What wants to be is in the process of becoming E-Book

Michael Worsch

• Herausgeber: novum pro Verlag
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 547

Beschreibung

What wants to be is in the process of becoming - this basic assumption reminds us that self-development cannot be forced. It should also inspire people to take the path into the open, to trust their longing for the whole and to look at the dark sides of the soul in the light of the sun. This self-experience is a journey to the heart - and from there into the open. Only when man follows the longing, he can unfold as it corresponds to his own destiny. In essay form, Michael Worsch illuminates the round horizon of his practical experiences as a psychotherapist and theater director with a view to symbolization processes.

Leseprobe

Michael Worsch

What wants to be is in the

process of becoming

Guide for an integrated self-experience

For Lena Valeria

"What wants to be is in the process of becoming",

thought the turtle and hatched.

Thus began the journey into the ocean.

Important Notice:

Contents

Introduction X

What is a guide? - Where does the journey go? - A holistic understanding - Enough of using - My metaphor for self-experience - The organizational structure of the system I - The self-esteem regulation - The problem of satisfaction -On patienceby Rainer Maria Rilke.

Terminological discourseX

Perspectives of Ego Psychology - Differentiation of Ego and Self - I and Me in William James - Ego and Self in Damasio - The Sense of Self - The Self-Esteem - An Integrated Self - The False Self and the Empty Self - The Strange Self - Negative Self-Concept - The Shared Self - Summary

Chapter 1

Stumbling in the curriculum vitae

1.1 Practical experience X

My practice in the volcano country - The first contact - Approach to process design - First act:Things turned out differently than expected- Second act:Holding on to the usual -Third act:The dramatic turn -Inner and outer resistance - Avoiding the uncertain - Letting oneself be surprised and encountering - Moments of encounter in psychotherapy

1.2 Some change of perspective X

First impressions can be deceiving - Meaning can change - Assigning blame - Those who act lose innocence - Conforming instead of contradicting - Unspoken in presence - Disappointment need not hurt - Lore discovers the No

1.3 Problems of understanding X

Much is a misunderstanding - Understanding or not understanding - Talking to each other - Types of attachment - Relationship defense out of habit - You don't understand me - Forms of questions - Feedback rules in short form - Preparing for a conversation, conducting a conversation and concluding a conversation - Wisdom competence -Stagesby Hermann Hesse

1.4 Social psychological discourseX

Social Systems Communicate - Behavior and Meaning - Intention and Contingency - Human Communication - Two Relationship Patterns - The Basic Needs at a Glance - Memory Systems and Microworlds

Chapter 2

Against the wall

2.1 Experience with rejection X

The pain of the incomprehensible - Rejection as an attachment disorder - Rejection versus rejection - Explanatory constructs for the development of disorders - Damage limitation by one's own efforts - Personality style and relationship patterns - Categorization of styles and disorders - Value quadrants of personality styles.

2.2 Experience with use X

What was the state of protection? - Emotional abuse - betrayal and exposure - synopsis - the empty mirror - narcissist and echo - distorted family relationships - fatal double bind of the child - you can have me and you won't get me - giving what we don't have - reading feelings - aggression as a protection process - offer for self-help.

2.3 Longing for the wholeX

Ambivalence and Destructiveness - Toxic Pleasure - The Split Self Relationship - Broken Originality - The Immanence Illusion - The Lack of Being and Impatience - Cherry Blossoms and Cherry Pits - The Creative Force - Deconstruction and Reconstruction with Anna - TheConcert Grand in theMonastery

2.4 Depth psychological discourseX

Defense mechanisms - Ego splitting and totalization - Projection and introjection - Secondary narcissism - The self system and its defense processes - Origins of the greatness self - Idealization of the parent imago - Roots of zeal - The conflict model - Basic soul conflicts - Dramatic messages of rejection - Outlook to the open air

Chapter 3

Attention dead end!

3.1 Moral conception and satisfactionX

The Drama of Freedom - The Forbidden and the Impossible - The Eleventh Commandment - Decency and Iniquity - Victimhood and Perpetration - Rummaging in the Darkroom - The Pairing of Sanction and Satisfaction - Moral Victory as Satisfaction - Facets of Retribution - Decay of Resilience - Satisfaction in the Battle of the Sexes

3.2 Excursion into counter worldsX

Counterworlds - Daydreams - Medial attractions - Infatuation and love delusion - Amorous secrecy - Mercenary lust and prostitution - Acting and masked feelings - Life experienced together - Cherry pits in the appendix

3.3 Attachment needs to be releasedX

Gravity of darkness - Fixation on the frustrating mother - Unsatisfied desire - Longing and revulsion - Paradise happiness and impossible love - The acid test - Debt to bring and debt to fetch - Ingrid leaves -A place within reach

3.4 Affect theoreticaldiscourse X

Affect System I & II - Anger and Rage - Feelings of Inadequacy - Reproachful Accusation - Jealousy and Envy - Emptiness, Meaninglessness and Boredom - Anxiety Disorders - The Hormone Cocktail - Steps Out

Chapter 4

Hand on heart

4.1 Perceived impartialityX

It works without satisfaction - Self-esteem strengthens - Instinctive decisions - Passage from "The Elder" by Thomas Sautner - New confidence building - Individuality instead of grandiosity - Autonomy and object independence - Not wanting to be more than is in the making - Bernd lives for art

4.2 Step by step into the open X

An integrated self-experience - The zeal - The ignominy - The pain - The kindness - Thou shalt not punish thyself - Mourning thou shalt pity - Accepting the challenge - What it takes to move forward.

4.3 In the light of changeX

On the field of love - To love resolutely? - To love means to grow - Does hate want to destroy? - The separation of lovers - Beyond death - Marion discovers lightness - Futurum II -In the palace of the winds

4.4 Identity theoretical discourseX

Central task - Postmodern identity construction - Capacity for action - The sense of coherence - Self-efficacy expectation - Self-determination and relationship - The foundation of integrated self-experience

Chapter 5

Fruits of change

5.1 Symbolization processes X

What art therapy can do - Devotion to play - Three branches of self-development - Enactive, figurative and narrative dimension - Intermedial transfer - The self-generating power - Life forms shapes - Directed tension - The imaginary dwells in the world - Symbolic forms of interaction - The yarn-roll example - Image and language - Poetic metaphor formation - Versifying impulses

5.2 In the force field of the life streamX

The cycle of contact - Schemata of dramatic narratives - Topology of the body schema - The system of similes - The reason in itself - The comprehensive - Creative freedom

5.3 Invitation to the experiment X

Sketch of my working model - Reentry Circuit - The sensory experience field - Sculpting the emotional galleries - Generalized interaction representations - Directed tensions in the image construction - Inventing a story - Characters and patterns - Self-transgression - Psychomotor therapy - The concept of Imagodrama® - Against the urge to therapize -A jetty at the StarnbergLake

5.4 Neurobiological speculative discourseX

Neuronal Ensemble Performance - Supramodal Information - Generation Schemata - Neuronal Memography - Schemata as Fuzzy Categories - Ego Functional Process Structures - The Queen of Arts - Concluding Remarks

BibliographyX

Introduction

What is a guideline? It is a guideline that runs through the phases of our lives. It is also a yarn from which the fabric for narratives is woven. And finally, it is a symbol for the formation of meaning, where it is a matter of recognizing and establishing connections. Unmanageable is the multitude of publications on the concept of self-concept. My personal view introduces this paper. What is a self-concept? It can best be understood as a summary of all experiences, the knowledge about oneself, one's thinking, feeling and acting. An infinite number of aspects and possibly unresolved conflicts form a web of experiential knowledge, wishes and desires, hopes and fears, interests and concerns. The self-concept is also a kind of fundus for successful and unsuccessful strategies, as it were the consequence of trial and error in the course of life. In this respect, theself-concept ismodifiable. Upsetting events and shattering incidents can cause distortions of the previous self-concept.

Who are we and how many when figures enter into dialogue on the inner stage? I am guided, among other things, by Watkins and Watkins' (2012) ego-state model. It seems that current conceptions of the self modify the notion of identity, insofar as identity was once considered a stable self-sameness. Trends in this direction began to incorporate partial identities and postmodern constructions of identity (Keupp et al., 1999) into the relevant discourse. Today, social complexity in relation to gender and queer exhibits deconstructions of normative identity constructions. On the occasion of increasing complexity, psychotherapeutic work is able to promote the integration of partial concepts of the self. Therefore, I will addressintegrated self-experienceand thecontrastive self-concept,which I distinguish from thenegative self-concept.

I understand an integrated self-experience as a process that continuously leads to coherence and consistency. A contrastive self-concept, on the other hand, is characterized by partitions between conforming and nonconforming behaviors. As I will explain, I see this concept as a generally antecedent model for coming to terms with the contradictions between inside and outside. In this respect,sense of self,self-image, andself-worth are at loggerheadswith each other, which can be stressful for affected individuals and their caregivers. Consequently, I am interested in forms of ambivalence and ambivalence splitting over long stretches of this work.

Where is the journey heading?

For a seamless garment, there needs to be a suitable fabric that the guide for anintegrated self-experienceshould weave. It is reasonable to conclude thatlife artcan only begin to realize anintegrated self-experiencewhen emotions can be directly and structurally coupled to symbolization. Much of this is possible in the field of art. But therapeutic competence is needed to structurally couple emotionality and symbolization in the sense of mentalization practice. Structural coupling means that components and functions, more than relations, can be organized into a system. This is a complex process that requires competence in terms of self-regulation.

In this respect, anintegrated self-experienceis the dynamic organization of even contradictory tendencies. Integration can progress when a synthesis succeeds between polarities andambivalenceno longer leads to divisions. Ambivalence is therefore an essential factor to be modified. In the first place, this means the attitude towards inner conflicts as well as the handling of outer conflicts. Thus, self-regulation concerning conflicts also includes solution competence and multi-perspectivity as a prerequisite forambiguity tolerance,an allowance of ambiguity.Naturally, this concerns both creative and social competencies.

What trajectory (force of attraction) directs the general direction of us human beings? It is our growth tendency, which is to be understood qualitatively. If qualitative growth is to apply, then this implies (following physics) syntropy in contrast to entropy. With regard to the difference between integrated self-experience and contrastive self-concept, it is obvious to see the insufficient integration of contradictory facets from life-historical development. In all cases, integration requires the detachment of affective overwhelmingness by symbolization processes. Mentalization practice realizes it with the help of artistic means. Integration refers to a holistic tendency of growth, the regulative goal of my transdisciplinary concept.

A holistic understanding

A holistic understanding not only sees global connections as we know them today, but is a model articulated by theSpeculative Philosophy ofAlfred North Whitehead (1984). Holism as a superstructure of systemic thinking is beyond our current horizon. I consider it a blueprint, whereby it is considerable for understanding psychological self-organization to take into account biological, social, cultural, and transcendental (spiritual) components. I do not adequately interpret the term 'self' as 'soul'. In any case, a holistic understanding ofsoul realitymeans that it is a field experience that does not stop at the individual ego consciousness and its limited horizon of knowledge. As the 'self' is basically a back-referential term for 'own', the term 'soul' can be understood in a supra-individual and transpersonal way. My approach excludes a pre-life and after-life of that entity, as the 'soul' is sufficiently imagined. However, my view does not refuse the assumption that thesoul realitycould be an all-embracing information field.

Speculations about a 'knowing field' as well as numerous phenomena in the context of constellations suggest thatrepresentational perceptionenables information gathering that is not limited to the subjective ego of people. Further speculation concerns the notion of 'world spirit,' which originated with Friedrich Hegel (Taylor, 1983). This great spirit shapes the universe in such a way that, through human consciousness, the universe explicitly reflects itself. One step further in this direction, the door opens to mysticism. I think of Meister Eckhart in the first place.

In a long line of religious and spiritual traditions, Veit Lindau (2018) positions himself that the energy of the universe is simply love. In this regard, Richard David Precht lectures on the logician Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). Peirce recognizes the central formative force in love and for him it is inseparable from nature. Precht lectures, "Through the power of love alone, evolution evolves ever higher" (Precht 2019, p. 461). This is an adequate conception of syntropy. Accordingly, love as well as soul could mediate field experience, which gives to recognize that all-connectedness, which also agrees with what Wilhelm Schmid says: "The sense of love is that it creates sense!" (Schmid 2017, p. 21). In addition, I orient myself to theBook of Changes(Wilhelm, 1986), to Taoism, which describes the great interactions in the balance of opposites.

Stop using

This title is intended to draw attention in no uncertain terms to the motivations that led me to become involved with people who deeply desire love to happen to them, but who repeatedly end up with someone they recognize as having used them after a certain amount of time. Colin C. Tipping, in his bookI Forgive(2010), recommends a radical departure from victimhood. His approach traverses the constructivist paradigm, according to which we create felt reality by having beliefs concretize it, or in other words manifest what needs to be resolved psychologically and emotionally. But also from a psychoanalytic point of view, we are urged to withdraw projections and resolve defensive constellations that correlate with blame and reparation. Simply put, there is nothing to judge, to force, to regret.

When we find ourselves projecting, we can realize that once again we want to be right, that there are judgments behind it that are looking for satisfaction for something that we believe was done to us, even though it just happened and did not correspond to the meaning we put into it. "Often we find people not only accepting our self-hatred projected onto them, but reinforcing it by projecting it back onto us. Such a relationship we call 'co-dependent.' The partner fulfills the function of compensating for the deficiency in us by constantly repeating that we are fine. In this way, we avoid the shame of being who we are. We do the same in return. Both learn to manipulate each other through a highly conditional love based on the underlying feelings of guilt. The moment the other person withdraws their affirmation from us, we find ourselves confronted again with our sense of guilt and self-hatred. Then everything collapses. Love immediately turns to hate, and each partner attacks the other" (Tipping 2010, p. 93).

The fact that we no longer expectapologiesfrom others, that we do not reject them for their resistance, that we do not demand satisfaction where we are disappointed, that we ultimately do not draw the conclusion from accusation, reproachful accusation and relationship breakdown that we have once again become a victim, that alone makes possible the confrontation with theshadow inus, out of which we not only take, but also dish out fiercely. Only the withdrawal of the excessive importance we attribute to ourselves for the other person makes us open to the meaning of love, frees us from explanatory models with which we want to be right.

My metaphor for self-experience

I would like to introduce my understanding of ego and self with a metaphor. I understand the ego as the constructor of the complex architecture of psychic self-organization. By Freud pointing out that this 'I' is not master of its own house, I interpret the situation from today's perspective as follows: Substructures of architecture correspond to rooms in this building. Self-parts lodge in its rooms, which as a whole have to be continuously organized and reorganized by the self-system for self-value regulation, in order to ultimately cause as few difficulties as possible for the integrated self-experience of the 'I' as constructor and organizer. However, some self parts behave like troublemakers, since they do not behave decently both among themselves and in relation to the master of the house. In this respect, these particularly disagreeable residents are locked in the basement. Others intervene in the stressed host's regime from the upper penthouse departments, make relatively high demands and do not spare criticism of the household management's customs.

Some parts of the self, whose origin comes from relational histories with the outside world, turn out to be needier and more immoderate than the inhabitants of the attic. Still others plan revolts, for reasons that completely elude the insight of the owner. How I want to redeem the metaphor shall become apparent in the course of the paper. The theory notes in the appendix of each chapter are also intended to do this. I will preface that the 'I' is determined by its functions and is to be understood as the constructor of self-organization, the builder of architecture, partly from identification, imagination and instinct, in any case as the originator of subject and object processors (Moser, 2008). Not an easy job.

In the appendix to the introduction I refer to concepts of ego and self psychology. Daniel Hell's note on the tension betweenself-imageandself-experienceannounces the extent to which I have arrived at my concept of two regimes of ego consciousness and its divided self-experience. "Around the original psychic self-experience, the most diverse layers of historical and biographical socialization are deposited in the self-image. What we thus figuratively perceive as 'self' no longer consists only of our feelings and sensations, but also of the ideas and reflections we take over from role models. [...] If the self-image becomes more important to a person than self-experience, it acquires a power that can crush a person. Hardly anything else makes a person as psychologically vulnerable as a rigid or overwhelming self-image that leaves no room for the soul" (Hell 2013, pp. 22-23). Hell calls it 'self-experience', I call it self-feeling.

The organizational structure of the system I

Whoever says "I" means himself. That is how it is customary to speak. This self-designation refers to the authorship of the subject. And only an I-consciousness can say, think, feel this. In other words, the I organizes reality. But two fronts demand this ego. It has to establish a regime towards the outside. The acting I is the organizer of the environmental relations. I call it theworld-related I. The second territory extends inward, concerns theinwardness ofthe subject. It too wants to be perceived. Therefore, I call this orientation of consciousness theself-referral ego. Basically, the ego is structurally uniform, only its functions change: it directs attention outward, then inward again. In the favorable case, the oscillation between the two functions succeeds. This is a complex spectrum of tasks.

As the I organizes reality, in short, takes in impressions and finds expression for them, it will accordingly also devote itself to experiencing, not only to acting. For this reason, the I systematizes its self-experience. As I have shown with my metaphor, and agree with Freud, the ego is not master in its own house. With this given of internal difficulties, the ego also tries to establish a regime in the internal space. Things don't always work out there in a way that would be easy to cope with. Impressions produce experiences that are difficult to digest. Some things that happen in the world can only be managed by theself-centered egoto maintain the house order by not preventing events, but by repressing experiences. To these experiences I count first of all the disappointment of desires and the awakening of fears. This statement already shows that the internal structure of the ego consciousness organizes two modes of experience.

I use two forms of self-experience in the course of the treatise, which I now present. I start with those experiences which theself-centered Ilocks in the cellar because they disturb theworld-centered I inits work. This way of experience I call theself-experience in truth.From this it can be seen that minus the locked away experiences the world-related side deserves the name self-experienceout of habit.The advantage of these two names shall prove to be manageable. There is the possibility to lock away ways of experience, to check them for their basic motives, finally to link all experiences to a unified self-experience, by which I understand theintegrated self-experience.

To describe the situation the other way around: What is sufficiently called authenticity, we also understand as truthfulness and sincerity towards ourselves, sometimes also towards others. This would mean that the two modes of experience are not mutually exclusive. I would like to sharpen this understanding. Theworldly ego isoriented exclusively to events in the external world and is thereby structurally concerned with actions, appearances, appearances, and last but not least, 'arrivals'. The yield of this action for the self-worth and the self-image fills theself-experience out of habitlike a memory.

If the memory is full, we feel good; if it is little filled or empty, we feel bad. Theself-centered egodeals with this yield and the experiences in the memory. Now it has structurally the task to check these experiences for the basic needs, desires and self-esteem. The result of this examination is in that case theself-experience in truth,often named asself-feeling, which signals well-being and coherence, because the self-esteem level is high. Otherwise, because the result of the test signals discomfort and incongruity, aspects of self-experience intruth arelocked in the basement. Which is to stabilize the self-worth and make the self-image appear intact.

If the acting on the outside and the feeling on the inside match, then nothing has been locked in the basement. It isintegrated self-experiencethat feels coherent. It can be guessed what it means if theself-experience in truth doesnot find an entrance into theself-experience out of habit.The importance of acting outwardly and the success of adaptation to the environment become overweight. Let us imagine that a personality is oriented primarily to effects on the outside and neglects to examine them in relation to thesense of self. As Alexander Lowen (1986) says, the ego invests only in theimage(Engl.). This concept is to be distinguished from the inner imageImage (French).

If theself-centered egois confused with theworld-centered ego, or if they are exchanged for each other, a serious problem arises. This does not exclude the denial of thesense of self.There is a trick. I assume acontrastive self-conceptwhen the subject manages to move back and forth, as it were, in two worlds, if not being at home, at least alternately. We can imagine it like this: Someone acts with success of theworldly egoand from there in theself-experience out of habit welladapted to reality, while he or she intruthknows theself-experiencewell, does not lock it in the basement, but relocates it to a counter-world. This, I think, deserves the attributioncontrastive self-concept.I say to this in simplified terms, clandestineself. Contrastivemeans a clandestineself-experience in truth,which already takes its starting point in harmless daydreaming, in order to live out needs and thus dissolution of boundaries on short vacations-at a distance from demands of everyday life and conventional reality experiences ofself-experience out of habit.This dissolution of boundaries naturally does not exclude illusion, as is already the case with daydreaming. In many cases, illusionizing takes over the task of self-reward. I will come to the motivator 'desire-ego' in the course of the paper.

Of course, there will always be situations and occasions when we are not at all ready, and it would also be unwise, to publicly disclose theself-experience in truth.Therefore, it is understandable that we also disguise ourselves in order to protect ourselves: from disgrace, from attacks, from disappointment. But this should not prevent us from confessing truthfulness to ourselves, not to obfuscate or disguise it.Self-experience out of habitendures a surprisingly high degree of incongruity between self-image and self-feeling, provided that theworldly egoorganizes confirmation of self-worth. The probability of self-deception and eventually self-denial increases. This does not affect private relationships alone. It consistently concerns self-exploitation due to often years of enduring unreasonableness, of pressure to perform due to inner drivers, the accompanying self-overstrain in professional fields of action. On the other hand,self-experienceis inreality concerned with ensuring that there iscoherence between self-image and self-feeling. For this, however, theself-centered egomust remain online. There will be sufficient opportunities to show sincerity to others, to unabashedly take a stand and to prove loyalty to the self-experience in truth.

As I have planned to spin a guideline for anintegrated self-experience, so this project wants to encourage to integrate locked-in ways of experience and experiences from counter-worlds. Thus, over time, experiences ofself-experience in truthmay also find entry intoself-experience out of habit ina creative and unconventional way. The fact that this identity project faces the challenge of freeing those unpleasant experiences from the basement, of integrating theshadow into theself according to C.G. Jung, is not an easy process. But it is always worthwhile, because thelonging for the whole (Lacan, 1994) is always also a homesickness for the unbroken originality.

The self-esteem regulation

Originally, asense of selfarises from relational experiences in which we felt benevolently protected. Through what G.H. Mead calls significant others, which is first of all the mother, we experience our sense of self by means of caring and loving attention and by reflection in the gleam of her eyes (Kohut, 1976). This glow conveys the basis for self-esteem, feeling okay, and being a valuable being. It is not yet a matter of recognition of achievement, but of the delightful happiness of being welcomed with one's own aliveness.

Comparison with others begins where we recognize ourselves as similar or different. The basis for similarity lies in conforming to the demands of caregivers imparted to us and in the effort of imitation - another word for identification. We resemble, and in doing so, we compare ourselves to others. This is how the self-image is formed. If we are similar to them, we feel okay. If the likeness is missing, we feel strange, all alone. Confidence in the sense of self can grow when our emotional expression has been understood and has become significant to ourselves throughmarked mirroring.Marked mirroring by caregivers is to be understood as a designation of our feeling (see Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist & Target, 2019) and thus we learn to distinguish the stirrings of our aliveness from the stirrings of others.

This makes it possible to accept unpleasant feelings as our own and to integrate them into our self-experience. This is accomplished not least by the fact that unpleasant feelings can become bearable contents of consciousness through marked reflection andsymbolization bymeans of language. Self-feeling means according to the question: "Can I feel myself?" To feel oneself, not to relate feelings to others alone, but to understand them as state indicators of self-experience, requires first of all that our expression of feelings has been designated for us and left to us, not expropriated.

Our feelings of affection are expropriated bynarcissistic occupation of attachment figures.We give away the feeling without suspecting that we are being robbed of it. The occupying and using attachment figures contribute to the fact that we feel more the feelings of the others than our own and are not able to distinguish this. It follows that when we are emotionally close to someone, we immediately become entangled in their system. The question arises, "Am I allowed to feel myself?" If I am entangled, I lack discernment. If this is the case, I find no answer. For I live the life of others in order to be present in myself. An alien self is an experience internalized through narcissistic occupation. Or it is an empty self, provided that we realize that we have made the true self available through dispossession. In both cases, we are surprised one day by the realization that we do not take place for ourselves at all. Thus, the next question is erased, "What am I worth to myself?" The reason for this unasked question is inherent in biography.

Thus, the challenge is to find confidence in the sense of self in passing through deceptions and emptiness that arise from deception. The tests of an almost initiatic experience concern the fire test and the water test, the encounter with fear. Fear can be seen as a signal of an impending step in development. If so, development can be set in motion. The transformation of a fear arousal into creative will means initiation. The trial by fire can be understood as firing and burning the fears and doubts. The water trial, on the other hand, concerns the surrender to tender as well as expressive feeling. Thus, with thefeeling of self,we awaken the tender as well as the attacking and defending feelings, which ultimately help to acknowledge the self-boundary.

Those who become entangled or fearfully withdraw from the world also do not really know their self-boundary. If its barrier value is high, we feel protected against intrusive stimuli. If its barrier value is low, we do not feel the difference between I and Thou, between inside and outside, between world and self, are vulnerable or appropriating. Dramatic relationships, palpable in a blurred or dissolved self-boundary, struggle to distinguish and abolish this necessary difference by merging I and Thou.

Analogously, the biological cell membrane has the task of letting in the nourishing, letting out the spoiled, and allowing rest in closing to serve recycling and recovery (Lipton, 2009; Davis, 2020). A permanently closed self-boundary would be a contradiction in terms, for this would imply psychosocial lack of contact. A permanently open self-boundary would be a great danger in terms of self-protection due to high vulnerability. Thus, self-control is apulsationbetween the poles open and closed. Self-control means above all the ability to deal with offenses that we cannot prevent, but which we can process.

The problem of satisfaction

Many narratives describe long-standing grievances. Different mortification events are connected by the experience ofrejection. Over time, I encountered different forms ofinternalized rejection.This corresponds to the notion ofintrojected sanction.The impression arose that the child experienced disappointment also as a rejection of his person. As clients tell me, it did not have to be a matter of devaluation and punitive measures. Nevertheless, rejection was felt in that incomprehension of longing or disappointment was coupled with the impossibility of expressing rejection and rebellion. Rejection means suppression of the associated impulses. From whom, is sometimes not so clear.

In any case, suppression became a rejection of frowned-upon emotions such as anger. The repression of aggression became sanction. And it increasingly began to solidify as conscience distress, guilt, self-doubt, inferiority, feelings of inadequacy, and fear of fear. The interactions built up to inner turmoil and a taking on a life of their own of inner critics, drivers, and punishers (Roediger, 2018). Thus, anegative self-conceptcan be described. A desire for satisfaction developed, which, depending on temperament and character, was to be expressed as one of the variants: Reparation or Retribution, perhaps Concealment and Beguilement. Many of my conversations produced motives that demanded satisfaction in order to rehabilitate self-worth and self-image in one way or another.

Satisfactionis a term that originally comes from the duel tradition. Who felt insulted, attacked in his honor, demanded satisfaction, even if he could be killed in the duel. The link to self-worth is thus more than obvious. From today's point of view, satisfaction corresponds to the concept ofnarcissistic gratificationunder the sign of compensation. If an open and fair conflict resolution between parents as well as between them and children was not possible, offenses, injuries, traumatizations left sanctioning traces in the memory of the child. Therefore, I include the experience of internalized rejection in my consideration ofself-experience in truth. Self-experience out of habitfights against it with zeal. This goes well for a long time, because success of achievement in the outside appears.

I understand the core of the problem asinternalized rejection, which isbased on the suppression of frowned-upon emotions and thus blocks the access to experiences in the dark chambers of the cellar. Theself-experience in truth, however, pushes with all its stirrings, be it desires for as well as fears of the always longed-for liberation. This liberation is certainly not given by satisfaction, be it reparation, retribution or concealment. To liberate is to liberate love from guilt and shame. To liberate is to express indignation where injustice is felt. To liberate is ultimately to forgive, to forgive as a renunciation of satisfaction. The fact that motives for revenge, atonement, punishment, compensation, reparation, demands forjustice arise through frustration of basic needs and insults to self-worth does not need to be questioned at length. The moderate success through retribution is due to the fact that we do not feel better by a counter-attack, in that we have committed injustice on our part. Punishment is reminiscent of restrictive family relationships of humiliated children who had to be prepared for drastic consequences through revenge if they wanted to express their feelings of rebellion and indignation.

Making amends can be a compensatory act. If we deny ourselves with it, it also does not help an improvement of the self-feeling. Perhaps things were different in childhood. Although making amends brought about a renewed feeling of being all right, even if remorse was shown or demanded by parents, the child could find no other way out than to transfer satisfaction by concealing hisself-experience in truthinto unattainability and thus into a counter-world that was not comprehensible for others. I understand different forms of expression of satisfaction, rehabilitation and narcissistic gratification as possibilities to organize satisfaction as compensation for offenses and internalized rejection. In my view, forgiveness does good, relinquishing satisfaction. Goodness arises from forgiveness, or fosters it, where its germ has lain dormant in us since we breathe. But perhaps we need patience for this forgiveness. For neither can what has been cut off or locked away permanently, nor can what is to come be forced. So I would like to round off my introductory thoughts with the words of Rainer Maria Rilke.

About the patience

One must leave to the things the own, quiet undisturbed development which comes deeply from the inside and can be pushed or accelerated by nothing , everything is to be carried out - and then give birth ... Mature like the tree, which does not urge its juices and stands confidently in the storms of spring, without fear that behind it no summer could come. He does come! But he comes only to the patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so carefree, quiet and far ... One must be patient with the unsolved in the heart, and try to love the questions themselves, like closed rooms, and like books written in a very foreign language. It is a matter of living everything. When you live the questions,

you may gradually, without realizing it, live into the answers of a strange day.  

Rainer Maria Rilke,

Viareggio near Pisa, April 23, 1903

Terminological discourse

The term discourse analysis refers to strands of argumentation in my research. In this respect statements of the quoted authorship serve the comparison with my presentation of facts. This is an invitation to reflect on my texts through discourse analysis. Moreover, the extensive citation corresponds to my enthusiasm for authors who are often not mentioned in the current discourse, although their scientific works are fundamental for our progress in knowledge. If my selection gives the impression of being overloaded, I recommend simply skipping the sections and following my guide. But perhaps my treatise will also offer itself as a handbook for reflection on psyche, art, and therapy.

The introduction to discourse analysis presents perspectives of ego psychology by Peter Kutter and Hermann Roskamp with reference to Freud. From their point of view, ego consciousness is to be understood as a subfield of personality. James Glover speaks of ego nuclei that gradually merge to form the coherent ego-self system. Otto Kernberg sees the self as an aspect of the ego structures and defines ego weakness as the absence of an integrated self. The result, he says, is dissociated, split-off ego states. James Masterson refers to Kernberg and explains the gradually developing differentiation of self and object concepts with special reference to the borderline syndrome. A continuation of the differentiation of ego and self is made by Kernberg, who understands the self as an intrapsychic structure composed of self-representations and the associated dispositions of affect. Supplementary definitions by Thomas Stüttgen, Erich Neumann, William Davis follow. Edith Jacobson recognizes self-representations from relational experience. Perls, Hefferline and Goodman see the self as integrator.

Peter Fonagy et al. adhere to William James, who distinguished the 'I' from the 'Me'. They speak of theconstitutional self(I) andcategorical self(Me). Thus I approach the term true self, which I equate with my notion of self-experience in truth. In contrast, the categorical self as 'Me' in James is tangential to my notion of self-experience out of habit. Further on, with Alexander Lowen and Will Davis, the sense of self is explained, with Otto Kernberg and Edith Jacobson, the sense of self-esteem. Hereby the connection to self-esteem regulation is obvious. In this respect, Kernberg's explanation of the integrated self leads to the distinction of other forms of self-experience. The false, alien, empty, and shared self are outlined. Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, and Target make reference to Donald Winnicott in this regard. The shared self, set forth by Alexander Lowen, is shown to be a divergence between self-image and sense of self.

Perspectives of ego psychology

Peter Kutter, in the preface toEgo Psychology(1974), formulates the definition of the ego as follows: "The ego is the bearer of consciousness, represents a structure or organization as a 'subfield of personality,' and mediates between drives, reality, superego, and ego-ideal. It is repressive or defensive instance, place of the representational world, of sublimation and a system occupied with certain energy. I means at the same time subject in contrast to object, organ of self-preservation, place of fear (S. Freud 1926) and origin of thinking, perception and motor activity. It represents a site of observation (A. Freud 1936), an organ of adaptation to the environment, an 'organization' with the capacity for 'synthesis' (Nunberg (1930) and is thereby 'precipitation of the abandoned object relations' (S. Freud 1923)" (Kutter 1974, VII).

Subsequently, Hermann Roskamp expands the cited definition by also referring to Freud, who sees the actual subject of the person not substantively, but defined by itsfunctions.The increasing mastery of bodily functions leads to a core or, in other words, to the "body-ego" (Freud 1923, p. 255). "But they also concern communication with the social environment, the interactions of mother and child. From the information originating in these two spheres of experience, the bodily and the social sphere, an 'initial real ego' first integrates itself in the course of innumerable distinctions between inside and outside" (Freud, p. 1915a; p. 228 in: Roskamp 1974, p. 5).

Although Freud had conceived of a primary pleasure ego, which by its nature had been conceived by him entirely under the primacy of the unconscious [id], he later corrected, over a primary real ego would form a purified pleasure ego and finally a secondary real ego. "In his 'Formulations on the Two Principles of Psychic Happening' (Freud 1911 G.W., vol. 8, p. 230), Freud had introduced the notion of the transformation of an early 'pleasure ego' into a 'real ego.' This initial 'real ego' does not pass directly into thefinal'real ego', but is replaced by a 'pleasure ego' under the dominating influence of the pleasure principle" (Psychologie des Unbewußten. Studienausgabe Vol. II, 1975 f. P. 97 in: Freud 1975, p. 97f.). Freud (1937) had pointed out that psychoanalysis could only be carried out with a "normal ego." According to my understanding, the Freudian term "normal ego" can be equated with his term "finalreal ego".

In accordance with Sandler and Rosenblatt's (1962) descriptions of the world of representations and Erikson's (1956) concept of ego identity, Kernberg sees the self as an aspect of the ego structures. If, on the other hand, an integrated self were missing, the 'ego weakness' would be reflected in ego states dissociated or split off from each other. His hypotheses on the origin of ego formation include the following features: "first, the differentiation between self and object imagines, and second, the integration of libidinous-determined with aggressive-determined self and object imagines" (Kernberg 1983, pp. 189-190). As perception and memory traces can be more and more precisely assigned, "self-imagines and object imagines are gradually distinguished from each other" (Kernberg 1983, p. 190). I explain the concept of imago later in this paper (see chapter five).

A second developmental step, "namely, the integration of those self- and object-imagines that were built under the influence of libidinous drive-derivatives and the associated affects with those other self- and object-imagines that were built under the influence of aggressive drive-derivatives and the associated affects" (Kernberg 1983, p. 190) fails in borderline disorders. In this respect, sufficiently satisfying and pleasurable experiences should provide the infant with the opportunity to build up the "fundamental self-mother imago, initially still fused into a unity, on which the primordial trust is based" (Kernberg 1983, p. 191). A drastic disturbance is given if the construction of a "totally good self-object imago" or a "good inner object" could not be developed (Kernberg 1983, p. 191). Thus, the extremely opposing and conflicting self-imagines and object-imagines would have to be kept separate from each other for reasons of defense. Thesplittingas a defense process is hereby named, the basis of ambivalence recognized.

James Masterson (1980) refers to Kernberg and divides the course of development into four phases, of which I would like to quote his description of the last phase as a supplement to Kernberg. "Phase 4:During the fourth phase, the 'good' and 'bad' self-images merge into an integrated self-concept; in other words, self-images establish coherence and continuity under the influence of polar opposite emotional/interpersonal experiences, affects are integrated, moderated, and then undergo further differentiation, and the child's self-concept and actual appearance or behavior in the social field converge. At the same time, the 'good' and 'bad' object images also merge, so that the 'good' and 'bad' mother images are integrated into a conception of the mother as a 'total' object, a conception that strongly approximates the reality of the mother in the child's interpersonal-perceptual field" (Masterson 1980, pp. 31-32).

Differentiation of ego and self

Heinz Hartmann disliked the ambiguity of the term 'ego' - once to characterize the regulating organ of adaptation as part of the person, then again to designate the person as a whole - and he introduced the termself.He understood it exclusively to meanself-representation, as Mentzos puts it, "the sum of inner images of oneself" (Mentzos 2003, p. 41). Moser and von Zeppelin conceive of aself in avery similar way: the "sum total of affective feedbacks of all kinds and associated images" (Moser & von Zeppelin 1996, p. 133). Thomas Stüttgen (1985) provides an image of the self that corresponds to theinner-psychic representation ofemotional states of the ego. The affinity between pictorial ideas and bodily sensations is striking.

Following Hartmann (1964), Kernberg understands the 'self' as "an intrapsychic structure constituted by manifold self-representations together with its associated dispositions of affect" (Kernberg 1983, p. 358). Edith Jacobson distinguishes anegoas a 'structural mental system' from theselffollowing Hermann Hartmann (1939) and fromself-representations.Self and object representations would denote the "unconscious, preconscious, and conscious intrapsychic representations of the bodily and psychic self in the system ego" (Jacobson 1978, p. 30). The establishment of the system ego goes along with the discovery of the world of objects and results in the increasing distinction between this and the self. "From the constantly multiplying memory traces of pleasurable and unpleasurable libidinal, emotional, ideational, and functional experiences and from the perceptions with which they are associatively linked, imagines of the objects of love as well as of the bodily and psychic self grow up. Initially vague and changeable, they gradually expand and develop into consistent and more or less realistic intrapsychic representations of the world of objects and the self" (Jacobson 1978, p. 30). The accounts of Kernberg, Masterson, and Jacobson are congruent.

The founders of Gestalt therapy see the self as an 'integrator', insofar as a synthetic entity. Alienations of the self they understand as 'I'. "The 'I' (i.e., the manifold identifications and alienations) must be strengthened by experiments of conscious perception of its own diverse functions until the sensation spontaneously arises that 'I' it is who thinks, perceives, and feels this" (Perls, Hefferline, Goodman 1979, p. 18). Therefore, in contrast, they name the self as a system of "constantly new contacts" (Perls, Hefferline, Goodman 1979, p. 17). They understand making contact "as desiring and rejecting, approaching and avoiding, sensing, feeling, utilizing, appraising, communicating, struggling, etc." (Perls, Hefferline, Goodman 1979, p. 11). In the fifth and last chapter I refer to this in connection with schemas.

I and Me by William James

William James coined the terms 'I' and 'Me'. "The 'categorical self' refers to the representation of all those characteristics and attributes that one ascribes to oneself,...and which one has largely inferred from the reactions with which one is met by the social environment" (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist & Target 2019, p. 211). In contrast, the 'I' referred to by James is the subjective or constitutional self. It shall prove convenient to distinguish the 'categorical self' from the 'constitutional (bodily) self' as thetrue self,since this 'categorical self' also carries thealien self, which contributes to a falsification inself-experience out of habit.Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, and Target consider it important to trace the process by which the understanding of the self as mental originator emerges from interpersonal experience. For them, there is a close connection between mentalization and the development of the self.

I and Self with Antonio Damasio

Damasio understands the 'self' as a product of language as distinct from the 'self'. InI Feel, Therefore I Am(Damasio, 2000), he distinguishes three forms of self-consciousness: proto-self, core self, and autobiographical self. "The proto-self is based on the 'totality of those brain mechanisms...that continually and unconsciously ensure that bodily states remain within that narrow range of relative stability necessary for survival'" ( p. 36). Core consciousness, basis of the core self, emerges "when the brain's representational mechanisms generate an imagined, non-linguistic account of how the organism's own state is affected by processing an object, and when this process of imagining the causative object is reinforced so that it is highlighted in a spatial and temporal context" (Damasio19992000, p. 205 in: Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist & Target 2019, p. 88).

The sense of self

Will Davis already recognizes in the infant's 'sense of self' the self as the primary organizing agency or intentional center of subjectivity, which he understands as teleorganic, i.e., as an innate capacity to serve the necessary needs of a living organism. He thus pivots to Maturana and Varela, supplementing their approach in biological terminology by paraphrasing it with the psychotherapeutic terms introduced in parentheses. "When a cell [the self] interacts with a molecule [its environment, e.g., an object] and involves it in its processes [introjection, identification, internalization], the outcome of this interaction is determined not by the properties of the molecule [the object], but by the way this molecule [the object] is received ['seen'] by the cell [the self] as it involves the molecule [the object] in its autopoietic dynamics. The changes that result from this interaction are caused by the cell's [the self's] own structure and unity" (Maturana & Varela 1998, p. 51f.; in: Davis 2020, pp. 172-173).

Security and well-being would be indicators of familiarity with the sense of self. Moreover, the sense of self would not lead to evaluations or judgments. Ryan and Brown paraphrase, "In true self-determination, there is no fixed concept of a self to protect or enhance" (Ryan and Brown 2003, p. 75; in: Davis 2020, p. 159). This is also how Thomas Fuchs is to be understood, "So the body resembles a bedrock ofunshakable certainties...like a pre-predicative (pre-reflexive) knowledge.Radcliff has recently argued that basal bodily sensations are simultaneously experiences of bodily states as well as modes of experiencing the world. This is specifically true of 'existential feelings' such as feeling athomeorbelonging to the world" (Fuchs 2009, p. 574; in: Davis 2020, p. 156). I share this view, but call this 'the essence of love'.

The self-esteem

Looking at external factors, the following components of self-esteem regulation stand out. (1) Effective libidinous satisfaction by attachment figures; (2) fulfillment of ego goals through social effectiveness and success; (3) productive realization of intellectual and cultural aspirations. In other words, libidinous occupation of the self is enhanced by love and satisfaction from attachment figures, success in social reality, harmony between self and superego, and reaffirmation of love within object representations, finally drive satisfaction and physical health. "A self with increased libidinous occupation - at peace and happy with itself, so to speak - is also able to occupy external objects and their internalized representations more strongly. If the narcissistic occupation increases, the ability to love and to give, to feel and express gratitude, to show sympathy for others, to increase sexual love, sublimation, and creativity generally increases at the same time" (Kernberg 1983, p. 364). This, he argues, increaseskindnesstoward internal objects and real persons and thus strengthens attachment relationships. This thought gives confidence.

Kernberg defines normal narcissism, the libidinous occupation of the self, by a psychic structure that integrates both libidinously and aggressively occupied parts. "Conversely, the libidinous occupation of the self decreases, for example, in the case of a loss of external sources of love, in the case of failure in the achievement of ego goals or in the fulfillment of ego claims, under superego compulsions as a result of drive needs unacceptable to the superego, in the feeling of inability to meet the expectations of the ego ideal, or generally in the case of frustration of drive needs or physical illness" (Kernberg 1983, p. 364). However, 'self-esteem' would depend on the libidinous occupation of theintegrated self.And shortly thereafter: "the superego compulsion makes the ego believe that it no longer 'deserves' the love of its inner as well as its outer objects" (Kernberg 1983, p. 364).

The intensity or level of self-esteem is to be understood as a marker of the extent to which and the level at which the self is narcissistically occupied. "Self-esteem thus denotes the differentiated levels of narcissistic occupation, while diffuse feelings of well-being, lust for life, euphoria, or satisfaction may be regarded as primitive expressions of narcissism. For example, as Jacobson (1964) has pointed out, mood swings are the main feature of a relatively primitive level of regulation of self-esteem determined by the superego; at more advanced levels of superego function, mood swings are replaced by the more precisely delineated cognitive appraisal or critique of the self" (Kernberg 1983, pp. 360-361).

An integrated self

The normal self is to be understood as anintegrated self, insofar as multipleself-representationsdynamically organize themselves into a whole.Self-representations' represent affective-cognitive structures that reflect a person's 'self-perception' in his or her real and fantasized interactions with reference persons. On the other hand, the self includes 'objectrepresentations', which Kernberg understands as internalized representations of interactions with significant attachment figures. He includes ideal selves and ideal object representations "at various stages of depersonalization, abstraction, and integration into general ego goals and ideals" (Kernberg 1983, pp. 358-359).

This performance of the ego brings about arealistic self-concept ofego consciousness. "This also explains the paradox that the integration of love and hate is a prerequisite of the normal capacity for love" (Kernberg 1983, p. 359). Sandler and Rosenblatt referred to this as the tension between real and ideal selves. Thus, object representations would also be involved in the regulation of self-esteem insofar as they were to be considered a source of narcissistic supply and libidinous occupation of the self. "The critical or punitive aspects of the superego regulate self-esteem through the predominantly 'negative' function of criticizing the self" (Kernberg 1983, p. 362). Contrary to thesesanctionswould be the ego ideal as a substructure of the superego, which would result from the integration of ideal object and ideal self imagery, as these had been introjected into the superego from earliest childhood. "... and it increases self-esteem when the self conforms to its demands and expectations" (Kernberg 1983, p. 362).

The false and the empty self

Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, and Target (2019) refer to Donald Winnicott to relate lack of mirroring or understanding by the infant's caregiver to the development of a 'false self' aspart of their concept of mentalization. "If this behavior continues despite the baby's persistent efforts, several reactions are possible, according to Winnicott: it is conceivable that the self is overwhelmed, or that it fearfully anticipates further assaults and is able to experience itself only by counteracting these assaults; finally, another possibility is that it complies, hides its own gestures, and in this way undermines its own dispositions. In the latter case, Winnicott surmised, the self will mimic its caring environment, resign itself to lack, forgo creative gestures, and perhaps even forget that they ever existed. Winnicott held that the infant compliantly responds to the caregiver's gestures as if they were his or her own, and that this compliance underlies the structure of the false self" (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist & Target 2019, p. 202).

Winnicott's view of the characteristics of thetrue selfimplies that thefalse selfcan be recognized by its lack of spontaneity or originality. Affected persons would virtually seek external assaults, even in later life, in order to repeat the experience of 'submissive relatedness' and thereby reassure themselves of their own existence. "Winnicott also described that self which appears to be real but is built on identifications with early objects, so that it lacks something that is uniquely its own. Winnicott explained that the false self sometimes asserts itself as real and also appears real to others, but leads a kind of mechanical existence in which any genuine connection between intentional states and actions is absent. A self whose constitutional own state has not been recognized is an empty self" (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist & Target 2019, pp. 202-203). In this respect, experiencing the self out of habit also involves a false self.

The emptiness reflected a lack of affect activation in the constitutional (true) self. Thus, experience became meaningless, the search for strong referents to build oneself up on became an ongoing endeavor. "The false self, according to Winnicott, fulfills the function of concealing and thus protecting the true self. The true self is the constitutional state that has been largely unrepresented by maternal mirroring....Symptom formation perhaps expresses the true self because in this way the emerging self felt in the past that it could exist without being overwhelmed by an environment that replaced its creative gestures with its own or ignored them" (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist & Target 2019, p. 203).

The foreign self

When traumatic experiences should force the child to dissociate from pain, he or she identifies with the aggressor via the 'alien self.' "The empty self is then colonized by the image of the aggressor, and the child experiences himself as evil and monstrous" (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist & Target 2019, p. 205). In addition, there is the massive shame caused by experiences of brutalization and thus the risk of destruction of the self. The team notes that analien selfmay be embedded in each of us. In early development, the child tries to free itself from this 'alien self' through externalization; if the ability to mentalize gradually develops, thisalien self iswoven into the 'self' and creates an illusory sense of coherence.

"The disorganizedly attached infant will therefore frequently control and manipulate the mother's behavior; this is part of a process of projective identification through which the infant seeks to satisfy his need to experience the self as coherent and to perceive the alien part of his self-structure outside, in others (usually in the mother). The disorganization of the self leads to the disorganization of attachment relationships by creating a constant need for this projective identification - the externalization of the alien self" (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist & Target 2019, p. 19). This addresses attachment trauma and borderline syndrome.

Negative self-concept

"Negative self-conceptis characterized by persistent beliefs about being inferior, powerless, and worthless as a person. They may be accompanied by profound and persistent feelings of guilt and shame. These may relate to the person's failure to cope better with adverse life circumstances or to prevent the suffering of others" (Reddemann & Wöller 2017, p. 19). Anegative self-concept(Cloitre et al., 2012) often applies to the individuals in my clientele, and reasons for this can be found in the experience of rejection and use as well as in being overwhelmed by the pressure of the superego and driving zeal. Fully affect regulation disorder and interpersonal disorders with a view to complex post-traumatic stress reaction (kPTBS) rarely apply to individuals in my clientele, even when experiences of violence and witnessing violence appear in their narratives.

In contrast, I have chosen the term contrastiveself-conceptorsecret self toemphasize a predominance of salutogenic personality parts over maladaptive parts, albeitambivalence splittingand defense constellations. I would like to relativize the term 'maladaptive parts' and speak of dark facets or shades of the total personality. Often I observe a tension between passively experienced and active rejection, an oscillation between tendencies torevictimizationand tonarcissistic gratificationthrough reparation, retaliation, concealment or infatuation. Problems ofaffect regulationin the narrower sense of heightened reactivity emerge in both men and women of my clientele, which I understand to benarcissistic angerand often fear of anger. Moreover, people who are affected by exhaustion depression find it extremely difficult to generate or register positive emotions in their condition.

The divided self