Self Psychology Research Articles (Page 1)

This paper addresses the longstanding ambiguity of terms such as self, identity, and subjectivity in psychology and philosophy. Rather than adding yet another definition, it introduces Metaqualia Theory (MTQ) as a structural grammar that generates these notions as derivative effects of the Q-M-T cycle: Qualia (Q) as raw experiential material, Metaqualia (M) as interpretive stances, and Transduction (T) as the stabilization of experience in social and communicative fields. Within this framework, "self" is not an intrinsic entity but the retrospective label applied when an active M is stabilized through T; "identity" denotes the socially recognized continuity of such stabilizations; and "subjectivity" is the conventional name given when Q is framed by M. MTQ thereby systematically distinguishes between self, identity, and subjectivity, while avoiding homuncular explanations. It also differentiates itself from dialogical and constructivist models by specifying structural conditions under which these labels arise, rather than assuming them as givens. The result is a coherent conceptual lexicon that integrates existing insights without collapsing into definitional disputes. MTQ thus offers psychology a grammar of consciousness capable of clarifying key terms and situating them within a unified structural account.

This study explores the embodied role of musical self-concept in the relationship between academic stress and flourishing among Chinese university music students. Music students face distinctively high levels of academic stress due to intensive practice schedules, performance anxiety, and demanding technical and creative assessments, all of which engage both their physical and psychological selves. Flourishing, defined as the integration of emotional, psychological, and social wellbeing, is essential for positive psychological health. Our sample consisted of 1,767 Chinese university music students. The findings reveal that academic stress has a significant and negative impact on flourishing, consistent with the literature on the harmful effects of stress on well-being. This study further identifies that the embodied nature of musical self-concept, particularly the emotional and communicative dimensions, significantly mediates the relationship between academic stress and flourishing. In contrast, the ability and ambition component did not show a significant mediating effect. The embodied aspects of musical self-concept are evident in the ways students physically engage with their instruments, experience emotions during performance, and integrate their sense of self into their musical practice. These results highlight the importance of cultivating a positive and embodied musical self-concept to counteract the detrimental effects of academic stress and foster flourishing. Interventions aimed at enhancing embodied musical practices and self-awareness may be particularly effective in supporting students' overall wellbeing. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the psychological and embodied dimensions that influence the wellbeing of music students, offering practical implications for educational strategies to enhance their flourishing.

This article reports on an intervention based on a new approach to career counselling in the Anthropocene era. The research aimed to examine the determinants of the changes that occurred in the research participant rather than just the changes themselves. A gifted 17-year-old male (clarifying his career choice) was conveniently and purposively selected from enrichment workshop attendees. A descriptive and instrumental case study research was used to generate data. The workshop attendees completed the Career Interest Profile and the Maree Career Matrix to facilitate the intervention. Savickas’ guidelines for analysing career construction-related data were used to analyse the data. The intervention enhanced the participant’s psychological self as an autobiographical author especially. After the intervention the participant gave evidence of an enhanced sense of eco-awareness and moral behaviour). Further research is needed to establish the short-term and long-term effect of the kind of intervention in individual and group contexts.

This article reports on the longitudinal effect of career construction counselling on a black female student experiencing career indecision. Purposive sampling was used to select an adolescent experiencing career indecision. An integrative, QUALITATIVE-quantitative methodology was employed as the research lens, and a longitudinal, seven-year, explanatory, single-participant study design was adopted. The Career Construction Interview (CCI), the Career Interest Profile (CIP), and the Maree Career Matrix (MCM) were used to elicit the participant’s many micro-life stories and key life themes and to co-construct her future career-life story narrative. Adapted thematic data analysis incorporating the analytic style proposed by Savickas was carried out to analyse the data reflexively. In the short term, the participant's psychological self as a social actor was enhanced by confirming her career choice, and her psychological self as a motivated agent was promoted by bolstering her goal-setting capacity and sense of self. Longitudinally, her self- and career identity was clarified and her sense of hope rekindled (the self as an autobiographical author was strengthened). Future research should examine the short- and longer-term effects of the approach described here in diverse career counselling contexts. More information is needed on when drawing on the CCI as a standalone assessment intervention may suffice. Keywords: Career choice indecision, Career construction counselling (intervention), Career interest profile, Maree Career Matrix, Connecting conscious knowledge with subconscious insight

This paper addresses poetic dreams from a psychological viewpoint by comparing two Romantic poets, John Keats and Victor Hugo. The study proceeds through the analysis of three major elements that are significant in the creation of Romantic identity, that is: memories, sleep and dreams. Throughout the poetic example, we attempt at a psychological reading of the depicted images and expressions that conceal symbolic meaning, mainly those in relating to natural elements. The examples analysed in this paper also raise the question of the collective unconscious as a way of joining human thoughts and needs through poetic representations of dream codes. This objective is accomplished by highlighting two psychological components: the conscious and the unconscious, as defined by Freud and Jung. The paper hence demonstrates the tension that both aspects of the psychological self can generate within the poetic extracts through deconstructing and constructing the self itself. The search for the reconciliation of each side helps define a new poetic Self.

This research paper applies an ecocritical perspective to Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway and studies how nature has been used to describe personal feelings of the characters, both major and minor in the context of industrialization and post-World War 1 era in London. Through the ecocritical lens, this paper explores how Woolf links natural elements like flowers, trees and sky with her writing techniques of the stream of consciousness and inner monologue to echo the psychological self of different characters. The ideas presented by the theorist Richard Kerridge, that of a possible ‘poetic engagement’ of literature with the natural world in an industrialized era, and Britain’s nature as a common self-referent have been taken as the framework for this research. The major research questions are: How does Woolf use nature to describe the emotional states of different characters? What role does nature play in the process of pain and healing of the characters? Why does Woolf feel the need to incorporate nature imagery while describing her character’s innermost thoughts? The paper carries out a close textual analysis of the novel, focusing on all the statements that link nature with the characters’ emotions, and draws to a conclusion claiming that this recurrence of nature in Mrs. Dalloway is a deliberate act on the author’s part to at least figuratively preserve nature in a time period that has destroyed as well as pushed nature into the background.

This research paper applies an ecocritical perspective to Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway and studies how nature has been used to describe personal feelings of the characters, both major and minor in the context of industrialization and post-World War 1 era in London. Through the ecocritical lens, this paper explores how Woolf links natural elements like flowers, trees and sky with her writing techniques of the stream of consciousness and inner monologue to echo the psychological self of different characters. The ideas presented by the theorist Richard Kerridge, that of a possible ‘poetic engagement’ of literature with the natural world in an industrialized era, and Britain’s nature as a common self-referent have been taken as the framework for this research. The major research questions are: How does Woolf use nature to describe the emotional states of different characters? What role does nature play in the process of pain and healing of the characters? Why does Woolf feel the need to incorporate nature imagery while describing her character’s innermost thoughts? The paper carries out a close textual analysis of the novel, focusing on all the statements that link nature with the characters’ emotions, and draws to a conclusion claiming that this recurrence of nature in Mrs. Dalloway is a deliberate act on the author’s part to at least figuratively preserve nature in a time period that has destroyed as well as pushed nature into the background.

The article presents the results of an empirical study of the psychological self-preservation of volunteers with varying lengths of volunteer experience. The main structural components of psychological self preservation, the level of subjective stress, and the psychological safety of the individual are identified. The presence of meaning in life and personal characteristics such as extraversion, friendliness, conscientiousness, and openness to new experiences were examined. The use of basic coping strategies in stressful situations was analysed. In order to study the psychological self-preservation of the personality of volunteers through structural components, including cognitive, emotional, behavioural, and social, the following psychodiagnostic methods were used: Ukrainian adaptation of the short five-factor personality questionnaire (TIPI-UKR); “Express diagnostics of the psychological safety of the individual”; Questionnaire of the Perceived Stress Scale PSS-10; The Meaning of Life Questionnaire MLQ 2006, and the method of psychological diagnostics of coping mechanisms (E. Heim). Psychological self-preservation implies the ability of a person to effectively adapt to negative events and the ability to think positively and rationally assess the situation. This implies the ability to manage emotions, create a positive social environment, and have the resources to restore mental and physical health after difficult life events. It was found that in the subjects, with an increase in the duration of volunteer work, the level of subjective stress increases and the level of feeling of psychological safety decreases, which also indicates that volunteer work is a complex multifaceted process and requires resources and energy. However, with regard to the presence of meaning in life, it can be seen that with increasing experience of volunteering, there is a higher level of presence and search for meaning in life. It can be assumed that volunteer work and helping others gives a sense of self realisation, significance, and personal importance. The search for meaning in life is relevant for all the subjects studied and reflects the current situation of self-realisation both professional and personal life and serves as a structural element of the psychological self-preservation framework, giving meaning and awareness to a person's activities. Further study of the structural components of psychological self-preservation requires the development and implementation of psychological training on the development of resistance to stressful situations, taking into account the presented results of empirical research

Within two decades in West Sumatra, some artists' paintings contain visualization of letters, numbers, sentences, which are sometimes arranged scattered, even upside down. This is unusual considering that contemporary painting has developed into more sophisticated forms. This research aims to explore the meaning of text visualization in contemporary paintings of artists in West Sumatra. This research uses descriptive qualitative method with Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutic approach. The object of study was selected based on purpose sampling, namely the paintings of Syahrial, Yasrul Sami, Yon Indra and Dika Adrian. The results showed that the meaning of Syahrial's painting text hints at a critical mindset in viewing the reality of life facing the value conventions of Western theories that give distance to the mindset of the community towards culture. The meaning of the text in Yasrul Sami's painting is a representation of the inner and psychological self over the problems of life. The meaning of Yon Indra's painting text leads to the essence of the attitude and mindset of the younger generation. The meaning of the text of Dika Adrian's paintings, leads to cultural consumption, social context and environment of today's young generation. From the results of the research, it can be concluded that the text in the paintings has personal meaning and social meaning. The difference in the way the text visualization is expressed in the work has an influence on cross-generational cultural consumption.

Employees of the internal affairs bodies, performing their duties in stressful situations, must maintain not only emotional stability, but also professional activity, integrity, and the ability to act lawfully and rationally. Stressful situations arising in connection with the use of state coercion measures cause psycho-emotional and physiological stress. Fire training, among other things, should be considered as a stressful situation. In this regard, when studying the discipline "Fire training", most students of vocational training need to carry out psychological self-regulation. Psychological self–regulation is, firstly, the ability to resist negative emotional stresses that arise in stressful situations; secondly, it is a conscious influence on one's psyche, which aims to relieve mental stress and bring the body to a normal state. In preparing the article, the author used mainly general scientific research methods – generalization, systematization, comparative analysis, included observation, as well as a synthesis of practical experience in fire training and an interdisciplinary review of the literature on the problem under study. Main conclusions: 1. Knowledge of ways to manage a psychoemotional state will contribute to a faster achievement of the main goal: to teach students the skillful use of firearms in any stressful situation without the influence of consciousness, that is, instinctively, at the level of intuition. 2. In the course of our research, the most simple to use and time-consuming "express" methods of managing a psychoemotional state were established. They can be used during a traumatic situation to quickly achieve a positive result, for example, during classes in the discipline "Fire training" to relieve mental stress and bring your body to a normal state at the firing line before performing a shooting exercise. 3. The traumatic factors affecting the trainees of professional training during shooting generate a state of psychoemotional and physical stress. It is characterized by tremor of the arms and legs, difficulty breathing, and a rapid heartbeat. Based on this, the author of the article used "express" methods of managing the psycho-emotional state in the classroom, which contributed to the growth of shooting results, as well as optimizing the time needed to learn shooting techniques.

The heavily discussed (neo-)Lucretian symmetry argument holds that as we are indifferent to nonexistence before birth, we should also be indifferent to nonexistence after death. An important response to this argument insists that prenatal nonexistence differs from posthumous nonexistence because we could not have been born earlier and been the same ‘thick’ psychological self. As a consequence, we can’t properly ask whether it would be better for us to have had radically different lives either. Against this, it’s been claimed we can form preferences as to which ‘thick’ (psychological) self our ‘thin’ (metaphysical) self would be better off ‘associated’ with. I argue that these discussions draw the right distinction, but do so in the wrong place: understanding the ‘thin’ self phenomenally instead of metaphysically allows us to understand how we can rationally form preferences to have been somebody else.

This article reports on the online administration of career construction counselling for a trauma survivor who sought help in resolving her career-choice ambivalence (uncertainty). The participant was purposively selected from a group of people attending a workshop on career construction counselling. An intrinsic, descriptive, exploratory intervention case study based on career construction counselling (involving administering the Career Construction Interview (CCI) to elicit the participant’s micro-narratives qualitatively) was used to generate data and adapted thematic data analysis incorporating the analytic style proposed by Savickas was used to analyse the data reflexively. The intervention shed light on the participant’s conscious knowledge about herself and on her subconsciously regulated views on her preferred future career choices. The findings confirmed the value of career construction counselling in promoting the participant’s psychological self as an autobiographical author especially. They also underlined the importance of timely intervention for trauma survivors in pre-empting the occurrence of unmastered developmental tasks and repetition of trauma. Future research should involve diverse participants in individual as well as group contexts. Equally important is contextualising the intervention discussed here to meet the distinctive diversity needs of participants in individual and group contexts.

The Self is one of the core concepts in Islamic psychology. However, the concept of the Self found in recent Islamic psychology discourse is still quite unclear since its understanding of the soul remains debatable. A deeper study on the concept of the Self should be carried out to refine the essence of the Self in Islamic psychology and straighten the problematic and reductive understanding on these issues. This paper will give brief review on the studies of the Self in Islamic psychology, then provide some views about the challenges and opportunities to develop this concept. Further discussions about this issue are also discussed in this article.

Redeemer University is a Canadian Christian university located in Ancaster, Ontario. Founded in 1983 in the Reformed Christian tradition, Redeemer’s mission is to prepare students to join Christ in his redemptive work through their careers and callings, while also fostering faculty research and scholarship in every discipline from a Christian perspective. Over the past forty years, Redeemer has evolved from a small college with limited degree granting authority to a full university offering a variety of programs including a B.A., B.Sc., B.Ed., B.B.A., B.Kin., and B. Comms. Redeemer currently faces challenges stemming from a post-Christian Canadian culture and the impact it has had on widespread individual belief in the psychological self as the ultimate source for personal identity and understanding. The changing higher education marketplace also contains a proliferation of degree granting institutions, and students are increasingly seeking clear and direct pathways to careers, making institutions like Redeemer with traditional degree nomenclature to appear less relevant and desirable. However, some of these challenges also present opportunities. Post-Christian culture also means that more Christians desire a unique, faith-based higher education institution, as it becomes more difficult to express faith in public spaces.

ABSTRACT Little is known about how patients with Korsakoff’s syndrome (KS) experience sense of self. We addressed this issue by inviting patients with KS and control participants to produce statements describing their self, that is, statements to the question “Who am I?.” Statements were analyzed regarding three self-dimensions (i.e., physical, social, and psychological). Results showed fewer “Who am I?” statements related to physical, social, and psychological self in patients with KS than in control participants. Furthermore, patients with KS produced similar number of statements describing physical, social, and psychological self; the same finding was observed in control participants. In patients with KS and control participants, verbal fluency was significantly correlated with the general production of “Who am I?” statements but not with the production of statements related to any specific self-component. These findings demonstrate how KS affects self-images in general, and more specifically, those related to physical, social, and psychological self. These findings also suggest a diminished sense of self or even identity, in patients with KS.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on individuals' sense of self perturbating the sense of connectedness with the others, touching upon deep existential fears and deep intersubjective and cultural layers, emphasizing the importance of a neuro-socio-ecological alignment for the sense of security of psychological self. We can still observe after years how social distancing measures, quarantines, and lockdowns have disrupted social connections and routines, leading to feelings of isolation, anxiety and depressive symptomatology. Furthermore, from a physiological perspective, some people continue to experience health problems long after having COVID-19, and these ongoing health problems are sometimes called post-COVID-19 syndrome or post-COVID conditions (PASC). In this complex scenario, through the operationalization of the sense of self and its psychological and physiological baseline, our aim is to try to shed some new light on elements of resilience vs. vulnerability. Here we intend the self and its baseline as the crossroads between psychology and physiology and we show how COVID-19 pandemic, especially in post-COVID-19 syndrome (PACS), left traces in the mind-body-brain system at a neuro-socio-ecological and inflammatory level.

This paper outlines a theory of psychology based on Sri Aurobindo’s conceptualization of the human being. Starting with the basic notion of self and personhood in contemporary academic psychology, largely located in the lower levels of psychological functioning, the field of Transpersonal Psychology is used as a stepping stone to access the higher reaches of humanity. A brief outline of the Advaita Vedāntic perspectives on personality then paves the way for Sri Aurobindo’s neo-Vedāntic depiction of the person. The contribution of the integral approach to the transformation of emotions, and its role in psychotherapy is then outlined. It is the author’s contention that Sri Aurobindo’s system contains a comprehensive framework of psychology, which allows for both Western as well as Indian conceptualization of the psyche and provides a synthesis, which is more than a mere sum of parts, giving a vision for an optimistic and glorious future of humankind, paving the way for divine life to manifest upon earth.

Mystical poetry and the ontology of the self in liberation psychology.

While research has shown a distrusted sense of the self in patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), little is known about how patients describe their self-image. We used the "Who am I?" task to invite patients with bvFTD and control participants to produce statements beginning with "I am…." We distinguished between statements related to physical, social, and psychological self. Analyses showed fewer statements related to physical, social, and psychological self in the patients with bvFTD than in control participants. Another result was the proportionally similar production of statements describing physical, social, and psychological self in both patients with bvFTD and control participants. Finally, the total production of "Who am I?" statements was positively correlated with verbal fluency in both patients with bvTFD and control participants. Our findings demonstrate a diminished ability of patients with bvFTD to process self-images. Our study also paves the way toward the use of the "Who am I" task as a simple and ecologically valid tool allowing for the quantitative and qualitative assessment of the sense of self in patients with bvFTD.

Alterations in one's sense of self are often considered a significant psychological symptom of dementia. However, the self is not a unified construct; it consists of a set of closely connected, yet substantive, manifestations which might not be equally impacted by dementia. Recognising the multidimensional nature of the self, the current scoping review aimed to explore the nature and scope of the evidence demonstrating change in the psychological self in people living with dementia. Adopting a cognitive psychological framework, a hundred and five (105) quantitative and qualitative studies were reviewed, and findings were organised into three main types of self-manifestations: high-order manifestations, functional aspects of the self, and foundational manifestations. Overall, the results show that although there are alterations in some of these different manifestations of the self, these do not imply a global loss of selfhood. Despite notable cognitive changes during dementia, it seems that preserved aspects of self may be enough to compensate for potential weakening of some self-processes such as autobiographical recall. Better understanding alterations in selfhood is key to addressing psychological symptoms of people living with dementia, such as feelings of disconnection and reduced agency, and may inform new pathways for dementia care interventions.