ABSTRACT
To get to grips with understanding self-function it is necessary to begin with a technical discussion of what constitutes the self and how the self develops, and for many this may prove to be the most difficult part of the task before us. A large part of the difficulty lies in the fact that the self is purely subjective. In ordinary awareness we live in an objective world, a world that we experience as ‘out there’. In order to grasp the self we have to change perspective, to use sense and imagination to contact pure subjectivity, and it is something that requires effort because it does not come naturally. Another part of the difficulty comes from the fact that much subjectivity lies outside conscious awareness. But this is simply to state the problem. Solutions can be found only by going into the technicalities and by making the necessary imaginative effort.
