To me, the concept of self seems to be one of the key components in the structure of human psychology, despite the fact that various oriental traditions (including Morita therapy) insist that it is an illusion.

In article <1993Apr12.032705.16294@news.media.mit.edu> [in sci.cognitive] nlc@media.mit.edu (Nick Cassimatis) writes:
> ....
> 4) How does consciousness develop in children? From Piaget on it has
> been clear the infants do not conceive of themselves as objects within
> the world and do not reflect upon their own activity. Yet as adults,
> they can. If people want a theory of the processes that make up
> consciousness, then seeing them added one by one in the child would be
> an excellent way to discover their existence and nature.

One observes mothers teaching their children the concept of self at an early age, with and without the use of mirrors. ``Look at you. That's you, baby Judy. She's very happy, today. What are you so happy about, Judy?''

Or when a child is misbehaving in a public place: ``Be quiet. You're disturbing all these people. See how they're looking at you. They'll think you're a very bad little girl.''

The idea is that just as the child sees various people in the world who are fascinating to her, she comes to understand that in exactly the same way she herself is a person who is interesting to others. Children seem to be intrigued by the idea that other people can look at them and find them interesting.

When children get a little older, they become fascinated by the fact that by putting on different clothing they can change the way they look to others. They want to try on any hat or other piece of clothing that is unusual and to try out their mother's lipstick, and then to look in the mirror to see how they look to other people. They are very interested in pictures of themself, especially their younger self. They are very interested in the fact that they exist over time, and that in a past time they were very different than they are now.

When my daughter was about three years old, she once asked ``If I couldn't talk when I was born, how did you know what my name was?'' When I told her that her mother and I had chosen her name, I could see that she wasn't entirely happy about that.

At a fairly early age, children begin to understand that the concept of self has to do with behavior as well as appearance. They begin internalizing in their play the behavior they observe. If mommy (or daddy) is working in the kitchen, the child plays at some sort of kitchen work. If the parent scolds the child, then afterwards the child will scold his/her doll or puppy or whatever. This seems to be one of the main ways in which human behavior is developed.

While still fairly young, children begin to develop a linguistic model of the self. It is important to have the self described by positive attributes. Insults provoke a strong emotional response. (This is a well known way in which older children tease younger ones.)

The linguistic model of the self is one of the most powerful forces in human personality and can be used to gain powerful leverage in therapy. (It is also one of the main tools used in salesmanship and other forms of manipulation.) ``Are you the sort of person who abandons his friends when they really need you / is willing to settle for mediocrity because you're afraid to seize an opportunity when it comes along / who takes what you want regardless of who else gets hurt?'' A person will do quite a bit and sacrifice quite a bit in order to be able to label themselves with positive attributes.

(In my Chronix series I have described how this linguistic model of the self is the key to creating self-esteem in therapy. During my time as a telphone counselor doing suicide intervention, it was quite conspicuous that one of the main themes from callers was self-justification. It was very important to them to defend their self-image, most often by explaining how circumstances and other people were at fault for the things they had done or that had happened to them.)

Eventually the concept of oneself goes beyond the levels of appearance and behavior and attributes/labels, and incorporates beliefs and narrative --- what I think of as the myth one develops of oneself. (I don't know to what extent this comes about because we live in a culture that is flooded with narratives, in the form of books, movies, and television.) Role models become very important in the development of this myth.

Eric Berne, the founder of Transactional Analysis, wrote about the narrative concept people have about themselves in his book Scripts People Live. A few months ago in sci.psychology a poster named Krista started to describe a form of therapy called Self Psychology (Personal Anthropology) which apparently has to do with helping people understand and come to terms with their personal myth of themselves. Unfortunately, people dumped on her so she got discouraged and never posted very much about it.

One of the key concepts in NLP is the ``separation of self from behavior.'' In changing an undesired behavior, one starts by establishing that this behavior is not part of who one is but simply something that one does and that in fact the intention behind the behavior is positive and that one is merely using a misguided means to accomplish that intention.

In doing Six-Step Reframing, which is based on this idea, I have found that many subjects will cry. These tears seem to be a very positive, wonderful thing. I believe that what is involved is that the subject has learned to hate himself because of something he does. (``Why do I do things like that when I know better? Why am I so stupid?'') Six-step reframing begins by ``dissociating'' a ``part'' of oneself that does the unwanted behavior. (``It's not me that does it, it's this part.'') Then, after establishing that the part actually has a positive intention, one is able to stop hating that part and appreciate oneself. Thus some people seem to get from Six-step Reframing an enormous sense of love and forgiveness.

(The fact that one can hate oneself is an intriguing aspect of self concept. Once one can see oneself as being just like the other people one sees in the world, then one can have emotions towards oneself just as one has emotions towards other people.)

With some clients [for want of a better word], I have found it useful to be more explicit about this than the traditional six-step pattern. I say something like ``Do you know what it's like to really care about someone and have them refuse to acknowledge you, refuse to even talk to you? Do you know what it's like to put your whole heart into trying to help someone and have them reject everything you do? Well, there's a part of yourself that you've been treating like that, because you don't like that part. I'm talking about [for instance] the Fear we were discussing earlier. That Fear has been doing its best to help you and you keep trying to ignore it. I think the least you could do right now is to just take a moment to communicate with it and let it know that you're willing to listen to what it has to say.''

Another key way in which NLP uses dissociation is by having the person step outside himself, as it were, and see himself as if he were looking at another person. NLP asserts that it is usually better, for instance, to ``dissociate'' from unpleasant memories, seeing oneself go through the experience rather than remembering the event as seen through one's own eyes at the time it was actually experienced. (One woman I worked with liked to used the term ``decentralize'' for this process. She took herself out of the center of the experience and watched it from off on the side.) This is an important part of the Fast Phobia/Trauma Cure.

My first NLP teacher, Leslie Cameron Bandler, has a technique called ``Looking at Yourself Through the Eyes of Someone Who Loves You.'' The title describes it fairly completely. The subject identifies a person in his life who really loves him, and then simply imagines floating into that person's body and watching oneself from the point of view of a person that loves one. Leslie took us through this process during my training, and I have a tape of it. When I played the tape for a friend of mine, she wept profusely and said that it was one of the most wonderful things I had ever done for her.