifically that portion of the person’s phenomenal experience that is “recognized as ‘me,’ ‘I,’ or ‘myself,’” with 82 Integrating Existential and Narrative Therapy those aspects defined largely in terms of the person’s sense of control over them (1951, 497). In early client-centered theory, self is, then, a content that, in the ideal situation, accurately reflects the person’s “inherent potentials.” This particular way of thinking about self is an essentialist view in that there is some a priori set of characteristics that determines the uniqueness of a given individual. Other authors in the humanistic tradition (e.g., Allport 1955; Gendlin 1964, 1996) have argued for a...