ABSTRACT
Even though it is in many ways defined as fluid and changing and the concept of the organism is more important (Point 11), even within the person-centred tradition the concept of ‘self’ is criticised, questioned and/or found wanting. For example, Holdstock (1993: 229–252) indicates that it may be necessary to revise the person-centred concept of the self in order to take account of how the self is perceived in other cultures and paradigms. Of the concept of self in other cultures, Holdstock (p. 230) writes:
the extended concept of the self may even include the deceased as well as the larger universe of animals, plants and inanimate objects. Power and control are not considered to rest predominantly with the individual but within the field of forces within which the individual exists.
Subsequently, others echoed this challenge. Briefly, what is questioned is ‘self’ as a unitary, demarcated entity in some way separate from the world. What is proposed is a ‘relational’ self intertwined not only with other people but the environment. For example, Mearns and Cooper (2005: 5) argue that people are ‘fundamentally and inextricably linked with others’ and Cooper (2007: 85–86) draws attention to and discusses the view that (p. 85) ‘human beings [are] fundamentally woven into 80their social, political and historical context rather than separable from it’. Bohart (2013: 87) argues that there is no conflict and that ‘to perceive Rogers’ concept of self as culture-specific is to misunderstand it’. This is because ‘there is no reason why Rogers’ view of the self, as a conceptual map, could not include a map of the self as connected and sociocentric’.