Self A Real Entity
It is a fact that both eastern philosophers and modern day philosophers and psychologists deny the existence of the ‘Self’ as a real entity. Eastern philosophers were hoping to end mankind’s suffering caused by what they saw as attachment to self/ego and its struggle with accepting the way things are, (which is not that different from the church’s teaching about being rewarded in heaven if you accept the way things are here on earth). Modern day philosophers and psychologists deny the existence of the ‘Self because they can’t see or observe the ‘Self’. I believe that the denial of Self as a real entity is a mistake of major proportions.
Since our origin, humans have looked up and have seen light coming from the sky. One was a very bright, warm light, and one was a smaller, cooler light, and there were lots of tiny glimmering lights. We didn’t know where any of these lights were coming from, all we knew was that we could observe the light. The observing of the light was real, even though the source was obscure. Later, much later, we have been able to establish the source and the composition of the sun, the moon, the stars, and explain why they emanate or reflect light. Knowing the composition of the source of the observable light wasn’t and isn’t necessary for us to say that the light we observed was/is real and therefore its source was real. I believe it is same with ‘self’. We have for thousands of years observed behavior, which we attributed to a part of a human being that isn’t their body or their mind. We have called it spirit, soul, being. It has been clear to us that a person who goes around the slums of India, gathering up and caring for the dead and dying, is not behaving based on a well developed body or super intelligent mind. We are clear that this behavior is being activated by another part of the person. We have been clear in observing this type of “selfless” behavior in many individuals historically and close to home. We have therefore created words in our languages to describe it. But because we can’t observe the source of this ‘selfless’ behavior, like we couldn’t observe the source of the lights in the sky, and because we don’t know the source’s origin and composition, we are trying to dismiss both the reality of the behavior, and the reality of the source.
The concept of atoms, which was put forth by Democritus in 2500 BC, as “Tiny, invisible, indivisible particles that in different combinations formed all material reality,” was similarly ignored and discredited by our much more famous philosophers. Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Kant, Decartes, Newton, Galileo, etc. who all believed matter was made up the 4 elements called air, fire, earth and water. WHY? – First of all because it was taught by wise, educated men in power, who had control over what people believed or not, and secondly, no matter how logical and intuitively correct the theory was, as was proved later in the 1850’s when we realized that atoms do exist, at that time they could not see atoms.
So we can’t see ‘Self’….so what?!
Now, I don’t think that it is all bad to not believe in things we can’t see, like the Loch Ness Monster, Leprechauns, and Superman, but when our experience continually confirms a concept we owe it to ourselves to investigate it more fully.
There is actual harm done to a person because we insist on denying the existence of a developmental self. This harm relates directly to all the issues that have the prefix ‘self': low self-esteem, no self-support, no self-confidence, no self-love, low self-worth, no self-respect, no self-awareness, no self-care, not self-motivated. They translate into terms such as: self-destructive, unconscious/unaware, self-conscious, self-doubt, self-sabotage, procrastination, conditional with one self and others, etc.
You may ask me if it is important to have a functional definition of self to do what we’re doing in therapy. For me the answer is, absolutely. Can we do what we do in psychology and psychotherapy without knowing what the Self is, or agreeing to what the Self is? To me the answer is, we certainly have been trying, but have not achieved it well enough. For the science of psychology and psychotherapy, we need to have a functional definition of the Self that everyone can agree on, so that the research that is done can be uniformly described and understood by everyone.
Many of the issues of psychology, parenting, education and medicine, such as stress, depression, personal failure, and rebellion, can be explained and healed better by viewing the ‘Self’ as being a developmental entity that can make good decisions once it is fully developed. This development is based on 1st developing its awareness so it can be fully in touch with what is wrong or missing, 2nd being able to clearly define what it wants and needs instead, which we call creating a vision, 3rd communicating these newly recognized needs effectively, and 4th doing it all with unconditional love. Self-love prompts one to obtain what one needs, and this self-love is not synonymous with being selfish.
The Story of Mary – father’s condition
The father of one of my employee’s, we’ll call her Mary, had a severe spinal injury when she was just a child. The accident not only paralyzed him from the neck down, but forced him to live in an iron lung, in an institution for the rest of his life. Left with 2 young children to raise, wife and husband agreed to divorce and for her to re-marry as the best alternative for raising the children. At this tragic and sad moment in life a choice had to be made by this unfortunate man. To live a life of purpose or to feel sorry for himself. It turned out to be a choice that lasted another 40 years. For 40 more years he had to live in a body that could not be used to take care of himself. NO matter how educated his brain was.
Many individuals have tragedy strike. Some of the tragedies are not nearly as catastrophic in terms of what is possible to reclaim in a person’s life. Bankruptcies, job loss, divorce, fires that destroy a home, robberies, car accidents, serious (but not deadly) illness, and the list goes on.
Many of the individuals who experience these tragedies are healthy, well-educated people. The rest of their life is still in front of them and the opportunity to confront their tragedy and overcome it is a very good possibility. And yet many of them become depressed, non-functioning, bitter, angry, self-pitying, defeated, unhappy individuals.