Personal Self

Abstract

Personal self is grounded in one’s experiences in close relationships, and is expressed through one’s actions in those relationships. In so far as they typically occur “at home” and in similarly private places, one’s personal self can be thought of as one’s “home self” or “private self”. Similarly, the self-experience that therapists have in their professional work relationships, especially vis-a-vis clients, can be described as the therapist’s “work self” or professional self. Turning from the theoretical to the practical: measures of both the therapist’s personal self and professional self were included in well-separated parts of the Development of Psychotherapists Common Core Questionnaire. Both measures were informed by the view just presented of self-aspects or role-identities as situationally activated, experienced and expressed in specific social settings and relationships. The views of interpersonal style, and the particular adjectives selected, were based on the long familiar “circumplex” model of interpersonal behavior introduced by Leary and elaborated by Carson.