a process view of consciousness and the "self": integrating a sense of connectedness with...

A Process View of Consciousness and the "Self": Integrating a Sense of Connectedness with aSense of AgencyAuthor(s): Rebecca CurtisSource: Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1992), pp. 29-32Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1448789 .

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COMMENTARIES 29

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A Process View of Consciousness and the "Self": Integrating a Sense of Connectedness With a Sense of Agency

Rebecca Curtis Adelphi University

It is clear that if we are to have a science of human behavior and mental processes we must account for clinical phenomena as well as normal human functioning. My point of view regarding the importance of integrating cognitive-social and psychoanalytic psychology is more similar to West- en's than it is different. Unfortunately, the task of putting our selves together involves more than integrating these two approaches to the self. It likely requires a new model al- together. I believe one is gradually emerging from both ori- entations. I also think another model is evolving which is more ecologically valid for our global society. I discuss this new model shortly. First let me point out some areas of agreement and minor areas of disagreement before present- ing my major differences in perspective.

I generally agree with Westen's criticisms of both the cognitive and psychoanalytic selves. The use of the word self must be clarified. Elsewhere (Curtis, 199 lb) I have argued that from the cognitive perspective the word is now most frequently used to mean "self-awareness." Certainly it is not acceptable to use the word synonymously with self-concept as has been the case in some social-cognitive writings.

In the psychoanalytic literature, I expect a similar con- vergence on the meaning "self-awareness" to take place. Recently Basch (cited in Gedo, 1979) identified the self as the supraordinate system in Powers's (1973) levels of goal hierarchies. Gedo (1979) also argued that the self represents Powers's ninth and highest level, whereas the ego as concep- tualized by Freud (1923/1961) represents the eighth level, that of defensive operations. Klein (1976) presented the idea that the term self provides an integrative function, which the term ego cannot. He pointed out that the ego cannot be both

in a conflict with a drive and also create the conflict. The self would be aware of such a conflict between ego and drive. In social-cognitive psychology, Powers's system of goal hierarchies seems to be gaining wide acceptance (cf. Bandura, 1989; Carver & Scheier, 1981; Curtis, 199 1c). Thus, in both cognitive and psychoanalytic theory, the view of self as self- awareness, providing an integrative function consistent with Powers's notions of levels of control, is gaining acceptance.

With cognitive psychologists again embracing unconscious processes with their research on "implicit" memory (Roediger, 1990) and their research on altered states of consciousness (Hilgard, 1973), and psychoanalysts questioning the necessity of explicitly exploring transference processes (Menaker, 1991), it is increasingly difficult to specify the points of difference between their theoretical approaches. The major points of divergence appear to be in their data bases. Many cognitive psychologists will unfortunately consider only data from the experimental laboratory in spite of the criticisms of such data by philosophers of science in light of contemporary knowledge about the nature of the physical world (Koch & Leary, 1985; Toulmin, 1986). Many psychoanalysts ignore data not drawn from psychoanalytic case studies, although this tendency is likely diminishing as it is difficult to remain ignorant of the findings of developmental and psychotherapy researchers (cf. Curtis, 1991 a).

I agree with Westen's criticism regarding the failure of both cognitive and psychoanalytic conceptions of the self to consider fully the role of culture. There are, however, some noteworthy exceptions. In the social-cognitive literature, the social constructionist position (as in Bergen & Luckmann, 1966; Coulter, 1979; Cushman, 1991; Gergen, 1985) and



30 COMMENTARIES

Markus and Kitayama's (1991) work on culture and the self deal with the differing models of the self in other cultures. The notion of a self-system including more than one individual is found in social psychology at least as far back as a text by Stoetzel (1963) and an article by Allport (1960). Even Wundt in his Volkerpsychologie argued that all cognitive activity included a cultural element (Toulmin, 1986). More recently in the cognitive literature, researchers such as Rosch and Lloyd (1978) have included the viewpoint of cultural anthropology. Cushman (1991) recently discussed the lack of a cultural perspective in psychoanalytic thinking and Roland (1988, 1991) also addressed this shortcoming, describing the importance of the familial, spiritual, and expanding selves as differentiated from the Western "individualized" self. We must keep in mind that most of the world's peoples do not hold the Western ideal of an individualized self. These exceptions do not detract from Westen's point that most psychological and psychoanalytic theories are too culture- bound.

Westen's conceptualization of the self, however, has two major limitations: (a) its view of the self as a "structure" and (b) its omission of the alogical, nonverbal, experiential, non- temporalized, expanding self which involves much more than affect. The structure (or content) versus process differ- entiation must be given serious consideration in any theory of the self. Certainly the self-system has content and structure in that the experience of self is grounded in a biological substratum as demonstrated, for example, by Stuss's (1991) recent work regarding damage to a specific site responsible for maintaining a sense of continuity in the brain. Even say- ing this, however, we must keep in mind that whereas we locate our sense of self in the brain, for Anglo-Saxons and ancient Greeks, it was in the lungs, for ancient Egyptians in the heart, and for the Chewong in the liver (Lock, 1981).

Regardless of the structural location, consciousness and consciousness of the self as an object of awareness is central to the concept labeled "self" by both contemporary Western cognitive and psychoanalytic psychologists. Consciousness is a process, not a structure. The 20th-century view of our physical world is not one of stasis, but of process-of proba- bility and potentiality (Bohm, 1951; Hiley & Peat, 1987; Pagels, 1988; Sampson, 1985; Toulmin, 1986; Whitehead, 1969; Zohar, 1990). Westen omits this point of view from his formulation quite likely because the cognitive and psychoanalytic models he is integrating are both structural. As I point out in my discussion of primary process thinking, the "structural" point of view in psychoanalytic theory refers to Freud's (1923/1961) propositions concerning the id, ego, and superego; Hartmann's (1939/1958) "apparatuses"'; and Erikson's (1953) "modes" and "modalities" (cf. Rapaport & Gill, 1959). Freud developed the structural point of view because it was confusing to think of a conflict between conscious and unconscious processes. The development of a notion of self separate from ego eliminates the need for such structures. Conflicts can be conceived of as occurring between different wishes or goals-some conscious, others unconscious-at a given moment. What we are aware of or conscious of at a given time does not need a structure labeled "the conscious" and what we are unaware of does not require a structure labeled "the unconscious." An organizational system is a more useful metaphor.

A structural model cannot as easily incorporate the alogical data of experience of the separate processing style that

has been variously described-by Epstein (1990, 1991) as the experiential conceptual system, by Neisser (1967) as primary process thinking (as differentiated from secondary process thinking, which is logical, and different from Freud's use of these terms), by Noy (1973) as the vertical or associational mode of processing, by Bollas (1991) as free association (see also Bucci, 1985; Paivio, 1973)-because such experiences are not necessarily organized hierarchically (cf. also Roland, 1972).

My second major criticism of Westen's integration of the cognitive and psychoanalytic selves is that Westen fails to consider adequately this experiential, alogical, nonverbal, sensory self that much of recent psychoanalytic theory has addressed. Nonverbal experience (e.g., that of a "soothed self" or "frightened self") is unlikely to be organized hierarchically as Westen describes. Although I might be able to subsume myself as mother and myself as psychologist under other categories such as myself as a good person or myself as adult, I have much more difficulty providing a hierarchy for myself as castle or myself as ferris wheel. Logical, verbal interventions do not appear to be therapeutic for initiating change of such experience or organizing processes. Instead, a new nonverbal experience more frequently appears to change the self-organization. Westen's own model of cognitive-affective self-schemas is not a sufficient substitute for experiential awareness. The experiential system includes the spiritual dimension important to Jamesian and Jungian models of the self, but also to the non-Western self. This dimension includes the "primary process" or associational thinking, both conscious and unconscious, which in contemporary non-Freudian psychoanalytic theory develops in par- allel to secondary process thinking and is not devoid of a capacity for accurate reality-testing, although not primarily subject to it (Holt, 1967; Noy, 1969, 1973; Rapaport, 1960). This mode of processing, which I prefer to call associational, is the mode of the visual image, of symbolic processing, of art, described by Noy (1973) as "a process by which out of the unconscious mental activity of the one [person], messages are emitted which, when perceived by the other, may arouse his own unconscious mental activity" (p. 155).

As stated previously, primary process thinking is now no longer considered by some psychoanalysts to be the ex- clusive province of the id. Freud was attempting to include this irrational self in his concepts of the preconscious and unconscious, but his rejection of the spiritual self, which he connected with religion, led him to regard aspects of this type of processing, so frequently related to aspirations for a union with universals (or something larger than the individualized, Western consciousness), as pathological rather than as a search for a repetition of a previously rewarding experience. Jung's, Adler's, Rank's, and Fromm's attempts to include it were largely rejected and it has remained rejected by main- stream psychoanalytic and cognitive psychology until the present. If we are to have a model of the self that accounts for the experiences of most people around the world, we must have a model of the self, of expanding and contracting awareness, which allows us to have imaginary conversations with the "ghosts" of our past, present, and future, but without taking the exotic medicines from the East to which Woody Allen's Alice resorts in Allen's recent film. We need to learn how to free ourselves from individualized, rational- materialistic thinking without losing our appreciation of reality, so that we can experience what is most important in the



COMMENTARIES 31

lives of many people, our connections to the consciousness of others. As Toulmin and Leary (1985) stated, "All science, and probably all speculation, originates at a more basic level of empiricism: the level of experience" (p. 612).

A model of the self based on the stream of consciousness (cf. Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Pope & Singer, 1978), on the regulation of logical and associational processes, takes us back to the types of experiences which William James (1890/1918) and Freud were attempting to capture in their models. James failed to consider adequately unconscious processes. Freud, in his antipathy for religion, failed to account for intangible yearnings for a union with something larger than the emerging Western individualized consciousness and failed to recognize the value of conscious "primary process" thinking imbued with an accurate sense of reality. A new model of the self is emerging, however, in which information, both conscious and unconscious, is pro- cessed both rationally and experientially. Behavior is regulated, at times successfully and at times unsuccessfully, in attempts to achieve goals (cf. Curtis, 1991b, 1991c). The self-system is conceived of as a process by which the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of one system are differentiated from those of another system and organized to guide behaviors, especially valuing those related to physical or symbolic survival of the organizational system. Attention is focused broadly or narrowly and awareness is expanded or contracted (cf. Baumeister, 1991). Consciousness can be considered as having at least three major dimensions: (a) expanded-contracted, (b) logical-alogical, and (c) inter- nal-external. When we are task focused, our awareness may be contracted, logical, and externally focused-what Block and Block (1980) called "progression in the service of the ego." When we are dreaming, our awareness may be more contracted, alogical, and internally focused. When we are responding to the experience of others, our awareness can be perhaps simultaneously at both the center and periphery of each of these dimensions, that is, expanded, yet contracted, logical and alogical, both internally and externally focused, in awareness of the dialectics of our existence and of their creative interplay, and without the subject-object dichotomy of our recent Western consciousness.

It is not the cognitive and psychoanalytic selves that now need to be integrated, although that task is still immense. These views of the self are more similar than they are different, emanating from a Western culture which values agency and autonomy, and a bounded, secular, temporalized sense of self. Contemporary views of the self in both cognitive and psychoanalytic psychology endorse the view of a closed system or "equilibrium structure" (Sampson, 1985). Instead, a model of the self and consciousness is needed that is com- patible with our knowledge of the dynamic processes taking place in the nonequilibrium systems characteristic of our natural world. In such a model, both rational and alogical, experiential processes of consciousness would be recognized and self could be differentiated from nonself. But an experiential sense of community and an awareness of a union with something larger than ourselves-that is, the nonlogical "connecting" with the experience of others-would need to be valued as much as the awareness of our autonomy, agency, and uniqueness. Then psychology's view of the self as a system in the process of becoming might let us join the 20th century's interpretation of the social world and science of the physical world as observers who are, by our very nature,

interacting, creating, and being created by, the phenomena we are attempting to observe.

Note

Rebecca Curtis, Derner Institute of Advanced Psychologi- cal Studies, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY 11530.

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Methods for Inferring Self Schematization

Tracy D. Eells and Mardi J. Horowitz Department of Psychiatry

University of California, San Francisco

We find much to agree with in Westen's article, including its general focus on seeking common ground for the cognitive and psychoanalytic selves, its delineation of specific hurdles that must be overcome to achieve such a goal, and the distinctions made between various types of self-representations. Important methodological issues are raised by the tar- get article and it is these that we address in this commentary.

A key problem to studying self-representations is that many psychological processes related to the self occur outside the awareness of the individual being studied. From the cognitive perspective, as Westen points out, this is because individuals likely do not have conscious access to their own associative networks or to processes that generate emotions. From the psychoanalytic perspective, many individuals are motivated to inhibit mental contents that they might other- wise access, particularly those linked to feelings of shame, fear, guilt, and anxiety. Studying the self thus poses difficult methodological problems because one must make inferences from observed data to complex structures that can never be directly observed or reported.

Westen mentions a variety of methodologies for studying the self, including self-report, reaction-time experiments,

and structured interviews. Although each of these has advan- tages (e.g., insight into the subjective self in case of self- report and circumvention of self-report in reaction-time experiments), each has problems as well. Self-report cannot always be trusted due to subjects' limited insight, to inherent limits in introspection, and to possible defensive biases. Re- action-time experiments are problematic because researchers often cannot know how to interpret differences between experimental conditions, and further, because the interpersonal context in which a maladaptive self-schema usually operates is absent in laboratory studies. Structured-interview data can be analyzed in many ways, some of which present problems similar to those of self-report.

Westen's example of the sexually abused woman suggests other ways in which unconscious mental processes might be studied. First, the example suggests that the psychotherapy session itself can be a rich setting to study self-processes. Although the experimental controls of the social cognitivist's laboratory are absent, a broader context of a maladaptive self-schema can be explored. At the same time, the context enables videotaping and coding of a wide variety of vari- ables. Further, clinical populations may manifest rigid and,



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