12 Implicit Frames for Understanding Emerging Experience

"We do spend a lot of time in our own minds, even if we are largely ignoring that whole undercurrent of self-experience. The basic shape, structure, and flow of inner experience often goes unexamined. How well do we actually know the lay of the land, our own inner topologies? Here are twelve frames for understanding our experience. 1. The Self-Watching Self Right now, as you read this, part of you is having the experience of reading, and another part is aware that you're having it."

"William James noticed this - the distinction between the "I" that knows and the "me" that is known. Martin Buber added: We can relate to ourselves in different ways. We can treat ourselves as objects to analyze and fix (I-It relating), or we can meet ourselves with genuine presence and curiosity (I-Thou). The warmth being presented in our stance - the kindness and regard in the moment - changes not just the quality of our self-relation, but the outcome as well."

"The idea of a single, unified self is probably a useful fiction. We seem to be more like ensembles - with different aspects that come forward under different conditions. The you at work isn't identical to the you with old friends. These aren't masks hiding a "real" self underneath; they're all real, all you. Psychiatrist- psychoanalyst Harry Stack Sullivan described how we can imagine "good me," "bad me," and "not me" organizations of experience-different self-states that carry different feelings, memories, and ways of engaging."

Conscious experience commonly contains a dual structure: an experiencing part and a witnessing part that observes that experience. Self-relation varies from objectifying analysis to an I-Thou stance of presence and curiosity, and the emotional warmth in that stance influences outcomes. The unified self often functions as a useful fiction; multiple self-states emerge across contexts and carry distinct feelings, memories, and interaction patterns. Subjective time does not match clock time and can stretch or compress with attention and affect. Caution is warranted against literalizing plurality or creating self-fulfilling expectations about internal processes.

Read at Psychology Today