ABSTRACT
Just as we attach such tremendous importance to the innumerable ways towards self-formation, we should perhaps also appreciate the clinical relevance of self-decreation. This necessity of focusing on processes of deconstruction can only become evident, of course, if we can adopt a suf®- ciently perspectival outlook ± that is, if we try to somehow bear in mind our entire life cycle. We could say that we are constantly intent on the tasks of self-formation and self-preservation, whereas the cultivation of spontaneity often seems to require self-decreation. Without this attitude of unconditional consent to otherness and time, all forms of `heroism' or psychic marvels are still subject to the mechanisms of repetition and narcissistic falsi®cation.
