ABSTRACT
This chapter gives a philosophical account of the concepts of self, self-relatedness, and self-referentiality. It argues for a broad and common-sense notion of self, or selfhood, that refers to persons and who they are, and not to parts of persons or aspects of how they function, such as one’s self-image, memory, or core self. The notion of self-relatedness will by developed by starting with Sören Kierkegaard’s seminal phrases on the subject in Sickness unto Death. The concept of self-referentiality will be elaborated on by making use of Ricoeur’s distinction between idem and ipse.
In the traditional Cartesian-style interpretation of psychic phenomena, psychopathological experiences are interpreted either from a first-personal or a third-personal perspective. The first-person approach leads to a view in which psychic phenomena are torn loose from their bodily anchoring. The third-person approach is inextricably bound to the problems of objectivism according to which psychopathological conditions have no meaning and don’t signify anything about the person manifesting the psychopathology. The self-relational and self-referential view on psychopathology helps to see the patient’s experiences as anchored in a spatio-temporally bounded and material “me.” Self-referring to this individual and actual me specifies reveals an, ultimately, normative dimension of personhood.
