ABSTRACT
Self as context describes a sense of self that is bigger than thought, emotion and memory. This self acts to contain all these elements and provide a position from which they can be observed. This chapter describes how ACT takes a fundamentally different approach to commonly held concepts of the “self”. We all hold stories or narratives about ourselves, which invariably fail to capture our full complexity and diversity. But they work to help us get by in the world, to feel safe and coherent. These self-stories are built up over a lifetime of experiences and some may work well for us (“I’m a strong person”) but some might not (“I’m a failure”). They can be particularly prevalent and powerful in the high-stakes theatre of the workplace, where opportunities for judgement and evaluation of the self and others are countless. Developing a sense of how we relate to our own stories helps us to “get eyes on” these parts of our experience to reduce their unhelpful impact. The aim is to move to a point of observing our self-stories without always engaging.
