ABSTRACT
We have laid the groundwork for the self-symbolizing process in the previous chapter. With the concepts of disruption, registering, and social reality we have portrayed the psychological character of what is meant by self-symbolizing and what brings it into being. The question to be asked in this chapter takes us one step further: The issue now is, “Does self-symbolizing have any impact on the person's sense of completeness?” When existing differences in prior symbolic support are taken as the independent variable (see Chapters 7–9), or when preexisting symbolic support is manipulated, as in most of the research we shall report, the resulting self-symbolizing efforts do not necessarily indicate that the person gains any sense of psychological completeness from those efforts. Our measures have usually tapped into the self-symbolizing process per se, not into the quality of completeness that follows from self-symbolizing. The issue for this chapter approaches the seemingly idealistic question of “Can the human attain an increment in completeness through self-symbolizing activity?”
