ABSTRACT
Self is explored in this chapter through the dichotomy of objective or social theories and subjective self. These are linked with a brief consideration of selfhood and the chapter finishes with an overview of two ways in which self-knowledge and associated mental wellbeing could be increased: resilience and self-compassion.
There are many social theories of the self, also known as self-concept or personality; here just a few of the most popular ones have been explored. All these social psychological understandings of the self have their foundations in the behavioural perspective. A developmental approach has been taken to describe them with the earlier theories of behaviourism, first leading into social learning theories and symbolic interaction. All these social theories support a cognitive psychological definition of the self or personality as the relatively stable traits or characteristics demonstrated by a person over time.
This definition of the self or personality is considered insufficient for the writers of this chapter who find it to be lacking in its sense of humanity. The second half of the chapter explores subjective self and the other (excluding cognitive behavioural ones) main psychological perspectives, psychodynamic and humanistic. It also outlines their philosophical underpinning. This leads to a more phenomenological psychological perspective definition of self or personality: it is the interaction between an individual’s ‘felt sense’ which provides meaning through embodied relational knowing and the world in which the person lives in time and space.
Resilience and self-compassion have both been identified as therapeutic in self-understanding and emotion regulation leading to mental wellbeing. Despite their reductive approach to the person, there is evidence to support their therapeutic usefulness.
