Selfhood and Consciousness: A
Non-Philosopher's Guide to Epistemology, Noemics, and Semiotics (and Other
Important Things Besides) [Entries Beginning with
"S"]
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material was written and published in
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First instalment [v1.0] published 13:00 GMT 28th February 2006;
this version [v3.11 new material] published 09:00 GMT 13th November 2007
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G.3 - The Glossary Proper (Entries S)
Sache: [German = "thing, object, article" (C.G.D.); "thing;
matter; affair; etc." (Macquarrie and Robinson, 1962,
p515).] This everyday German word for that there is inevitably regularly
used in philosophical discussions of entities and ontologies, as are its
everyday derivatives sachlich and Sachheit. It is also seen in the philosophical
German words Sachverhalt and Sachverhältnis.
Sachheit: [See firstly Sache.] This is Heidegger's
(1927/1962) notion of thinghood short of Thinghood. [Compare Dinglichkeit, and see Macquarrie and Robinson, (1962, p50; editors' footnote).]
Sachverhalt: [Erudite
German Sachverhalt = "state of affairs, circumstance"
(C.G.D.); from the roots Sache
= "thing, etc." + verhalten
= "keep or hold back"]
Although Smith (1989) argues that traces of the underlying concepts here may be
found in Aristotle's pragma and Thomas Aquinas's status
rerum, the term Sachverhalt was only formally introduced into
mental philosophy by Bergmann's (1879) "General Logic", where it was
used to describe the coming together of otherwise separate concepts during the
process of judging [see the entry for objective Idealism]. We then see
it again in the work of the Brentano school's Stumpf
(1888), where it translates as "formations", and is used to refer to
the "specific content of a judgment" (Smith, 1989/2005 online).
Husserl continued Bergmann's usage of the term, using it to draw attention to
the relative position of, and physical relationship between, a number of
figures in the perceptual scene. [Compare Sachverhältnis.]
Sachverhältnis: [Technical German Sachverhältnis = "the relation of a number of facts, states of affairs,
circumstances, etc." (this author, under advisement); from the roots Sache = "thing, etc." + Verhältnis = "relationship (of a set of
entities)".]
[See firstly Sachverhalt.] As reported by Smith (1989/2005
online) Lotze (1880) used the term sachliche Verhältnisse, translated as "material relations", as his
contribution to objective Idealism,
and Sachverhältnis is a
convenient truncation of these two words into one. As far as we can gather, the
word implies a "this-there-ness" of the totality of a scene, where
that scene contains two or more items in it in
a particular arrangement.
Saltatory Conduction: [See firstly resting potential and action potential.] This is a biologically cost-efficient method of rapid conduction of an action potential along a myelinated axon, by allowing it to "jump" from one node of Ranvier to the next. The point is that the myelin sheathing of the axon between each node of Ranvier prevents depolarising effects across the cell membrane, whilst the tube of cytoplasm within the axon is capable of bringing the adjacent node of Ranvier to its action potential threshold. Conduction thus takes place without the biochemical expense of a continuously propagating action potential.
Sarah: See case, Sarah.
Satz / Sätze: [German =
"sentence(s)".] See consciousness,
Meinong's theory of.
Scene Analysis: [See firstly perception and gestalt laws.]
Perception theorists have always been fully aware that vision invariably
requires us to consider objects within a greater, and often seriously confused,
setting [see, for example, Kant's notion of the manifold]. Making sense of such complex settings is
made easier by the perceptual system's apparently innate ability to concentrate
on a figure or two at the expense of a background it judges to be less
important. Psychologists know this as the figure-ground phenomenon, but the detailed processing
underlying the phenomenon has never been properly deciphered. Guzman (1968)
described the process as the "decomposition of a visual scene", and
Duda and Hart (1973) named it "scene analysis". One of the best
computational models is that by Marr (1982). This proposes three discrete
sub-processes, the first of which analyses a simple two-dimensional representation
of retinal excitation, and identifies the key lines, or "contours"
within it. This sets up a "primal sketch", a sort of kaleidoscopic
jumble of elementary shapes. The primal sketch is then passed to the second
stage of the process, which takes the individual "primitives" and
"makes explicit the orientation and rough depth of the visible surfaces,
and contours of discontinuities in those quantities" (Marr, 1982, p124).
This creates, in turn, a "2.5D [that is to say, "two-and-a-half
dimensional" - Ed.] sketch". However, the 2.5D sketch lacks full
"volumetric" data, especially where the objects in question are
important but partly occluded by less important objects in the foreground. The
2.5D sketch is therefore passed to the third stage of the process. This
interprets the available cues as to distance, adds in subjective
contour where appropriate, and creates thereby a "3D object
model". This is the most sophisticated representation of them all, and is
based upon "a modular hierarchical representation" (p124) of the
objects judged to be present. [For a detailed but student-friendly introduction
to Marr's theory, we recommend Frisby (1986).]
Schema: [(Pl. "schemata" or
"schemas"); Greek = schema(ta);
German = schema(te); French = schéma(s).] (1) In mental philosophy, the Greek schema, having been Germanised by Kant [see the entry for schema(ta)], was anglicised by Head (1926)
and Bartlett (1932), and then French-ised (??) by Piaget, to refer to a
general-purpose mental structure, thus .....
"Whatever is repeatable and
generalisable in an action is what I have called a scheme, and I maintain that
there is a logic of schemes. [..... They] can be
coordinated with one another, thus implying the general coordination of
actions. [.....] For example, a scheme can consist of subschemes or subsystems.
If I move a stick to move an object, there is within that scheme one subscheme
of the relationship between the hand and the stick, a second subscheme of the
relationship between the stick and the object, a third subscheme of the
relationship between the object and its position in space, etc." (Piaget, 1970, p42).
The word was given a more modern edge by
Schmidt (1975), who introduced the term "motor schema", and it
appears in a number of advanced modern theories of executive functioning [see
the review in Sections 10 and 12 of our e-paper on
"Frontal Lobe Syndrome"]. (2) As used in database theory, the term is a short form of database schema, q.v.
Schema: Although little is known about the mind's way of representing propositional knowledge, two approaches have been particularly influential over the years. The first of these is the very long-standing Associationist tradition, and the second is Head's (1926) concept of the "schema". The former derives ultimately from ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, regards knowledge as consisting of a massively interlinked network of individual ideas, and lives on as a tradition in modern network models of long term memory. Schema theory, on the other hand, emphasises the role of superordinate cognitive structures in understanding. It does not deny the existence of concepts as such, nor the importance of associations between them, but it looks up a level at how subsets of concepts are habitually organised by "an active organisation of past reactions, or of past experiences" (Bartlett, 1932, p201). Schemas predict what will happen to things in the future from how those things (or similar things) have behaved in the past, and the schema tradition has been brought up-to-date in a number of guises, including Thorndike's (1977) "story structures". [Compare story memory and script theory.]
Schema:
[(pl. = schemata) Greek =
"bearing; figure, form, shape; constitution, nature" (O.C.G.D.);
"appearance, shape" (Peters).] This classical Greek word for the
general shape of something was adapted for use within mental philosophy by Kant
(e.g., Critique, p211). It appears in
conjunction with the derived term Schematismus, to describe how the
individual schemata are processed. Here are the two terms in context [a long
passage, heavily abridged] .....
"Let us call this formal and pure
condition of sensibility, to which the concept of understanding is restricted
in its use, the schema of this
concept of understanding; and let us call the understanding's procedure with
these schemata the schematism of pure
understanding. A schema is, in itself, always only a product of the imagination
[..... and] must be distinguished from an image. Thus if I put five dots after
one another, like this, ....., then this result is an
image of the number five. Suppose, on the other hand, that I only think of a
number as such, which might then be five or a hundred. Then my thought is more
the presentation of a method for presenting [] a multitude (e.g., a thousand)
in an image, than this image itself. Indeed, in the case of a thousand I could
hardly survey that image and compare it with the concept. Now this presentation
of a universal procedure of the imagination for providing a concept with its
image I call the schema for that concept. In fact, it is schemata, not images
of objects, that lie at the basis of our pure sensible
concepts. [Further illustrations] This schematism of our understanding, i.e.,
its schematism regarding appearances and their mere form, is a secret art
residing in the depths of the human soul, an art whose true stratagems we shall
hardly ever divine from nature and lay bare before ourselves" (Kant, 1781,
Critique; Pluhar translation,
pp212-214).
Schema(te):
[German = "schema(s/ta)".] [See firstly schema.] Kant uses
the derived word schematismus
("schematism") in the quotation below .....
"In fact, it is
schemata, not images of objects, that lie at the basis
of our pure sensible concepts. No image whatever of a triangle would ever be
adequate to the concept of a triangle as such. For it would never reach the
concepts universality that makes [it] hold true for all triangles. [.....] The
schema of the triangle can never exist anywhere but in thoughts and is a rule
for the synthesis of imagination regarding pure objects in space. [.....]
"The concept dog signifies a
rule whereby my imagination can trace the shape of such a four-footed animal in
a general way, i.e., without being limited to any single and particular shape
offered to me by experience [.....]. This schematism of our understanding,
i.e., its schematism regarding experiences and their mere form, is a secret art
residing in the depths of the human soul, an art whose true stratagems we shall
hardly ever divine from nature and lay bare before ourselves" (pp213-214).
Schematismus: [German = "schematism".]
See schema.
Schizo-: This is a prefix in psychiatric English
derived from the Greek schizein,
"to split", and used to build compound technical terms such as schizoaffective, etc., as seen in the
series of entries below .....
Schizoaffective Disorder: [See firstly schizo-.] Schizoaffective disorder is one of the nine DSM-IV disorder groups under the
category header of schizophrenia and
other psychotic disorders. Its essential feature is that there is "an
uninterrupted period of illness during which, at some time, there is a Major
Depressive, Manic, or Mixed Episode concurrent with symptoms that meet
Criterion A for Schizophrenia" (DSM-IV-TR, 2000, p319).
Schizoid Autism: [See firstly schizo-.] See schizoid
personality.
Schizophrenia: [See firstly schizo-.] Schizophrenia is one of the nine DSM-IV disorder groups under the category header of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. It presents as a "marked social or occupational dysfunction" (DSM-IV-TR, 2000, p298), occasioned/accompanied by "a range of cognitive and emotional dysfunctions that include perception, inferential thinking, language amd communication, behavioural monitoring, affect, fluency and productivity of thought and speech, hedonic capacity [anhedonia], volition and drive, and attention" (ibid., p299). [For more on the cognitive dysfunctions mentioned above, see now cognitive deficit and theory of mind theory of schizophrenia.]
Schizophreniform Disorder: [See firstly schizo-.] Schizophreniform disorder is one of the nine DSM-IV disorder groups under the
category header of schizophrenia and
other psychotic disorders. Its essential features "are identical to
those of Schizophrenia (Criterion A) except for two differences: the total
duration of the illness [.....] is at least 1 month but less than 6 months
[.....] and impaired social or occupational functioning during some part of the
illness is not required (although it may occur)" (DSM-IV-TR, 2000, p317).
Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders: This is the DSM-IV header
category for the eight specific disorder groups listed below, plus a "not
otherwise specified". The common feature is a "psychotic"
quality brought to the everyday life of a patient, as now defined
.....
"The narrowest definition of psychotic is restricted to delusions or prominent hallucinations, with the hallucinations
occurring in the absence of insight into their pathological nature. A slightly
less restrictive definition would also include prominent hallucinations that
the individual realises are hallucinatory experiences. [.....] The term has
also previously been defined as a 'loss of ego boundaries' or a 'gross
impairment in reality testing'" (DSM-IV-TR, 2000, p297).
The individual conditions are schizophrenia, schizophreniform disorder, schizoaffective
disorder, delusional disorder,
brief psychotic disorder, shared psychotic disorder, psychotic disorder due to
a general medical condition, substance-induced psychotic disorder, and
psychotic disorder not otherwise specified.
Schizotypal Personality Disorder: This is one of the eleven DSM-IV
disorder groups under the category header of personality disorders. It
presents as "a pervasive pattern of social and interpersonal deficits
marked by acute discomfort with, and reduced capacity for, close relationships
as well as by cognitive or perceptual distortions and eccentricities of
behaviour, beginning by early childhood" (Long, 1995-2005 online).
Amongst these eccentricities might be idiosyncratic beliefs or magical
thinking, superstitiousness, illusions, oddness of speech, pananoid ideation,
or inappropriate affect (ibid.).
Scholasticism: See
Schoolmen, the.
Schoolmen, the: This is
Schools of Psychology: See perspectives and schools of psychology.
Schopenhauer, Arthur: [German Kantian philosopher (1788-1860).] [Click for external
biography]
Schopenhauer is noteworthy in the context of the present glossary for his
contribution towards the modern notion of the unconscious [see unconscious,
the].
Schwann Cell: Schwann cells are oligodendrocytes, that is to say, glial cells with relatively few cell processes, responsible for the myelination of neural tissue (myelin is a protein-phospholypid derived from the oligodendrocyte's cell wall).
Scientific Method: See this entry in the companion
resource.
Scientific Models: The material in this
section was previously published as an appendix to Smith
(1997), and is reproduced here with added hyperlinks and sidenotes
.....
Rosenblueth and Wiener's (1945) Classification: Rosenblueth and Wiener (1945) presented an early classification of scientific models, in which they distinguished two main types:
(a) Material Models: These are representations of a complex system by a somewhat simpler one which happens to resemble it in some way. Harré (1972) terms these "real" or "iconic" models.
(b) Formal Models: These are symbolic statements (frequently mathematical equations) which attempt to convey the characteristics of the target system.
Bertels and Nauta's (1969) Classification: This is a "three-dimensional" matrix classification of models, recognising a total of 3 x 6 x 6 (i.e., 108) discrete types of model. The three orthogonal variables making up the matrix are:
(a) Type: This variable reflects the underlying nature of the system being modelled. Three different types are recognised:
(i) Concrete: This type of model is used for physical systems, i.e., systems of real things. Thus, a planetarium is a "concrete" model of the solar system. Note that the model need not be made of concrete, nor need the things being modelled be tangible.
(ii) Conceptual: This type of model is used for systems of concepts. Thus, a plan and elevation technical drawing is a conceptual model of the house or car or whatever it is it is describing.
ASIDE: The distinction between (i) and (ii) is the same as that between physical and logical design in databases - see database design and the onward links.
(iii) Formal: This type of model is used for systems which can be described mathematically (or, at least, assisted in some way by the use of formulae or sets of formulae). Thus, the equation v = u + ft is a good formal model of linear acceleration, because it reflects the demonstrable truth that final velocity (v) is equal to initial velocity (u) plus the product of acceleration (f) and time (t).
(b) Method: This variable reflects the "working principle" of the model. The six possibilities are scale models, analogue models, ideal models (including black box models), structural models, mathematical models, and abstract models.
(c) Function: This variable reflects the purposes which the model is used for. The six possibilities are:
(i) Explorative: This covers models which seek new ways of looking at things. Thus, to state that electricity can behave like water in pipes is exploring what insights that particular analogy might bring.
(ii) Descriptive: This covers models
which record and simplify. Thus we might describe an organisational hierarchy
using a tree-structure. What matters is that the essence of a real world
complication can be conveyed more quickly by a suitable description.
(iii) Explanatory: This covers models
which set out solely to explain. Thus, to liken the heart to a pump is to
explain its role within a more complex system.
(iv) Operationalising: This covers models
which have a distinct practical use, such as crash dummies which enable safe
destructive testing, and planetaria which make "measurable" something
which otherwise would not be.
(v) Formalising: This covers models which assist calculations and predictions. Thus mathematical models are used by economists to predict the effect of interest rate changes on unemployment, etc., etc.
(vi) Bridging: This covers models which allow simulated behaviours, e.g., role play situations. They are presumed to bridge your observations with your theoretical explanations.
The 108 model types are obtained by selecting one point along each of the three main variables. For example, if you chose (i), (iii), and (iii), you would have a concrete type - ideal method - explanatory function model. Alternatively, if you chose (iii), (iii), and (iv), you would have a formal type - ideal method - formalising function model. And so on. Whether actual instances could be found for all 108 theoretically possible permutations is not known.
Warr's (1980) Classification: Warr (1980) identifies four levels of scientific explanation as follows:
(a) Conceptual Framework: This is a general perspective on an area of enquiry. It helps provide an appropriate vocabulary and some broad guiding principles. It is too broad, however, to be directly testable.
(b) Paradigm: This is a commitment to a particular type of explanation. The schism between the early behaviourists and the introspectionists involved a difference of paradigm, as does that which still exists between behaviour therapists and psychoanalysts. Warr contrasts paradigms with conceptual frameworks by describing paradigms as telling you "how to do research" in a topic area, whilst conceptual frameworks tell you "how to think about" that area.
(c) Theory: A theory is "a systematic set of conjectures about part of reality" (p293). Theories may attempt explanation, description, or prediction. Warr contrasts theories with paradigms and conceptual frameworks by arguing that theories are usually more directly testable. They can be confirmed or refuted (and if they cannot, then they were not really theories to start with).
(d) Model: Finally, Warr distinguishes models from all of the above. These are not explanations at all, but rather illustrations of explanations. They are attempts to convey complex ideas quickly by highlighting their true essence. Warr actually identifies two types of model:
(i) Models-1: These are direct representations of the target concept. They are scale models of some sort. They are "simplified representations of a part of known reality" (p295). Harré (1972) uses the term homeomorph to convey the "same-form" meaning.
(ii) Models-2: These are indirect representations of the target concept. They are metaphoric or analogous representations. They are "imported analogies to assist thinking about the unknown" (p295). They are "as if" models rather than scale models, and their key points are represented by metaphoric allusion rather than by direct representation. Harré (1972) calls these paramorphs to convey this reliance upon a higher-order similarity than mere physical resemblance.
Note that a computer simulation, in Warr's opinion, can be either a Model-1 or a Model-2 depending on the precise nature of its construction. Note also that Models-2 have always been popular, although the nature of the received metaphor has tended to change. Thus, while Descartes likened the mind to clockwork in his Sixth Meditation (Descartes, 1641), the metaphor has moved on, via the mechanical calculator and the telephone exchange, to the electromechanical calculator, and finally to the computer.
Script: [See firstly story memory.] Within the context of Schank and Abelson's theories, a script is "a structure that describes an appropriate sequence of events in a particular context" (Schank and Abelson, 1977, p422). Alternatively, it is an expectation "about what will happen next in a well understood situation" (Schank and Abelson, 1995, p5), thus "[obviating] the need to think" (p6). Sometimes referred to as an "event schema", and often equated with the planning component of executive function (whereupon it needs to be followed up by a period of script execution).
Script Execution: [See firstly script and executive function.] This is Chevignard et al's (2000/2003 online) term for the execution-and-monitoring component of executive function (which, incidentally, they suspect is a better index of dysexecutive syndrome than tests of planning per se).
Script Recitation Task: [See firstly executive function and dysexecutive syndrome.] DETAIL TO FOLLOW - In the meantime, see Godbout and Doyon (1995).
Script Theory: [See firstly script and script execution.] This term refers to Schank and Abelson's analysis of memory structures.
Second Messenger Neurotransmission: [See firstly neurotransmission.]
There seem to be two classes of receptor site involved in successful
neurotransmission. The protein molecules making up the ion channels are directly
coupled receptors, and are structured so that the neurotransmitter molecule
can bind directly with them, thus instantaneously influencing their gating
properties. Indirectly coupled receptors, on the other hand, are
situated some distance away from the ion channels, respond more slowly, and -
in some instances, at least - operate by having the neurotransmitter molecule
release what is known as a G-protein from the inner wall of the
post-synaptic membrane. This G-protein then migrates through the post-synaptic cytoplasm
and opens up ion channels "from the inside". Moreover, if one
neurotransmitter molecule can manage to release several G-proteins it allows
the transmitted signal to be amplified accordingly. Most neurotransmitter
receptors are of the indirectly coupled type (Levitan and Kaczmarek, 1991).
G-proteins are thus examples of what are known as second messenger
neurotransmitters. The first messenger is the transmitter substance
which actually crosses the synaptic gap: the second messenger, on the
other hand, is any substance - and there seem to be many - activated by the
initial binding. These substances diffuse inwards through the cytoplasm of the
post-synaptic neuron and seem to be responsible for two major biochemical
events. The first of these is concerned with propagating the action potential
(because it is, after all, one of the tasks of an excitatory neurotransmitter
to induce an EPSP, thus bringing the post-synaptic neuron closer to its
own action potential threshold), and the second is to sensitise the neuron in
question to subsequent stimulation. [Compare first messenger
neurotransmission and see Yin (1999/2003 online) for
technical back-up.]
ASIDE: One of the main points of all this technical detail is that as far as memory is concerned, any process capable of outlasting a momentary depolarising event and selectively facilitating subsequent transmission might conveniently subserve a memory of that event. Accordingly, "touch-and-glow" second messenger sensitisation could well deliver the sort of "short term continuity of consciousness" described in the Introduction, and seen in our ability, say, to repeat the early items in a short memory span list as soon as the last one has been heard without any need for rehearsal.
"Second Order"
Representation: See meta-representation.
Secondary Function: See
Freud's Project.
Secondary Gain: See conversion disorder.
Secondary Narcissism: See narcissism, primary versus secondary.
Secret Art: See Schema(ta).
Security Operations: This is
Sullivan's (e.g., 1950) notion of a basic form of mental "operation"
which serves to protect the self from anxiety by raising "our prestige and
self-respect" (p328) [for more detail, see individuality,
illusion of].
Seduction Theory: This is Freud's early theory (e.g.,
Freud, 1895), later down-graded, that "obsessional neurosis" [now
classed as obsessive-compulsive
personality disorder] and hysteria
[now classed as conversion disorder]
were caused primarily by repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse,
involving "presexual sexual shock" in the case of hysteria, and
"presexual sexual pleasure" in the case of obsessional neurosis
(Esterson, 1998/2007
online).
Seiendes: [German =
"something which is".] [See firstly consciousness, Heidegger's theory of.] According to Brentano
.....
"..... there
is one concept of the highest generality under which all the objects of our
thinking fall. [.....] It is the concept of being (das Seienden) in the
sense in which a thing has being" (Brentano, 1917, pp339-340).
Heidegger's translators add .....
"The word 'Seiendes', which
Heidegger uses [here] is one of the most important
words in the book. The substantive 'das Seiende' is derived from the participle
'seiend' [and] means literally 'that which is'; 'ein Seiendes' means 'something
which is'. There is much to be said for translating 'Seiendes' by the noun
'being' or 'beings' (for it is often used in a collective sense). We feel,
however, that it is smoother and less confusing to write 'entity' or
'entities'. We are well aware that in recent British and American philosophy
the term 'entity' has been used more generally to apply to almost anything
whatsoever, no matter what its ontological status. In this translation,
however, it will mean simply 'something which is'" (Heidegger, 1927/1962, p22; translators' footnote).
Self: In everyday usage, the term "self"
is a convenient shorthand for one's sense of
uniqueness, individuality of purpose, and free will. The relevant
dictionary definition (and there are many usages to choose from) is that the
self comprises "that which in a person is really and intrinsically [s/]he (in contradistinction to what is adventitious); the
ego (often identified with the soul or mind as opposed to the body); a
permanent subject of successive and varying states of consciousness"
(O.E.D.).
TEST YOURSELF NOW: Taking note of the
above definitions, write down a brief description of what you are, "really
and instrinsically". Then read on.
Not surprisingly, discussions of
self appear in the earliest recorded philosophy [see the coverage of Plato and
Aristotle in the entries for mind
and soul]. By the 17th century,
however, the notion of soul was beginning to smack as overly mystical, and
gradually "the self" started to replace it as a secular alternative.
John Locke, for example, saw the key to personal identity as "the sameness
of a rational being" (Locke, 1690, p247), and self (uncapitalised and
without the article "the") as "that conscious thinking thing
[.....] which is sensible or conscious of pleasure and
pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as
that consciousness extends" (p251).
TEST YOURSELF NOW: Taking note of Locke's
suggestions, write down half a dozen respects in which you are the same as you
were (a) one year ago, and (b) 10 years ago; also one respect in which you are
different. Then read on.
The notion of self also appears in
psychoanalytical theory, where it is divided into ego, id, and superego [see separate entries], as
well as in cultural anthropology, where, after Mead (1934), it is regarded as
the product of societal influence. Finally, the self is at the very heart of
the subjectivity problem of modern
consciousness studies. For example, Strawson (1997) has recently noted how
naturally the phrase "the self" fits into everyday conversation. We
use the word fluently and without preparation, and, when others use it back to
us, their usage and understanding seems to match ours. Nevertheless, this
practical value does not explain what a self is, and here Strawson identifies
four interrelated questions, namely (1) what is the nature of the human sense
of self (the “local phenomenological question”), (2) is it possible in other
organisms or systems (the “general phenomenological question”), (3) what are
the preconditions of its possession (the "conditions question"), and
(4) does it really exist in the first place.
TEST YOURSELF NOW: Taking note of
Strawson's second question, write down a brief description of "self"
or "near-self", such as you believe it to exist in (a) your pet
goldfish, (b) your pet hamster, (c) your pet cat and/or dog, (d) a zoo
chimpanzee, (e) a feral human, and (f) a recovering stroke patient.
Strawson's answer to the first of
these questions is that the ordinary human sense of the self is "the sense
that people have of themselves as being, specifically, a mental presence, a
mental someone; a single mental thing that is a conscious subject of
experience" (p407). His answer to the second question is that strictly
speaking you need to judge on the self's "thinghood" before deciding,
and that particular jury is still out [see the mind-brain debate]. His answer to the third question is deferred
"for another time" (p424). And his answer to the fourth question is a
hesitant "yes", because we do not yet know enough about "ontic distinctness" to take the
analysis all the way. He concludes by observing that "one can have a full
sense of the single mental self at any given time without thinking of the self
as something that has long-term continuity" (p423). For Dennett (1991),
the self is the "centre of narrative gravity", whilst Markus (1977)
advocates the term "self schemata",
which she defines as "attempts to organise, summarise, or explain one's
behaviour in a particular domain" (p63). She particularly emphasises the
"multi-faceted" nature of the self-concept (Marcus and Wurf, 1987),
and points out (Markus and Nurius, 1986) that there can be many "possible selves", both
generated and limited by past social experiences. The point is that the current
self is a complicated web of all these antecedent selves, each linked to
specific emotionally charged memories (they give the example of a
"successful self" linked to the memory of examination success), and
they see development as "the process of acquiring and then [either]
achieving or resisting certain possible selves" (Markus and Nurius, p955).
TEST YOURSELF NOW: Taking note of Markus
and Nurius's notion of possible selves, write down a brief description of what
you would become, "really and intrinsically" again, if you won a
lottery and never had to work again.
Sherry Turkle continues in this vein
in a paper wittily entitled "Who am we?", opening with the intriguing
phrase "There are many Sherry Turkles ....." before going on to argue
that there is no single self, but rather a multiple distributed system of
selves (Turkle, 1996). The concept of possible self is important because
it indicates affective attachments to otherwise dispassionate semantic
structures. [See now I-consciousness and observing self problem.]
Self
Actualisation: [See
firstly personality, motivation and.] This is
"The organism has one basic tendency and
striving - to actualise, maintain, and enhance the experiencing organism.
[.....] We are talking here about the tendency of the organism to maintain
itself [..... ;] to move in the direction of
maturation, as maturation is defined for each species. This involves
self-actualisation [.....]. It moves in the direction of greater independence or
self-responsibility [..... ;] in the direction of
socialisation, broadly defined" (Rogers, 1951, pp487-488).
A similar, but
considerably more detailed presentation of this view,
may be seen in Maslow (1954). In fact, Maslow's textbook favourite "hierarchy
of needs" [image]
places this ability at the very apex. Maslow identified eight specific
recommendations on how to do self-actualisation well, including
.....
1. Letting yourself
be totally absorbed in your experiencing of the world.
2. Choosing personal
growth (instead of safety and a quiet life) at every opportunity.
3. Work out (and then
work to) your own model of what a fuller self ought to look like - do not simply
follow convention.
For a fuller list of
the characteristics of self-actualised people, see Stevens (2007 online).
Self as
"I": [See
firstly self.] Ryle (1949) notes that children often ask such questions
as "What would it be like if I became you and you became me?" (p177).
The philosophical problem here is that of the "'systematic elusiveness' of
the concept of 'I'" (p178), and Ryle illustrates what is at stake by showing
us how the mind routinely interprets the pronouns "I" and
"me" quite differently in everyday speech. Thus
.....
"In the sentence 'I am warming
myself by the fire', the word 'myself' could be
replaced by 'my body' without spoiling the sense; but the pronoun 'I' could not
be replaced by 'my body' without making nonsense. Similarly the sentence
'Cremate me after I am gone' says nothing self-annihilating, since the 'me' and
the 'I' are being used in different senses. So sometimes we
can, and sometimes we cannot, paraphrase the first personal pronoun by 'my
body'" (p180).
[See now pronoun resolution, and
compare self as observer.]
Self as Observer: [See firstly self and defense mechanisms.]
In her 1936 monograph on ego defenses, Anna Freud produced a psychoanalytically
couched description of the age-old philosophical problem of phenomenal awareness. She begins by
locating the process of conscious observation in her father's basic
psychoanalytical scheme, as follows .....
"We all know that the three
psychic institutions vary greatly in their accessibility to observation. Our
knowledge of the id [.....] can be acquired only through the derivatives which
make their way into the systems Pcs and Cs. If within the id a state of calm
and satisfaction prevails [.....] we can learn nothing of the id contents. It
follows, at least theoretically, that the id is not under all conditions open
to observation. The situation is, of course, different in the case of the
superego. Its contents are for the most part conscious and so can be directly
arrived at by endopsychic perception. [..... Nevertheless, i]ts
outlines become clear only when it confronts the ego with hostility or at least
with criticism. The superego, like the id, becomes perceptible in the state
which it produces within the ego [e.g.,] a sense of guilt. Now this means that
the proper field for our observation is always the ego. It
is, so to speak, the medium through which we try to get a picture of the other
two institutions" (Freud, 1936/1968, pp5-6).
She then argues that it is not just
important for theorist-clinicians to observe their clients' egos per se, but
that they will actually learn far more when they observe those egos observing,
and never more so, indeed, than when they are in conflict with their
corresponding ids. This process of observing the observer will never be easy,
however, because the whole purpose of having ego defenses is that certain
things should remain unobservable, thus .....
"[Id] impulses run the risk of
incurring the displeasure of institutions essentially alien to them. They are
exposed to criticism and rejection and have to submit to every kind of
modification. [.....] The instinctual impulses [.....] make hostile incursions
into the ego, in the hope of overthrowing it by a surprise attack. The ego on
its side becomes suspicious; it proceeds to counterattack and to invade the
territory of the id. Its purpose is to put the instincts permanently out of
action by means of appropriate defensive measures, designed to secure its own
boundaries. [.....] All the defensive measures of the ego against the id are
carried out silently and invisibly. The most that we can ever do is to
reconstruct them in retrospect: we can never really witness them in operation.
This statement applies, for instance, to successful repression. The ego knows
nothing of it; we are aware of it only subsequently, when it becomes
apparent that something is missing [..... when] we realise that certain id
impulses are absent which we should expect to make their appearance in the ego
in pursuit of gratification" (Freud, 1936/1968, pp7-8).
Self-Assertion: This is one of the defense
mechanisms postulated by psychoanalytic
theory, and recognised by the DSM-IV
as belonging to the "high adaptive" defense
level. Self-asserting individuals deal with their emotional conflict by
expressing their feelings and thoughts "directly in a way that is not
coercive or manipulative" (DSM-IV-TR, 2000, p813).
Self, Bachman Diagram
of:
"Man's soul is, in a certain
way, entities" (Aristotle, as cited in Heidegger, Being and
Time, p34).
Although Neisser (1988) has suggested how
different memory types contribute to the mental structures which we experience
as self [see consciousness, Neisser's theory of], the most popular models of
cognition are data flow diagrams
rather than data
models. As such, they look at the distribution of functional resources
rather than at the structure of that which is being processed. They therefore
often fail to factor in the extent to which the nature of said content
predetermines the nature of its processing.
ASIDE: Readers who are unfamiliar with the
distinction between the logical and physical stages in the design of a semantic network should not be here yet.
Go back to the entries for Bachman
diagram, data
analysis and normalisation, and all entries beginning with the word database,
and follow onward links as appropriate.
It is not clear why we are generally
more interested in "what happens where" in the brain rather than
"what does it happen to" but the effect can clearly be seen at work
in the age-old localisation
of function debate [see, for example, the class-defining diagrams used by Wernicke (1874), Kussmaul (1878), and Lichtheim
(1885) to
explain the subtypes of aphasia].
Modern speech production theory is based upon upgrades of Lordat (1843), modern
aphasiological models are based upon a combination of Kussmaul (1878) and Freud (1891), and the modern medical profession
still use Lichtheim (1885) almost without amendment [see, for example, Fuller
(1993)]. To
help compensate for this omission we have as work-in-progress a Bachman diagram
version of an idealised cognitive system - click here to
see the latest version of the diagram, and click here to
learn about the software by which it is hope to access it. [If interested in
the technicalities of preparing data
flow diagrams, see our e-tutorial "How
to Draw Cognitive Diagrams".]
Self-Complexity: See
cognitive complexity.
Self-Concept: [See firstly self and ego.] This is
Carl Rogers' notion of the ideal end product of the process by which we slowly
learn to "differentiate" a "'me', 'I', 'myself'" from our
broader experience of the world [compare self,
conceptual]. In his book "Client-Centred Therapy" (Rogers, 1951),
Rogers describes the process as beginning with simple acts of physical mastery,
such as learning to walk, and as then gradually coming to involve ever more
abstract cognitive processes until, in the end, "a portion of the total
private world becomes recognised as 'me', 'I', 'myself'" (Rogers, 1951,
p497). From the outset, therefore, self-concept theory embraced both favourites
of mid-20th century American psychology, namely learning theory and
psychotherapy. A decade later, in "On Becoming a Person" (
"Life,
at its best, is a flowing, changing, process in which nothing is fixed.
[.....] I am at my best when I can let the flow of my experience carry me, in a
direction which appears to be forward, toward goals of which I am but dimly
aware. In thus floating with the complex stream of my experiencing, and in
trying to understand its ever-changing complexity, it should be evident that
there are no fixed points ..... nor
any] unchanging set of principles which I hold. Life is guided by a changing
understanding of and interpretation of my experience. It is
always a process of becoming" (Rogers, 1961, p27).
More recent approaches to the self tend to
place more emphasis on the concept side of the self/concept equation, and try
to explain how much of what we are as individuals is by its very nature
grounded in the body of propositional
knowledge often referred to as semantic
memory. Here is a recent definition .....
"Self-concept or self-identity is the
mental and conceptual awareness and persistent regard that sentient beings hold
with regard to their own being. Components of a being's self-concept include
physical, psychological, and social attributes; and can be influenced by its
attitudes, habits, beliefs and ideas. These components and attributes can each
be condensed to the general concepts of self-image and the self-esteem" (Wikipedia).
There is also a major developmental angle to the psychology of the self-concept, because the aforementioned attitudes, etc., not only start to accumulate during infancy but, once in place, dictate the direction and quality of the experiences which follow. Consider .....
"Children with a positive self-concept are capable of accepting themselves, their shortcomings included, and are [.....] described as being self-confident, enterprising, and success-oriented. They expect good results from themselves, and are confident that they will achieve them. They are ready to take risks. Failure does not distress them disproportionately. These characteristics often influence school performances favourably" (Dévai, 1990, p88).
It is reassuring to note, however, that there
appear to be no necessary differences in self-concept in cases of
learning disability. Cuskelly and De Jong (2004/2006
online) looked at "the organisation of different aspects of
self-concept" in a sample of 18 children with Down syndrome, and found
that there were no significant differences compared to normally developing
children matched for developmental age. The authors used Harter and Pike's
(1984) Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance, a
psychometric instrument which probes four subscales, namely "cognitive
competence", "physical competence", "peer acceptance",
and "maternal acceptance", and concluded that the two groups used
"similar cognitive processes in forming self-concept". There may well
be differences in intellectual attainment between the two groups, but
qualitatively they were put together the same way. Psychodynamic theorists take
yet another position, and like to distinguish between the notions of "self image", "self esteem", and "ego ideal" [see separate entries].
Here is Jacobson (1964), for example, on the relationship between the
self-concept and the basic psychodynamic constructs .....
"The meaning of the concepts of the self
and self representations, as distinct from that of the ego, becomes
clear when we remember that the establishment of the system ego sets in with
the discovery of the object world and the growing distinction between it
and one's own physical and mental self. From the ever-increasing memory traces
of pleasurable and unpleasurable instinctual, emotional, ideational, and
functional experiences and of perceptions with which they become associated,
images of the love objects as well as those of the bodily and psychic
self emerge. Vague and variable at first, they gradually expand and develop
into consistent and more or less realistic endopsychic representations of the
object world and of the self". [..... I]t is the mental representations of
the self, constituted in the course of ego formation, which become cathected
with libido and aggression and turn into objects of love and
hate" (Jacobson, 1964, p19).
[Compare self, conceptual, self-concept, dynamic, self, poly-centric, and self, private.]
Self-Concept, Dynamic: This is
Markus and Wurf's (1987) notion of a self which is (a) "active, forceful, and capable of
change" (p299), and (b) something which can only be properly understood if
the following three theoretical preconditions are taken into account
.....
1. The Multifacetedness of the
Self-Concept: The
first important premise is that the self should NOT be conceptualised as
"a unitary, monolithic entity" (p300). Instead it should be treated
as an active collecting together of mental structures and processes, capable -
rather mysteriously - of both knowing and being known.
2. The Social Situation: The second important premise is that
the "configuration of the immediate social situation" (p300) must be
expected to modulate the expression of the underlying self-concept.
3. Presently Accessible Self: The third important premise is that
overt behaviour is not always the most appropriate indicator to be observing.
There are, the authors warn, more "subtle" variables - such as mood
changes and shifts in self-esteem - which reveal more about what is going on at
self-concept level.
Markus and Wurf then provide us with a
tentative model of "the dynamic self-concept", as follows
.....
"[The dynamic self-model is] viewed as a
collection of self-representations, and the working self-concept is that subset
of representations which is accessible at a given moment. These representations
[.....] are activated depending on the prevailing social circumstances and the
individual's motivational state. Some self-representations are more or less
automatically activated as a result of salient situational stimuli. Many
others, however, are willfully recruited or invoked in response to whatever
motives the individual is striving to fulfil. [.....] The affective-cognitive system
is distinguished as one feature of the person, and the self-concept is defined
as one aspect of this system. In turn, the working self-concept is the
particular configuration of representations drawn from the self-concept that
regulates the individual's on-going actions and reactions. Thus the
individual's behaviour is regulated according to whatever set of dynamic
structures [.....] are currently activated ....." (Markus
and Wurf, 1987, p314).
Markus and Wurf's concluding
reflections include the following valuable analysis .....
"With respect to the content
and structure of the self-concept, we [..... have] yet
to confront the perennially thorny issue of what it is that is represented in
self-representations [or] who is this 'I' that is asking what is this 'me'? The
question of individual differences in the structure and organisation of the
self-concept has barely been broached. [A number of sub-issues are listed at
this point.] Toward this end, the research on general self-regulatory processes
[] should be integrated with those studies focusing specifically on how the
self regulates intrapersonal behaviour. In particular, the
place of affect regulation in the behavioural regulation cycle should be drawn
out" (Markus and Wurf, 1987, p328).
Self, Conceptual: This is one of the five qualitatively
different types of self identified
by Neisser (1988) [for the background to which, see consciousness, Neisser's theory of]. Specifically, it is our mental
representation of what we are. That
is to say, it is a set of "self-concepts", or a "notion of what
I am", or a "cognitive model". This type of self incorporates
our social roles, or "our own
notions of how we fit into society: of what we should do and how we should be
treated". [Compare self concept.]
Self-Consciousness: One formal definition of self-consciousness
is that it is "the capacity to become the object of one's own
attention" (Metzinger, 2003, p317). At the end of his review of current
theories of self-consciousness (especially the "left-brain/right
brain" approaches of Gazzaniga
and Dennett), Blachowicz (1997)
concludes as follows .....
"While self-consciousness seems
to be closely tied to the internal dialogue, and the partners of this dialogue
are equal, if not equivalent, this balance is often enough ignored, and
self-consciousness [.....] comes to be associated with
the articulating partner alone. [.....] It might be claimed that senses of self
and self-consciousness more naturally attach to executive processing systems in the brain, and that the verbal
system [.....] bears the responsibility for some general coordination of the
other systems. The more primitive experiential systems had evolved first, and
the verbal system may have developed to handle problems not taken care of at
these more basic levels. Executive coordination need not entail executive
power, however. Jaynes' [(1977)] speculative account of the development of
these two systems suggests that, prior to their integration (integration of the
two cerebral hemispheres), 'I' was associated with the
verbal system, while I received 'commands' (as from another person) from the
nonverbal system (perhaps in abbreviated speech). This 'I' has little if any
executive power [but] in time, with integration, collaboration became so close
that 'I' was no longer experienced as an isolated (powerless) facilitator, but
as the origin of my decisions as well ....." (p507).
Unfortunately, this technical usage
of the term clashes with the everyday connotation of self consciousness as a
state of embarrassment, so we should perhaps prefer more formally defined terms
such as subjectivity or selfhood.
Self, Data Model of: See self, Bachman diagram of.
Self, Divided: [See firstly defense mechanisms
in general and splitting in
particular, and note the caution in personality,
split concerning the overly loose, but popular, term "split
personality".] The term
"divided self" was formally introduced into the psychological lexicon
when the existentialist psychiatrist R.D. Laing took it as the title
for his 1960 monograph on the nature of "schizoid and schizophrenic
persons" (Laing, 1960, p9). As the term suggests, Laing's thesis was that
nature had bestowed upon each one of us an accumulation of mental resources
which - properly integrated into "an entity" - could then, by
engaging in fulfilling experiences and relationships, elevate itself to the
status of a fully-functioning and existentially complete human being. Thus .....
"The term schizoid refers to an individual the totality of whose
experience is split in two main ways: in the first place, there is a rent in
his relation with his world and, in the second, there is a disruption of his
relation with himself.
Such a person is not able to experience himself 'together with' others or 'at
home in' the world, but, on the contrary, he experiences himself in despairing
aloneness and isolation; moreover, he does not experience himself as a complete
person but rather as 'split' in various ways, perhaps as a mind more or less
tenuously linked to a body, as two or more selves, and so on. [.....] The most serious objection to the technical
vocabulary currently used to describe psychiatric patients is that it consists
of words which split man up verbally in a way which is analogous to the
existential splits we have to describe here. But we cannot give an adequate
account of the existential splits unless we can begin from the concept of a
unitary whole, and no such concept exists, nor can any such concept be expressed
within the current language system of psychiatry or psychoanalysis. The words
[available] either refer to man in isolation from the other and the world, that
is, as an entity not essentially 'in relation to' the other and in a
world, or they refer to falsely substantialised aspects of this isolated
entity. Such words are: mind and body, psyche and soma, psychological and
physical, personality, the self, the organism. All these terms are abstracta.
Instead of the original bond of I and You,
we take a single man in isolation ....." (Laing, 1960,
pp17/19; bold emphasis added).
It follows that much of Laing's work is then an
analysis of what constitutes "the inner self" in the so-called
"normal" population, so that he could more clearly understand what it
meant to be abnormal. He was
particularly interested in the mechanisms by which such normal phenomena as
self-consciousness could develop to a pathological extent in the unlucky
proportion of us who are destined for schizotypy. What
was it about the unlucky ones which allowed this to happen? And the answer, he
believed, lay in the fact that human beings engage with one another in two
different ways, on the one hand as "an organism" - "a complex, physical-chemical
system" (p21) - and on the other hand as "a person". The key
fact, indeed, was that "one acts towards an organism differently from the
way one acts towards a person" (p21), so that organism and person are
"different experiential Gestalts" (ibid.). Consider .....
"The other as person is seen by me as
responsible, as capable of choice, in short, as a self-acting agent. Seen as an
organism, all that goes on in that organism can be conceptualised at any level
of complexity - atomic, molecular, cellular, systemic, or organismic. Whereas
behaviour seen as personal is seen in terms of that person's experience and of
his intentions, behaviour seen organismically can only be seen as the
contraction or relaxation of certain muscles, etc. [.....] Seen as an organism,
man cannot be anything else but a complex of things, of its, and the processes that
ultimately comprise an organism are it-processes.
[.....] In the following pages, we shall be concerned specifically with people
who experience themselves as automata, as robots, as bits of machinery, or even
as animals. Such people are rightly regarded as crazy. Yet why do we not regard
[Reductionism itself] as equally
crazy?" (pp22-23).
Laing goes on to apply his
"existential-phenomenological" approach to the understanding and
treatment of psychosis. He makes much of the person as "the observing
self" and of a figurative mirror as the mechanism for the observer and the
observed to be one and the same, and - for the lucky ones - the way to sanity, thus .....
"This identification of the self with the phantasy of the person by whom one
is seen may contribute decisively to the characteristics of the observing
self. [.....] The individual has now a persecuting observer in the very core of
his being. It may be that the child becomes possessed by the alien and
destructive presence of the observer who has turned bad in his absence,
occupying the place of the observing self, of the boy himself outside the
mirror. If this happens, he retains his awareness of himself as an object in
the eyes of another by observing himself as the other: he lends the other his
eyes in order that he may continue to be seen; he then becomes an object in his
own eyes. But the part of himself who looks into him and sees
him, has developed the persecutory features he has come to feel the real person
outside him to have" (Laing, 1960, p117).
Moving forward a generation, the
Harvard psychiatrist Arnold H. Modell draws more on the work of Fairbairn
and Winnicott than Laing. His personal search is for the "psychic
structures" of the self (Modell, 1993, p9), and he finds Winnicott's
notion of the "true self" valuable here. Here is how he
develops his argument .....
"Winnicott emphasised the unity
of the psyche-soma: the true self is a somato-psychic phenomenon, and not
simply a psychological entity. The true self is the locus of the infant's
first creative action, which Winnicott called the 'spontaneous gesture'. The
spontaneous gesture can be viewed as the precursor of the creation of private
meanings. It is a gesture that arises from the baby alone
[.....] creating something that is independent of the mother" (Modell,
1993, p55; bold emphasis added).
"The schizoid defense of
noncommunication can be viewed as a means of protecting private space. The
deepest anxiety experienced in such cases is that intrusion into one's private
space will disrupt continuity of the sense of self. The sense of the private
self safeguards private space. This strength, in turn, depends upon one's
remaining in contact with an affective core. The integrity of this affective
core can be disrupted and decentred in a variety of ways. One familiar source
of disruption can be traced to disturbances in the mother-child relationship
[.....] in the fact that the means employed to protect private space from
intrusion are recreated within the self. In closing
oneself off from others, one may inadvertently close oneself off from oneself"
(Modell, 1993, pp96-97; bold emphasis added).
"The idea of a divided self
implicitly suggests that one portion of the self is unknown to another portion
of the self. Thus, any theory of a divided self assumes that some aspects of
the self are unconscious. Fairbairn's model contains a multiplicity of
noncommunicating selves - the central ego, the internal saboteur, the rejecting
object, the exciting object, and so forth. The central ego and the internal
objects replicate, within the self, earlier traumatic relationships. These
nonintegrated aspects of the self remain unconscious; the individual represses
not isolated ideas, impulses, or affects but 'intolerably bad internalised
objects'. What is repressed is the entire gestalt of a relationship, recorded
as a categorical memory. Even though this internalised object is unconscious,
the thoughts and [p148] affects associated with this 'bad' relationship have
continuing potential to generate conscious experience. But the associative
links to the original traumatic experience may remain repressed" (Modell,
1993, pp147-148)
Claridge (2006) has recently
revisited these issues, in the context of his research into schizotypy. His interest lies in
whether it is best to model schizotypy as a "fully dimensional" or
"quasi-dimensional" fashion. If the former, then it would suggest
that schizotypy was "a multi-genic 'nervous type' personality dimension
like any other" (p657). If the latter, it would predict instead "a
single-gene based CNS deficit" (ibid.).
Self, Dynamic: See
self-concept, dynamic.
Self, Ecological: This is one of the five qualitatively
different types of self identified
by Neisser (1988) [for the background to which, see consciousness, Neisser's theory of]. Specifically, it is "the
self as perceived with respect to the physical environment" (p36). It is
the thing at the centre of your various perceptual fields, and around which all
other things (quite literally) rotate. As such, it more or less corresponds to
your biological body, plus any
clothing you happen to be wearing, (plus your tennis racket, your pen, etc, and
- even - your car).
Self-Efficacy: [See firstly personality, motivation and.]
This is Bandura's (1977) notion of a learned expectancy that a particular
choice of behaviour will lead to a successful resolution of a perceived
threatening situation, implicit in which is the assumption that the selection
of a behaviour involves an attempt at
"coping" with the world. The process works as follows
.....
"By observing the differential
effects of their own actions, individuals discern which responses are appropriate
in which settings and behave accordingly [citation]. Viewed from the cognitive
framework, learning through differential outcomes becomes a special case of
observational learning. In this mode of conveying response
information, the conception of the appropriate behaviour is gradually
constructed from observing the effects of one's actions rather than from the
examples provided by others" (Bandura, 1977, p192).
That said, Bandura then looks
at how well the self-efficacy construct deals with the problem of "fearful
and avoidant" behaviour. His point was that "expectations of personal
efficacy" (p193) operate in a different part of the mind to "outcome
expectancies", thus .....
"An outcome
expectancy is defined as a person's estimate that a given behaviour will lead
to certain outcomes. An efficacy expectation is the conviction that one can
successfully execute the behaviour required to produce the outcomes. Outcome and efficacy expectations are differentiated, because
individuals can believe that a particular course of action will produce certain
outcomes, but if they [doubt] they can perform the necessary activities such
information does not influence their behaviour" (Bandura, 1977, p193).
Self, Emergent: In the context of the mind-brain problem in general, and of the self in particular, this is Hasker's (2001) term for a
conceptualisation of self in terms of its holistic properties. As such it is a
major exposition of the Emergent Dualism
position.
Self-Esteem: In everyday English, one's self esteem is
one's "appreciation or opinion of oneself" (O.E.D.). The same general
concept is used in psychology, but with the added overtone that self-esteem is
something which is desperately vulnerable; something which is quick to suffer
in the face of external stressors or adverse events. The main psychometric
measures of self-esteem are the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Coopersmith
Self-Esteem Inventory, and the construct has been repeatedly linked to such
phenomena as health-related behaviour (smoking, weight management, etc.),
psychological well-being, and academic performance. The key question in the
present context is where one's self-esteem comes from, and the conventional
response is that we conduct "social comparisons" and are subject to
the "reflected appraisal" of other people. Certainly, many behaviours
help build a child's self-esteem. Here is a selection from Falloon (2006 online) .....
not labelling them; giving them
"unconditional positive regard"; cheering their accomplishments;
showing interest in their efforts; accepting them as individuals; teaching them
about human dignity and its true potential; teaching them about the right to be
oneself
The advice we like best, however, is
this: "The parent who disciplines and speaks to his child as if dealing
with another thinking being - which of course he is - will provide the best
possible preparation for the years ahead" (ibid.). [See now self-esteem,
pathologies of.]
Self-Esteem, Pathologies of: [See firstly self-esteem.] Ray (1996/2006 online) has described
the effects of child sexual abuse on self-esteem .....
"Both clinical and non-clinical
samples have shown victims of child sexual abuse to be more self-destructive
than non-victims. A high incidence of suicide attempts among victims of child
sexual abuse has been found by many researchers []. Feelings of isolation,
alienation and stigmatization have been reported in both clinical and community
samples of sexual abuse victims []. A negative self-concept has been reported
as a long-term effect of child sexual abuse. Bagley and Ramsay (1986) reported
that women with very poor self-esteem were nearly four times as likely to
report a history of child sexual abuse as were the other subjects. In two
clinical samples, 87% and 60% of the victims of sexual abuse reported
self-esteem problems []."
Self, Extended:
This is one of the five qualitatively different types of self identified by Neisser (1988) [for the background to which, see
consciousness, Neisser's theory of].
Specifically, it is "the self as it was in the past and as we expect it to
be in the future, known primarily on the basis of memory. [] Amnesia is, par excellence, the pathology of
extended self." (p46). This type of self is therefore heavily dependent
upon the episodic elements of our long-term memory.
Self, False: See true self versus false self, Winnicott, Donald and self, divided.
Self, Fragile: [See firstly depression and self.]
Mollon and Parry (1984) use this term to describe the core structures of the
"depression-prone personality" (p137). Here is their opening argument .....
"A simple unitary concept of
lowered self-esteem or negative self-evaluation [] is not adequate to describe
the radical alteration in the experience of the self which emerges in
depression. Instead, a central characteristic of depression is what might be
described as a collapse in the experience of the self and an uncertainty
concerning its place in the world. [..... T]he prime
disturbance is seen as relating to the sense of self" (p137).
The authors then focus on the
development of the sense of self. Three stages are presented. The first of
these is the "primal relationship", that is to say, "a state of
primary identification with the mother" (p138), a stage in which the child
"has no clear sense of self as distinct from other" (ibid.)
and in which the mother can be seen as a kind of "psychological womb"
(ibid.). The second stage is that of "psychological birth",
and corresponds to Mahler et al's (1975) separation-individuation. The
third stage is that of the "transformations of narcissism", and
follows Kohut's earlier work in this area. The key proposal here is that for a
time we are all naturally (and, as I recall, unsufferably) narcissistic, as follows .....
"Kohut has argued that the
child's positive and cohesive sense of self is for some years absolutely
dependent upon the presence of admiring, empathically responsive others or upon
idealised others. These are thus experienced not as fully separate but as part
of the child's psychic structure; Kohut therefore terms such figures 'self-objects'.
This insight helps us to understand the catastrophic nature of early
separations since, from this point of view, separation from a significant
caretaking figure will be experienced by the child as a wrenching apart of his
or her self" (p139; emphasis added).
Kohut's point in all this is that
this narcissism has to be gratified while it is in the normal time frame to be
gratified, because otherwise it will persist unnaturally as an unrealistic need
for admiration, which, in turn, will bring with it "a consequent proneness
to shame, disappointment, and depression" (p139). Indeed, if what takes
place is "adaptation" to the mother rather than full
separation-individuation, then the child is "likely to develop what
Winnicott [] has termed a 'false
self' (p140). Mollon and Parry continue .....
"The child in this position may
not be deprived of love per se but it is love for his or her
own self that is lacking. [.....] As Masterson and Rinsley (1975) point out, if
the mother is affectionate as long as the child remains close and dependent,
but becomes cold and rejecting in response to attempts to separate and individuate,
then the child can feel either good but merged with mother, or separate from
mother but bad. Under these circumstances there is no transitional or
self-object stage; the child is either wholly in or wholly out. Since
separation brings the threat of abandonment the emergent sense of self is experienced as bad. The picture that
arises is of a mother who has herself been preoccupied to the extent that she
could not respond to the child's own needs" (p140).
Self, Fragmenting: See self, primary disturbances of.
Self Harm: [See firstly self mutilation.] In a recent
relieving anger; reminding oneself of reality; defusing suicidal
feelings; self punishment; getting a high; expressing emotional pain when words fail; asking for support when words fail; forcibly diverting
attention from intrusive recollections
ASIDE: Note that in two of
the above bullet-points we have italicised the phrase "when words
fail". This is because we believe that zonal communication difficulties
are clinically highly significant - see speech acts for a
general discussion and prohibitives for a
specific example. On this point, Zlotnik et al (1996) have noted a relationship
between self-injurious behaviour and alexithymia.
In short,
self-harm is just a rather direct and to-the-point coping strategy on the
part of a low self-esteem, damaged, and possibly cognitively incomplete,
self. [See now self harm, incestuous sexual abuse and.]
Self Harm,
Incestuous Sexual Abuse and: [See firstly the separate entries for self
harm and incest.]
What we can also say, (as has been repeatedly noted elsewhere in this glossary)
is that one of the main triggers of self-harming behaviour appears to be a
history of incestuous sexual abuse. Blume (1990), for example, cites research
by Conterio and Bever, as follows [a long extract, heavily abridged] .....
"We
believe that the self-injurer is unable to accept or express uncomfortable or
overwhelming feelings due to underlying emotional conflicts usually resulting
from early traumatic childhood experiences. Frequently the trauma is incest. In
our study 49% of self-injurers stated that they had been sexually abused and
45% stated that they had been physically abused [some both]. The child makes
sense of the violations against her body by incorporating a negative body image
[and] later in life, the self-injurer continues to exhibit 'hateful behaviour'
toward her own body. [.....] One woman who continually injured one of her hands
was eventually able to share that she was attempting to destroy the hand that
had been forced to touch a neighbour's penis. [.....] Self-injurers are often
angry people who cannot admit to, or do not know how to express, their anger.
[.....] This need originates in the early traumatic experiences where the
person felt destructively controlled; later, the adult expresses needs through
negative, demanding, manipulative behaviours, thus eliciting angry feeling in
others. The counterproductive nature of this method of
fulfillment is striking" (Conterio and Bever, in Blume, 1990, pp185-188).
Blume
herself puts it this way .....
"The
child who experiences incest learns that her body is not hers. She learns that
touch is not affection, but violation. [.....] Her body puts her in jeopardy. If the perpetrator focuses solely on
his own satisfaction, she is likely to learn that her body is designed for the
pleasure of others [whilst] if he focuses on touching her to stimulate her, she
may learn to feel betrayed by her own arousal. [.....] Her body is the
battlefield on which the incest is played out. It stores her pain and her
memories. It also stores her self-blame. In the incest
survivor's eyes, her body gets her into trouble" (p192).
WAS THIS A SENSITIVE TOPIC FOR YOU?: If for any reason you have been emotionally affected
by any of the issues dealt with in this entry, you will find suitable helpline
details in the entry for toxic parenting.
Self, Incestuous Sexual Abuse and: As noted in the entries for borderline personality disorder and multiple personality disorders, there is a body of evidence that a highly
characteristic form of self (or, indeed, of two or more dissociated selves)
is correlated with incestuous sexual abuse. Certainly, the first-hand reports from the survivors of childhood sexual
abuse routinely and forcefully return to the same core accusations. Consider
these snippets from the first-hand reports in the literature
.....
Extract #1: "Incest victims
report a kind of emotional numbness that sets in as their fathers or stepfathers
begin to molest them. It is an instinctive, protective trick, a form of denial,
not of the incest, but of the feeling of overwhelming confusion and revulsion
that accompanies it. [.....] Victims can't feel good about anything, including
themselves. Their sense of shame is total" (Sessions,
1990, pp10-11).
Extract #2: "The great
taboo is characterised by a great silence [.....] The secret [.....] is so
well-kept by the victim that no one even suspects the abuse. [.....] Most
victims learn ways to cope with the double-bind of fear of their abuser and
dependence on him; they develop ways of living with revulsion over the act and
powerlessness to do anything about it. They block feeling. They look the other
way. They numb themselves psychologically" (Sessions,
1990, p12).
Extract #3: "The terrible
tragic irony of incest is that many of the child's worst fears - about being
blamed for the abuse, about tearing the family apart, about not being believed
- are frequently borne out. [.....] 'They often blame the daughter'. [.....]
One study of 145 cases of sexual abuse in New York showed that only two
convictions could be obtained [..... and if the parents get divorced] that
makes the child a victim twice over - once by being molested and now by being blamed
for the family breakup. [.....] A fragile young psyche, barely formed, is
terrorised by a physical and emotional giant. Incest victims
are put in such a bind that escape becomes a lifelong challenge"
(Sessions, 1990, p15).
Extract #4: "To expose an
incident is to expose her own insignificance. To tell
anyone is to be disgraced in her own eyes and the eyes of others. The child
victim has no recourse but to bury, hide, and try to forget the experience. But
the humiliation will not go away. It festers, poisons, and undermines her
being. When the offence remains hidden, unanswered and
unchallenged, the sexuality, the very biology of the offended child, becomes
her shame" (Bass and Thornton, 1983, p13).
Extract #5: "In an article
on incest [] Jeanne Modesitt wrote, 'One evening after my father had fondled me
for about an hour, my body involuntarily climaxed. I had never experienced
orgasm before. I was frightened and disgusted as I looked up at my father and
saw his triumphant smile. I felt as if my body had betrayed me. I began to hate
myself'. Because she does not know that her body can respond without her
consent, or even that it can respond in such a way at all, the abused child
feels that she must have wanted the abuse, must have asked for it in some way. It is this betrayal of herself by her body that she sometimes finds
the hardest to forgive" (Bass and Thornton, 1983, p19).
ASIDE: Readers unfamiliar
with the three-layered biological control hierarchy of reflex, instinct, and
higher cognitive function should note that this is precisely what would have
been predicted by this model - see the entry for Jackson-Meynert model
for details if interested.
Extract #6: "I'm afraid
to complain because daddy won't love me won't love me love me. [.....] At
last I say the won't-love-me words: 'I'm going to tell my mommy on you!' My
father replaces bribes with threats. 'If you do, you'll have to give me back
all your toys.'" (Fraser, 1989, pp10-11).
Extract #7: "When the
conflict caused by my sexual relationship with my father became too acute to
bear, I created a secret accomplice for my daddy by splitting my personality in
two. Thus, somewhere around the age of seven, I acquired another self with
memories and experiences separate from mine, whose existence was unknown to me.
My loss of memory was retroactive. I did not remember my daddy ever having
touched me sexually. [.....] In future, whenever my daddy approached me
sexually I turned into my other self, and afterwards I did not remember
anything that had happened. [p14 ..... p24] Who was my other self? Though we
had split one personality between us, I was the majority shareholder. I went to
school, made friends, [etc.], while she remained morally and emotionally a
child, functioning on instinct rather than on intelligence [and] I blotted out
her existence, she passed out of my control as completely as a figure in a
dream. She was a servant of the house we shared. [But] did she ever run free? I can never be sure" (Fraser, 1989, p15/p24).
RESEARCH ISSUE: It would be
interesting to re-analyse the above pen-picture from the point of view of a
defect in the sort of mind-reading
ability discussed in the entries for theory
of mind, only with two of the
minds situated in the same head! One would expect the underlying split
ideation to show itself both in the production of one's own speech acts
and in the interpretation of the speech acts of others, in much the same way
that individuals with specific language impairments or autistic
spectrum disorders misinterpret the implicature
of language.
Extract #8: "I have a shirt
box full of old photographs. [.....] I say these pictures are of me but they
are not. They are of the 'glamour girl' I glued together out of tinselly bits
cut from movie magazines [.....]. Like the fairytale princess I once fancied
myself to be, this glamour girl was an alter ego I created to hide my shadow
twin. I invented her to fool myself as well as the world. I invented her to
paste over the pictures that do not appear in this box - dark photos, still
underexposed, of my other self and daddy [.....]. The job of my glamour puppet,
whom even then I called Appearances, was to
demonstrate that everything was super keen while I was most despairing. [.....]
She was programmed like a computer [.....]. So now there were
three of me, all vitally connected yet somehow separate. Like my other self,
Appearances began as my servant and then I became hers" (Fraser, 1989,
p65).
Extract #9: "Incest ravages
childhood [p13 ..... p19] It contains the violence and
violation of physical abuse, the self-esteem consequences of emotional abuse,
and often the actual or perceived abandonment of the nonperpetrating parent
[.....]. Incest is the most devastating form of abuse that a child can endure.
It robs her of her childhood, her innocence, her ownership of her body, and her
sexuality. It damages trust and disrupts bonding. It isolates her in an
unpredictable, emotionally confusing bond with her abuser, secured with secrecy
and threats. In short, incest kills. Not all at once, not totally, but one way
or another, sooner or later, piece by piece. The whole child,
or just a piece of her. Just her body or just her soul"
(Blume, 1990, p13/p19).
Extract #10: "For many
survivors, the only way to control [] unexpected and unmanageable responses is
to control their feelings - to eliminate, or numb them. This is a way of
denying power to an abuser: 'You cannot hurt me'. Often this response continues
into adulthood when others hurt them. [.....] This denial affects
particularly the ability to ask for help. Some incest survivors must
believe they are 'just fine'. Their self-esteem is based on how well they're
doing, how unaffected they are by their abuse. Although their
struggles are obvious to everyone around them, they deny that they have any
problem" (Blume, 1990, p46; emphasis added).
Extract #11: "The incest
survivor may also keep people at a great distance, never revealing feelings or
personal information - never allowing herself to be
touched emotionally. Incest survivors who are casual about their bodies may be
totally inaccessible emotionally: 'You can touch me, but you can't touch
me". An incest survivor who experiences this may flirt, talk, react, even
seem to share generously about her life, but none of this has meaning for her.
Her response to you is well rehearsed, not unlike the sexual sharing of a
prostitute: it does not indicate that you, or what she has told you, are
important to her. On the contrary, she almost seems to try to see how much she
can give without sharing or taking. She has not let you in, although it might
appear that she has. At the same time [.....s]he may
be extraordinarily sensitive to your boundaries, almost never asking intrusive,
prying questions. [.....] It is tricky to manoeuvre in this
kind of relationship, and no one can read another's mind"
(Blume, 1990, pp47-48; emphasis added).
Extract #12: "Many incest
survivors are extremely quiet, soft-spoken, and nonverbal. They are used to
trying not to be heard (even if they forget the reason), and as adults they
continue to make it difficult to hear them. [.....] Their voices are softest
when sharing highly personal information - secrets. [.....] She may be silent
when she laughs or expresses emotions of other kinds, such as anger. In bed she
is silent [..... for t]o call out with joy while
involved in this activity would make no sense" (Blume, 1990, p68).
Extract #13: "She learns
that the way to win approval is with her body - a body that has a strange power
over men, but at the same time it is an entity over which she is powerless. She
learns to use seductiveness to get what she wants. [.....] She learns that sex
has nothing to do with trust, and certainly nothing to do with equality.
Because sex invariably happens when she is unwilling, she learns that it is an
obligation: sex becomes dominance" (Blume, 1990, p209).
Extract #14: "None of these
problems may seem obvious to the outsider. To the survivor's friends, she may
seem sensitive and concerned (but never about her own needs), crazy and fun
(she's a high risk taker), strong and 'take charge' (she never gets
vulnerable), or brilliant and creative (intellectualising is safer than
feeling), seductive and sexy (she's been trained) or a little aloof. No one may
notice her lack of relationship with herself, and her inability to attain the
balance required of any healthy relationship. The adult incest survivor is
likely to become involved in sexual relationships with older and more powerful
people, repeating her relationship with her older, more powerful abuser. There
is little room for intimacy, and much opportunity for abuse and sacrifice, in
relationships that are so skewed. [..... She] has no framework for trust.
She understands neither what it means nor how it
develops" (Blume, 1990, pp242-243; emphasis added).
Extract #15: "When the
incest survivor takes control of her life, she can let go of the need to
control everyone else's. At the same time the incest survivor learns that with
power comes responsibility. [.....] To be responsible means to acknowledge what
you feel, to understand that these feelings are yours [.....], to go to the
source and share what you feel, and to do something about it if it's a problem.
[.....T]he survivor needs to see that finally she is
in control. Not of what already happened, but of how it is experienced now.
[.....] Note to partners and friends:
Painful and difficult as it is, her increasing ability to say no to what you want is a statement that she trusts
and values you [..... and] a test of your patience" (Blume, 1990, p59).
Extract #16: "Particularly
affected is assertiveness. Already a difficult skill for
women to develop because of their indoctrination to be compliant, 'lady-like',
and 'nice girls'. Assertiveness is virtually
impossible for many untreated incest survivors" (Blume, 1990, pp113-114).
Extract #17: [A long extract,
heavily abridged] "Children are born with a natural sexual awareness and
natural curiosity. They are capable of arousal from the start [.....] exploring
their bodies' sexual responses just as they explore their other senses [.....
and because] the touching feels good.
She chooses whether, when, and how to
touch her body. It is within her control. But for many women - not just incest
survivors - this moment of sexual self-determination is soon eroded. In an
ideal scenario [.....] she learns which sexual activities she enjoys and which
she does not; she decides when she wants to pursue a certain sex act and with
whom. [.....] Normally developing sexuality is of the child's choosing, and
incestuous abuse is not. Therefore, the primary message incest sends is that
the victim's sexual life is not her own" (Blume, 1990, pp204-207).
Extract #18: "Intimacy
requires self-awareness, responsibility for one's feelings, and vulnerability -
all of which are very difficult for the incest survivor. Intimacy with another
person requires a deep, honest, loving, aware relationship with oneself.
[.....] Such awareness works through levels, closer and closer to a core; many
times, one feeling covers other feelings, and only courageous, honest
exploration reveals the layers. [.....] Such exploration is often frightening
[..... and t]he irony is that when she finds a relatively healthy relationship
- one in which she is truly cared about, that offers consistency, respectful
treatment, and a safety into which she can relax - her incest issues are
especially likely to surface" (Blume, 1990, pp249-252).
Extract #19: "The child
victim's entire view of herself and the world will be clouded by the effects of
her abuse" (Blume, 1990, p12).
Extract #20: "In the special
alliance with their fathers, many children found the sense of being cared for
which they craved, and which they obtained from no other source. The attentions
of their fathers offered some compensation for what was lacking in their
relations with their mothers. Mothers were often suspicious and resentful of
this special relationship. They perceived, correctly, that what bound father
and daughter together was in part a shared hostility toward themselves. [.....]
These daughters, in
short, were alienated from their mothers, whom they saw as weak, helpless, and
unable to nurture or protect them. They were elevated by their fathers to a
special position in the family [..... and] felt obligated to fulfill this role
in order to keep their families together. [.....] Under these circumstances,
when their fathers chose to demand sexual services, the daughters felt they had
absolutely no option but to comply. Most
of the daughters (80 percent) were under thirteen years of age when their
fathers first approached them sexually. The average age was nine [.....] Force
was rarely used. It was not necessary" (Herman,
1981/2000, p83).
Extract #21: "For the emergent female self, the loss
of autonomy is staggering. Deprived of her body, her empathy, and her identity
as separate other, the daughter must now also bear the burden of guilt for the
father who has taken everything from her. [..... S]hame
is the context through which the child comes to know the self as body. [.....]
Especially in those cases where sexual violence leads to unwanted feelings of
pleasure, the shame of incest is particularly acute. Such responses to
overstimulation are perhaps the most difficult for the daughter to reconcile,
as evidenced by the account of one young survivor: 'I wanted affection from him
and the hardest thing I have had to deal with was that on two occasions I felt
pleasure. My body responded. I know it happens all the time, but it is still
the hardest thing to get over'" (Jacobs, 1994, pp123-124).
Extract #22: "In effect, the
dissociative response is a flight from body and from the female self that the
body signifies. This intrapsychic phenomenon also affords an escape from sexual
feelings, the sensations that hold the somatic memories of pain mixed with
pleasure and shame. Because sexual arousal represents a dangerous realm within
the body that when experienced is a reminder of the loss of control to a more
powerful other, the victimised daughter seems to have but two alternatives: to
deny her body and thus her victim-self, or to stay present in the realm of the
senses and risk experiencing a pleasure that can never totally be her own"
(Jacobs, 1994, pp132-133).
So what sense can we make of the
above testimony of despair? What destruction have the
abusive experiences inflicted upon the complex (and still poorly understood)
structures of the minds in question? And (perhaps even more importantly) how
can we go back into the secret times and unravel what those structures were
like before the abuse? Well let us start by agreeing in broad terms with Jacobs (1994) that incest has an awful lot to
do with "the destruction of the mother-daughter bond" (p15), that is to say, with the destruction of "the primary
parental attachment". This is Jacobs' position .....
"[The
incest victim] experiences the powerlessness of women in the most personal and
painful way, first through her own victimisation and then through the knowledge
of her mother's ineffectuality. The rage that comes to
dominate her relationship with her mother is the anger of betrayal as well as
the anger of deception" (Jacobs, 1994, p25).
We also
agree in broad terms that one of the main factors in shaping the incest
survivor's adult psyche is her "traumatic sexualisation" (Jacobs,
1994, p123). What the incest survivor is as an adult, in other words, is not
exactly what it would have been had she not been abused. For example, Price (1994) also notes what seems
almost to be a psychological need for constant reenactment of the abuse, thus .....
"Adults with a history of
incest often organise their experience of themselves and their identity around
their role in the trauma or a certain aspect of it. They frequently maintain
this identification rigidly despite conflicting behaviours and more current
feedback from others. This serves the purpose of avoiding inner conflict,
identity confusion, and maintaining an idealisation of themselves and/or their
families. This can often lead to further retraumatisation and reenactment of
their childhood and its traumatic occurrences. [..... Indeed] Shengold (1989)
has observed that 'the compulsion to
repeat dominates the lives of people who have been seduced or beaten by
psychotic and psychopathic parents'" (Price, 1994, p214; emphasis
added).
Self, Interpersonal: This is one of the five qualitatively
different types of self identified
by Neisser (1988) for the background to which, see consciousness, Neisser's theory of]. Specifically, it is "the
self as engaged in immediate unreflective social interaction with another
person" (p41). It is the social, communicating, self.
It is "the person who is engaged, here, in this particular human
exchange" (p36).
Self Knowledge: This is Ryle's (1949) term for the
"twofold Privileged Access" (p148) which a mind has "to its own
doings" (ibid.).
Self Model Theory of
Subjectivity: See consciousness, Metzinger's theory of.
Self-Mutilation: Self-mutilating behaviour includes
"cutting, burning, head banging, hair pulling, skin picking, self biting,
and hitting" (First, Frances, and Pincus, 1995, p104), and can be a major
element in differential diagnosis under DSM-IV.
The disorders this behaviour is commonly associated with are borderline
personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive
disorder, and adjustment
disorder. Comments otherwise as for self harm, q.v.
Self, Narrated: [See firstly attachment theory.] This is Miller et al's (1992) term for "the social
construction of self through discourse" (p47), that is to say, for the
role played in the creation and development of the self-concept by the mere act
of putting one's life experiences into words. Working with two comparison
samples of children, one aged 2˝ years and the other aged 5 years, the authors
carried out conversational analysis of carefully transcribed language samples.
What they were particularly interested in was the coding system used in
co-narration, that is to say, "storytelling in which child and family
members jointly contribute to an account of the child's past experience"
(p49). An 11-way classification was used, as follows .....
#1 - Self Portrayed as
Sharing an Activity: As
in "We went way down in the pool" (p53).
#2 - Self Set Apart: Phrases with "no explicit
reference to a social nexus" (p54), as in "All by myself" (p53).
#3 - Other(s) Liked Self: As in "He wanted to play with me" (p54).
#4 - Self Liked Other(s): As in "I taught my little brother how to colour" (p54).
#5 - Other(s) Disliked
Self: As in
"She don't like me" (p54).
#6 - Self Disliked
Other: As in
"I hate Leslie" (p54).
#7 - Self and Other in
Conflict: As in
"Jimmy hit me" (p54).
#8 - Other
Transgressed against Self: As in "Ernie said I am fraidy cat" (p54).
#9 - Self Transgressed
against Other: As
in "Aren't you supposed to come and ask me first?" (p54).
#10 - Self Compared
with Other: As in
"I didn't win anything" (p54).
#11 - Not Otherwise Coded: Reserved for ambiguities and exceptions.
Their results indicated that
personal storytelling was a typical behaviour at both ages, albeit four of the
more "linguistically immature" (p55) 2˝-year olds did not produce the
target of ten naturally occurring co-narrations and the average rate of
co-narrations doubled from a mean of 4.1 per hour in the younger group to a
mean of 7.5 per hour in the older group. The general pattern of usage of the 11
types of co-narration showed no major change, although the identity of the
"other" tended to move from family member with the younger group to
peer for the older group. Categories #1, #3, and #10 were by far the most
frequently used at both ages (40%/39%, 22%/13%, and 14%/18%, respectively).
Here are the authors' own conclusions .....
"The findings suggest that this
type of discourse [i.e., co-narration] was a regular part of family life for
these young children from culturally diverse backgrounds. Observed in their
homes by racially and culturally similar researchers, they engaged recurrently
in co-narrated personal storytelling in which child and family members jointly
contributed to an account of the child's past experience [..... suggesting]
that this form of talk is an important means by which young children, together
with family members, experience and re-experience self in relation to other.
[.....] The repeated interaction of original experiences,
memory and encoding of experiences, and exchanges of messages about experiences
[.....] is likely to be far more complex than former theories of
self-development have posited" (Miller et al, 1992, pp60-61).
Selfobject: See narcissistic
rage.
Self-Object:
See object,
self as.
Self-Observation: This is one of the defense mechanisms postulated by psychoanalytic theory, and recognised by the DSM-IV as
belonging to the "high adaptive" defense level.
Self-observing individuals deal with their emotional conflict by reflecting
upon their feelings and thoughts in the hope that this will inspire the most emotionally
cost-effective response.
Self, Overburdened: See self, primary disturbances of.
Self, Overstimulated: See self, primary disturbances of.
Self, Poly-Centric: [See firstly object
relations theory and psychology,
archetypal.] This is Hillman's (1983) post-Jungian notion of a
multi-faceted self with a number of alternative driving seats [the explanatory
metaphor is ours]. The particular take on the issue is Hillman's observation
that "the dreamer is in the image rather than the image in the dreamer"
(1983, p6). Images do not "stand for anything", in other words, but
"are the psyche itself, in its imaginative visibility" (ibid.). They are the "primary
datum". At the same time [Hillman adopts Corbin (1958) here] imagination
is "an activity of soul" to which it itself bears witness,
and the image "is the primary psychological datum" (p9).
Nevertheless, the fact that there is a number of major
archetypal images predicts that there is a like number of major alternatively
centred selves. [See Fonda (1995/2007 online)
for a convenient review of polycentrism in the theories of Klein, Fairbairn,
and Winnicott.]
Self, Primary Disturbances of: This is one of the two categories
in Kohut and Wolf's (1978) classification of
disturbances of the self (the other being self,
secondary disturbances of). Five sub-categories of primary disturbance were
then noted, summarised by Chessick (1985) as follows .....
1. Psychoses: With psychoses, the pathology is to
the "nuclear self", is
serious, and is not effectively mitigated by "substantial or reliable
defensive structures" (p182).
2. Borderline States: With borderline states, the base
pathology is as for (1), but there is some attempt at defensive mitigation.
3. Schizoid and Paranoid
Personalities:
Here, the pathology is again as for (1), but the defensive strategy is to
"wall off the self" in order to maintain "emotional
distance" (p182).
4. Narcissistic Behaviour Disorders: With narcissistic behaviour
disorders, the pathology is towards "perversions, addictions, and
delinquency", but the self is "significantly more resilient"
than (1) to (3) (p182).
5. Narcissistic Personality
Disorders: With
narcissistic personality disorders, the pathology is as for (4), but with
additional symptoms of "hypochondria, malaise, boredom, depression, and
hypersensitivity to slights" (p183).
Kohut and Wolf also distinguish the
following clinical patterns of self .....
1. The Understimulated
Self: This is a pattern of self structuring resulting from "a chronic
lack of stimulating responsiveness from the selfobject
of childhood" (p183), and characterised by "a lack of vitality,
boredom, and apathy".
2. The Fragmenting Self: This is a
pattern of self structuring resulting from "the loss of a sense of a
cohesive self" (p183), and characterised by "dishevelled dress,
posture and gait disturbances, vague anxiety, time and space disorientation,
and hypochondriacal concerns". [Chessick reassures mild sufferers from these particular
afflictions that they can also accompany clinically insignificant blows to our
self-esteem].
3. The Overstimulated
Self: This is a pattern of self structuring resulting from "unempathic excessive responses from the childhood selfobject" (p183), and is characterised by
"intense ambition" (p184) and disinterest in normal goals and ideals.
4. The Overburdened Self: This is a
pattern of self structuring resulting from the lack of a "soothing" selfobject (p184), and is characterised by a perception of
the world at large as "inimical and dangerous".
5. The "Mirror-Hungry"
Personality: This is a pattern of self structuring characterised
by a "thirst for selfobjects" who provide "confirming and admiring responses"
(p184).
6. The "Ideal-Hungry"
Personality: This is a pattern of self structuring characterised
by being "forever in search" of models to admire. It is pathological
to the extent that "such patients can only experience themselves as
worthwhile when they are related in some way to these idealised selfobjects" (p184).
7. The "Alter-Ego"
Personality: This is a pattern of self structuring characterised
by wanting others "to experience and confirm" (p184) their own
make-up and experiences, but not to the extent seen in (5).
8. The "Merger-Hungry"
Personality: This is a pattern of self structuring characterised
by "a compelling need to control their selfobjects"
(p184). Such personalities "are very intolerant" of any displays of
independence on the part of the selfobject" (ibid).
9. The "Contact-Shunning"
Personality: This is a pattern of self structuring characterised
by isolation and the avoidance of social contact, probably as a way of
preventing rejection, to which such personalities are "excessively
sensitive" (p185).
Self, Private (1/2/3): (1) The
private self is one of the five qualitatively different types of self identified by Neisser (1988) [for
the background to which, see consciousness,
Neisser's theory of]. Neisser seems reluctant to state what this is, but notes merely that it "appears when children
first notice that some of their experiences are not directly shared with other
people" (p36). (2) "The Private Self" is also the title of Modell's (1993)
monograph on the construction of self from (in effect) cathected semantic
memory, a notion we touch upon in the entry for self, divided. (3)
Greg Nixon, then at
"[Parents pass on conscious
subjectivity] by consciously anticipating the arrival of selfhood in
infants by talking to them as though they already were conscious selves. By
passing through the precursor stages of mimesis and identification, the
child is 'called forth' into personhood. One day it finds itself actively
asserting its own experiences in sentences and phrases which have never been
said before. This creative expression begins consciousness ('knowing together'
with the rest of the group, tribe, or culture). At the point when the
burgeoning person objectively conceives itself as having a unique story and
memory chain, the sense of a private self awakens ....." (JCS-ONLINE Discussion Group posting, 20th July 2001.)
Self-Realisation: This is Bertrand
Russell's term for the
general process which allows us each of us to achieve our due importance and
value within the world (Russell, 1955), a term then popularised by the
psychoanalyst Anthony Storr. Here is how the latter sets out his ideas .....
"To be oneself, to realise one's own
personality to its fullest extent, is to develop from childhood to maturity;
and every psychotherapeutic system is concerned with this development. [The
end-result] is the same in every system [..... namely] the picture of the man
who is free, who has reached maturity. [.....] It is the way of achieving the
end, the means, and the details which are in dispute, not the final
achievement. I propose to call this final achievement self-realisation, by
which I mean the fullest possible expression in life of the innate potentialities
of the individual, the realisation of his own uniqueness as a personality: and
I also put forward the hypothesis that, consciously or unconsciously, every man
is seeking this goal" (Storr, 1960, pp26-27).
Like Rogers before him, [see perspectives,
humanistic], Storr believed that the psychiatrist's fundamental task was to
steer patients towards ever greater self-realisation, and he saw the greatest
barrier to achieving this as being the need to tailor that self-referenced
assertiveness around the patient's relationships with other people. Put
bluntly, overly indulgent self-realisation would be "a hopeless and evil
principle" (p32).
Self Recognition: This is the name
given to any form of human (or, if appropriate, animal) behaviour which
reflects in some way their possession of a self concept, even if
only in rudimentary form. The mirror recognition test may be used in this
precisely this way with both humans and animals, and Walter (1961) even found such behaviour in automata,
thus .....
"The machines are fitted with a
small flash-lamp bulb in the head which is turned off automatically whenever
the photo-cell receives an adequate light signal. When a mirror or white
surface is encountered the reflected light from the head-lamp is sufficient to
operate the circuit [.....], so that the machine makes for its own reflection;
but as it does so, the light is extinguished, which means that the stimulus is
cut off - but removal of the stimulus restores the light, which is again seen
as a stimulus, and so on. The creature therefore lingers before a mirror,
flickering, twittering, and jigging like a clumsy Narcissus. The behaviour of a
creature thus engaged [.....], if it were observed in an animal, might be
accepted as evidence of some degree of self-awareness" (p115)
Self-Schema(ta): [See firstly schema(ta).] Self-schemata are "cognitive structures"
which attempt "to organise, summarise, or explain one's own behaviour in a
particular domain (Markus, 1977, p63), and which therefore serve as
"cognitive generalisations about the self" (p65). As such, they are
conceptually similar to Minsky's (1975) "frames", Abelson's (1975) "scripts", and
Bobrow and Norman's (1975) "schemata",
that is to say, they increase mental throughput, but only at the expense of
relying on contingencies abstracted from previous ways of behaving. Markus
offers the following illustrations .....
"Self-schemata include
cognitive representations derived from specific events and situations
involving the individual (e.g., 'I hesitated before speaking in yesterday's
discussion because I wasn't sure I was right, only to hear someone else make
the same point') as well as more general representations derived from
the repeated categorisation and subjective evaluation of the person's behaviour
by himself and by others around him (e.g., 'I am very talkative in groups of
three or four, but shy in large gatherings' [.....]). Self-schemata are
constructed from information processed by the individual in the past and
influence both input and output of information related to the self. They represent the way the self has been differentiated and
articulated in memory" (Markus, 1977, p64; emphasis added).
Markus also notes a possible
relationship between self schema and the use of "trait adjectives" in
personality assessment [see personality,
from Allport onwards]. It is the self-schema, he suggests, which gives
coherence to the individual trait dimensions involved, thus
.....
"[The] endorsement of a trait
adjective as self-descriptive [.....] may
reflect on underlying, well-articulated, self-schema. It is equally possible,
however, that [it] is instead the result of the trait term, the context of the
situation, the necessity for a response, or other experimental demands. Only when a self-description derives from a
well-articulated generalisation about the self can it be expected to converge
and form a consistent pattern with the individual's other judgments, decisions,
and actions" (Markus, 1977, p65).
[Compare self-schema(ta), negative. If interested
in a possible data layout of self in memory, see self, Bachman diagram of.]
Self, Secondary Disturbances of: This is one of the two categories
in Kohut and Wolf's (1978) classification of
disturbances of the self (the other being self,
primary disturbances of). The classification follows that of the primary
disturbances, q.v., and the critical judgment is whether the pathology in
question is serious enough to be clinically significant (primary) or not
(secondary).
Self, Social: This is Mead's
(1913) term for a personality and identity structure which has
been fundamentally shaped by the need to plan its behaviour on a mental model
of the world in which it itself is a visible playing piece. This turns
out to be a remarkably advanced argument, because it addresses the fundamental
I-ness and me-ness of the selves, in the
plural. Thus .....
"The essential condition for
the appearance of what has been conceived of as mind is that the individual in
acting with reference to the environment should, as part of that action, be
acting with reference to himself, so that his action
would include himself as an object. This does not mean that the individual
should simply act with reference to parts of his organism, even when that
action is social, but it does mean that the whole action toward the object upon
which attention is centred includes as a part of this action a reaction toward
the individual himself. If this is attained, the self as an object becomes a
part of the acting individual, i.e., the individual has attained what is called
self-consciousness" (Mead, 1913, p367).
Self Talk: See
social skills training.
Self, True: See true
self versus false self.
Self, Understimulated: See self, primary disturbances of.
Self, Winnicott on: [See firstly self and Winnicott, Donald.]
It was Winnicott's decision to focus on the very early development of the self
which brought him his first academic publication. Here is an indicative extract .....
"It has often been noted that,
at five to six months, a change occurs in infants which
makes it more easy than before for us to refer to their emotional development
in the terms that apply to human beings generally. [.....] In my opinion the
stage we are describing [.....] is a very important one. To some extent it is
an affair of physical development, for the infant at five months becomes
skilled to the extent that he grasps an object he sees, and can soon get it to
his mouth. He could not have done this earlier. [.....] We can say that at this
stage a baby becomes able in his play to show that he can understand he has an
inside, and that things come from outside. [.....] All this represents a
tremendous advance. [.....] The
corollary of this is that now the infant assumes that his mother also has an
inside, one which may be rich or poor, good or bad, ordered or muddled. He is therefore starting to be concerned with his
mother and her sanity and her moods. In the case of many infants
there is a relationship as between whole persons at six months"
(Winnicott, 1945, p138).
Winnicott identified three "primary processes" at work in all
this, namely (a) "integration", (b) "personalisation", and
(c) "realisation", and saw deficits in any or all of these as
corrosive to the developing self. He was, however, especially suspicious of
deficits in the appreciation of time and space implicit in the primary process
of realisation. He saw these as underlying much subsequent psychopathology, as follows .....
"..... Many analyses sail
through to completion without time being ever in dispute. But a boy of nine who
loved to play with Ann, aged two, was acutely interested in the expected new
baby. He said: 'When the new baby's born will he born before Ann?' For his
time-sense is very shaky. [.....] The localisation of self in one's own body is
often assumed, yet a psychotic patient in analysis came to recognise that as a
baby she thought her twin at the other end of the pram was herself. She even
felt surprised when her twin was picked up and yet she remained where she was.
Her sense of self and other-than-self was undeveloped. Another psychotic
patient [.....] could only see out of her eyes as out of windows and so was not
aware of what her feet were doing [.....]. Her personality
was not felt to be localised in her body, which was like a complex engine that
she had to drive with conscious care and skill" (Winnicott, 1945, p139).
Winnicott spent the next 15 years
developing his own implementation of Kleinian psychodynamic theory, sharing
Klein's fascination with what went on in the infant's mind - such as it is - in
the formative early months of life. Consider .....
"I am here supporting the view
that the main reason why in infant development the infant usually becomes able
to master, and the ego to include, the id, is the fact of the maternal care,
the maternal ego implementing the infant ego and so making it powerful and
stable. How this takes place will need to be examined, and also how the infant
ego eventually becomes free of the mother's ego support, so that the infant
achieves mental detachment from the mother, that is, differentiation into a
separate personal self" (Winnicott, 1960, p587).
So for Winnicott, the secret of
understanding the self is the study of its "pregentical id-manifestations"
(1960, p588), and the secret of explaining its resulting shape in a given
individual is to look at both "halves" of the parent-infant
relationship. [For more on the dynamics at work here see holding
environment, limiting
membrane, and object,
transitional. See then true
self versus false self.]
Self, Zahavi and: TO FOLLOW.
Selfhood: In everyday English,
selfhood is "the quality by virtue of which one is oneself; personal
individuality; ipseity; that which constitutes one's own self or individuality;
(one's) self" (O.E.D.). Within psychology, however, it is easy to identify
a number of component processes of selfhood [see, typically, the five types of
self identified by Neisser (1988) and discussed in consciousness, Neisser's theory of], and we therefore suggest you regard selfhood
as the holistic sum of those components, that is to say, as an "emergent property" of their interoperation. As such, selfhood is one of the three philosophically
interesting aspects of the first-person
perspective identified by Metzinger
(2005b) (the others being mine-ness and perspectivalness) [for more
on which, see consciousness, Metzinger's theory of].
Semantic Differential: See this entry in the companion Rational
Argument Glossary.
Semantic Memory: [See firstly long-term
memory.] This is the name commonly given to our mental storehouse of
conceptual (i.e. encyclopedic) knowledge. As our perceptual memory and episodic
memory gradually grow during infancy, they give rise to memory for meaning,
thanks to the process of abstraction.
For example, by the time an infant has seen a pen making marks on paper three
or four times it begins to get the idea - the "concept" - that that is what a pen "is for".
Semantic memory thus ends up containing everything we know about the world.
Here is a handy formal definition: "Semantic memory is the associative
network of permanent knowledge about the world built up over a lifetime,
including knowledge of the rules of language and its lexicon or vocabulary
[citations]. Access of information from this permanent memory
system occurs continually during all types of cognitive processing" (Ober
and Shenaut, 1988, p273). It is also possible for agent and object
concepts (nouns) to join with action concepts (verbs) to create simple
assertions of truth such as "Tom is a cat" and "mice chew
gloves". These are known as propositions,
and propositions are what start to turn long-term memory into knowledge as we
know it. As you successfully acquire more and more of them, your conceptual
memory becomes "propositional" (sometimes "declarative")
memory, and your mind begins to get very good at reasoning. Note that semantic memory is
remarkably constant from person to person, and does not need to relate to
specific objects and events in order to be used (nor, in most cases, can you
even remember where or when you learned something). Thus, whilst we may
well have all done different things yesterday, we would, if asked to define the
word "chair", generate more or less the same definition. In other
words, episodic memory is personalized and unique, but semantic memory is far
more encyclopaedic.
Semantic Network: As used within mental philosophy, this has
become a common modern term for the mental network of sememes and propositions
(and quite possibly other important things besides) linked by associations which make up knowledge. The network metaphor derives
from the Associationist theories of
mental organization, and the term itself was coined by Richens (1956). [See now
semantic network database, semantic
network - web or lattice, and Richens-Booth
continuous form interlingua.]
Semantic Network Database: [See firstly network database
and semantic network.] For the purposes of this glossary, we use this
phrase to indicate a specific implementation of a semantic network in a network
database. Readers should note, however, that most modern semantic network
implementations are on competing [and in our opinion intrinsically unsuitable]
platforms.
Semantic Network - Web or Lattice?:
[See firstly semantic network.]
Networks and webs are two-dimensional structures, and thus less than perfect
metaphors for the structure of the three-dimensional brain. Lattices, on the
other hand, are suitably three-dimensional. Both metaphors have been used in
computational linguistics [compare, for example, Richens (1956) with
Parker-Rhodes (1978)], but the term semantic network, loosely applied, remains
the more popular.
Semantic-Pragmatic Disorder (SPD): [See firstly autistic spectrum disorders.] This is the disorder at the (moderate, moderate) coordinates
on Bishop's (1989) two-axis autistic spectrum. The term was first coined by Rapin
and Allen (1983) to describe a clinical picture including poor language use,
literality [see the case anecdote below], echolalia, perseveration, incessant
chatter, poor turn-taking, poor topic maintenance, and social difficulties.
Here is how one SPD support group explains it .....
"In 1987 Bishop and Rosenbloom described SPD as 'a
set of behaviours that are loosely associated with and shade into autism at one
extreme and normality at the other' and more recently Dorothy V.M. Bishop and
Courtenay Frazier Norbury at the University of Oxford, show SPD as a variable
symptom of either SLI or ASD, with unclear boundaries and differing outcomes
over time. There has been a lot of uncertainty over this label since its
introduction. This has led to some diagnostic confusion on the shop floor. A
Speech Therapist, for example, might see Semantic Pragmatic Disorder as a pure
language disorder, tending to concentrate on the language difficulties, whereas
a Child Psychiatrist might come to the conclusion he is dealing with an
Autistic Spectrum Disorder because he is concentrating on the behaviours. For
parents, I feel it helpful to take Lorna Wing's (a National Autistic Society
and world leading expert on Autistic Spectrum/Social Communication Disorders)
views into account where she talks of a range of social/communication
impairments with differing levels of impairment [see Wing's triad] and to
bear in mind that the borderlines of the autistic spectrum are continuous
rather than discrete, and blend into developmental language disorders" (The SPD Support Organisation, 2006
online).
As with Asperger's disorder [(moderate, low) on Bishop's two-axis coordinate system], the
cognitive weaknesses associated with SPD include difficulties with inference and
abstraction,
and a reduced ability to generalise as effortlessly as others might from one
life experience to the next, as illustrated by the following case data .....
CASE DATA (1): TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE.
ASIDE: It follows that if scolding an SPD child you
have to vary your communicational strategies in order to compensate for this
deficit, giving repeated specific examples and seeking regular explicit
confirmation of understanding. You also have to be highly sensitive when
carrying out differential diagnosis under DSM-IV
that you do not misinterpret a cognitive deficit such as this as an oppositional defiant disorder, for there may be no intentional defiance
whatsoever.
A recent Canadian paper by Gagnon,
Mottron, and Joanette (1997) has questioned the validity of SPD, judging the
condition to be a "high-functioning autism" after all, and regarding
the SPD diagnosis as a "confounding diagnosis". Nor, they warn, is
this an empty academic argument, because a diagnosis of SPD attracts [in Canada,
at least] significantly less public health care support than does a diagnosis
of autism, thus .....
"At the clinical level, the
inclination of certain health professionals to exclude [SPD] from autism has
enormous repercussions on the nature of the treatment recommended for those
patients. [SPD children] may not benefit from the appropriate explanations and
rehabilitation guidelines for their condition. Consequently, they are more
likely to be channelled into classes intended for children with developmental
language disorders. [.....] The exclusion of less affected individuals from the
category of autism artificially diminishes the estimated prevalence of this
condition [thus reducing] the services offered to the autistic population"
[full text].
[BREAKING RESEARCH: For more on the potential role of
"abnormal connectivity" in preventing or degrading the maximal
integration of multi-modular cognitive processing, see functional
connectivity and its onward links.]
WAS THIS A SENSITIVE TOPIC FOR YOU?: If for any reason you have been emotionally affected
by any of the issues dealt with in this entry, you will find suitable helpline
details in the entry for autistic spectrum disorders.
Semantic-Pragmatic Disorder and the Right
Brain: [See firstly semantic-pragmatic disorder.] Shields
(1991/2006 online) has drawn our
attention to some of the similarities between semantic-pragmatic disorder and
the sort of right hemisphere syndrome language seen in cases of acquired right-lesion neurogenic
disorders [for details
of which, see Myers and
Mackisack (1990)]. There
are a couple of dozen “right hemisphere” signs, but the overall effect is that
superficial linguistic skills are retained (because the dominant hemisphere is
intact) whilst overall communicative competence is degraded.
Language remains syntactically correct, but its richness suffers. It is
frequently difficult to distinguish the important from the irrelevant, for
example, or to interpret metaphor, figurative meaning, and abstractness.
Prosodic comprehension and production is also impaired. The damage, in other
words, is in the higher functional domains of semantics and pragmatics.
Here are two extracts from the main argument …..
“Both groups seem to have an
underlying difficulty in integrating information, which is reflected in their
verbal output. Both groups have relatively intact language form, using fluent,
grammatically complex language, but show communication which is impaired by
abnormal language content and use. Both groups have poor comprehension and use
of non-verbal communication and prosody and both groups perform better on
structured tasks than on open-ended ones, making fewer errors in concrete,
literal tasks. Both have difficulty in assimilating and using contextual cues.
Both tend to lend literal interpretation to figurative language and find
difficulty coping with metaphor and humour. Both groups give impulsive answers
full of tangential detail and have difficulty in distinguishing the important
from the unimportant. Both are reluctant to admit to their communication
problems. Both have a reduced sensitivity to the
communicative situation and to pragmatic and extralinguistic aspects of
communication [citations]” (Shields,
1991/2006 online).
“The communication
difficulties displayed by both some patients with acquired right hemisphere
lesions and children with semantic-pragmatic language disorder indicate a
failure to understand the processes of inference.
These patients can cope with the encoding and decoding aspects of
communication, and can extract meaning from the basic sound (or letter)
patterns of speech (or writing), but they are unable to deduce the speaker's
informative intention so as to bridge the gap between the 'surface' meaning of
sentences and the 'deeper' meaning of the thoughts conveyed by those sentences.
[…..] The central inferential process - which processes the second-order representations described
in the theory of mind (Frith, 1989)
- is essential for a full appreciation of meaning. It is communication at this
sophisticated level, where language and cognition interweave, that is impaired
in both the acquired and developmental disorders of communication discussed
above. Because the right hemisphere is known to be involved in perception and
in integration, could it be the seat of the higher-order cognitive concepts
which depend on the existence of second-order representations? […..] Such
patients seem to have an abnormal cognitive
style which reflects an inability to integrate multimodal perceptual
information” (ibid.;
emphasis added).
WAS THIS A SENSITIVE TOPIC FOR YOU?: If for any reason you have been emotionally affected
by any of the issues dealt with in this entry, you will find suitable helpline
details in the entry for autistic spectrum disorders.
Semantics: [Greek semantikos = significant
(from semeion = "mark" or
"sign" or "point on a line")] "The science of meaning" (O.E.D.), [See now sememe and semantic memory.]
Semantics versus Pragmatics: See and contrast the entries for semantics and pragmatics in our companion Psycholinguistics
Glossary.
Sememe: "A term used in some semantic theories to
refer to a minimal unit of meaning" (
Semiotics: See
the pump-priming definition in G.2.
SEN: See learning disability and special educational need, the basics.
SENCO: See Special Educational Needs Coordinator.
SENDA: See Special
Educational Needs and Disability Act.
Sensation: "A psychical
affection or state of consciousness consequent on and related to a particular
condition of some portion of the bodily organism, or a particular impression
received by one of the organs of sense" (O.E.D.). Historically speaking,
sensation as a topic of study goes back at least to Alcmaeon and his
notion of aesthesis [see G.2], although Rohde (1925) reminds us that Empedocles
"expressly distinguished" sense-perception from the "capacity
for thought" (p380).
Sensation, Scientific Study of: See
psychophysics.
Sensationism: See Condillac.
Sensory Egosphere: See egosphere,
sensory.
Sentence Frame: See under frame in the
companion "Psycholinguistics Glossary".
Sentiment: See sentiment structure.
Sentiment Structure: [See
firstly personality,
Cattell's system of.] This is Cattell's (1965) attempt to bring what he
called the "dynamic" traits within the compass of his factor
analytical system of personality. In Cattell's view, dynamic traits were the
ones which most affected "why and how [a person] is moved to do what he
does" (p165), and the key to this approach to motivation was to focus on
the person's "ultimate goal" by asking "What are his
motives?" (p184). Cattell recognised, however, that human motivation was
typically highly complex, and so he devised "a device called the dynamic
lattice" (p185) to model the various elements graphically. The essence of
the lattice is that it links the emotional drivers to the attitudes via a web
of intervening "sentiments". Cattell introduced the term "erg"
["from the Greek ergon for work
or energy" (p185)] to represent the source energy for an attitude.
For a
fuller explanation, see
the explanatory PowerPoint
Separation Anxiety: TO FOLLOW.
Separation-Individuation: [See firstly dual unity.]
This is the name given to Margaret Mahler's
particular approach to human development, as set down, for example, in Mahler,
Pine, and Bergman (1975). It consists of a psychodynamic analysis of the
infant-mother relationship in which the emphasis is on the gradual emergence of
a fully functioning socio-emotional mind, and, if not, why not. One
commentator summarises the theory as follows [a long extract, heavily abridged] .....
"Mahler's concept of
separation-individuation had many sources, notably Jacobson's formulations of
the self and object world (1964). [.....] Mahler evolved her own formulations
of the process [] largely on the basis of the interplay of object relations and
ego development. Each subphase bridges and overlaps with the succeeding phase.
[..... I]t was the social smile, and not sucking, that ushered in the emergence
of symbiosis [..... during which subphase] affect mirroring was regarded of critical
importance, and an attuned parent would display empathic responses through eye
contact, facial and vocal expression, touch, holding, movement, etc. The
attuned mother or caregiver established and maintained an appropriate
affectomotor dialogue with the infant. [.....] The social smile, dialogue,
basic trust, mirroring, maternal holding, and containing, [were] object-related
experiences that received their place as primary agents in both attachment and
separation-individuation. [.....] Play also has a special role in human
development and is evident in the cooing, gaze, gaze aversion, reciprocal
smiling, and overall playful interactions that occur between [mother and
infant]. A signal system develops [so that b]y four
months of age the infant reacts to the still face of the caregiver and appeals
to regain the caregiver's responsiveness" (Blum, 2004 pp537-539).
ASIDE: The reader may find it worthwhile at this
juncture diverting to the entry for toxic
parenting, because the absence (be it deliberate or accidental) of
just one of the above-listed parent-caregiver behaviours may start to
degrade the separation-individuation aspect of a given child's development.
Lucente
(1988) adds .....
"Affiliation
on the one hand and a need for autonomous functioning apart from one's
significant objects, on the other, are universal human processes. A theory of
separation-individuation explains development in the latter regard [] while a
theory of core self-development plausibly explains the former" (p160).
Serial Motor Praxis: See praxis.
Serial Processing: See serial
versus parallel processing.
Serial versus Parallel Processing: To do things "in series"
is to do them one after another. To do things "in parallel" is to do
them simultaneously. Serial computers therefore execute their data moves and
their arithmetical operations one after another, whilst parallel computers do
them simultaneously. As originally conceived, parallel processing computers
used one wire per bit when moving whole words of data at a time between their
registers and their logic gates, whilst serial computers used one wire only,
and moved one bit at a time. The parallel machines were accordingly much
faster, but much more electrically complicated. Computer pioneer Maurice Wilkes
explained the differences this way .....
"The most obvious division of computing machines is between those
which are serial in operation and those which are parallel [but] the subject is
an endless one in that many different variants of each kind of machine are
possible. I do not consider that the question of whether it is better to build
a serial or a parallel machine will ever be finally answered; each type has its
advantages, and the final decision will always be dependent on the designer's
personal preferences, and to some extent on his terms
of reference. Also, as time goes on, the balance of advantage and disadvantage
will swing as improvements are made in this or that component, or as entirely
new components become available. Certain fundamental comparisons between serial
and parallel machines can, however, be drawn readily enough. The arithmetic
unit of a parallel machine tends to be much larger than the arithmetic unit of
a serial machine, since a separate flip-flop or equivalent circuit element must
be provided to accommodate each digit in the various registers. Moreover, since
addition of the digits takes place simultaneously, or nearly so, a separate
adder must be provided for each digit. The disparity [.....] increases as the
fundamental number length is increased. [.....] The control, on the other hand,
is much simpler in a parallel machine. In the first place the necessity for the
generation of a set of digit pulses does not arise, and secondly, the timing is
much simpler, since a number can be moved [.....], or an addition performed, by
the application of a single pulse to a set of gates ....." (Wilkes, 1956,
p66)
What we are looking at, therefore,
are alternative ways of organising a single central processing unit - serial for cheap but slow, or parallel
for complicated and expensive but fast; it is just another design decision to
be made in the early stages of a machine development project. [See consciousness,
Johnson-Laird's theory of.]
Sexual Abuse:
[See firstly child sexual abuse and incest.]
This glossary recognises, but does not
address, the abuse of vulnerable adults - if interested in this aspect of sexual
abuse (under
Sexual Complex: See
complex, sexual.
Shaman: A shaman is "a priest or priest-doctor
among various northern tribes of
"Magic
was an essential aspect of healing in antiquity and among non-literate groups,
as it is characteristic of primitive thinking in general. Reliance on magical
thinking is still abundantly present in those deeper layers of our minds
subject to fantasy and out of control of the reasonable ego. [.....] Magic is the infantile wish of the human race for accomplishment of
the impossible" (Bromberg, 1954, p11).
Shame: In everyday English,
shame is "the painful emotion arising from the consciousness of something
dishonouring, ridiculous, or indecorous in one's own conduct or circumstances
(or in those of others whose honour or disgrace one regards as one's own"
(O.E.D.). In Freudian theory, it is "the affective response to a conscious or unconscious sense of
failure and inferiority in relation to the ideal" (Pfeiffer, 2006 online). Pfeiffer notes that a number
of psychodynamic theories - including Freud (1914), Reich (1960), Jacobson
(1964), Spero (1964), and Kohut (1977) - have linked the propensity to feel
shame to Narcissism, as the result of failing in some way to live up to
"the grandiosity of the narcissistic self". Pfeiffer suggests that
shame is "an affective experience from which defenses develop", and
recommends a "full shame analysis". Typical shame defenses include
addiction, denial, withdrawal, rage, performance, exhibitionism, and arrogance.
Shame, he also assures us, "is almost always present in patients with impulse
control issues". Also, interestingly enough, it seems to be a
quintessentially human attribute, thus .....
"Man is the only primate -
indeed the only animal - to feel shame. Monkeys and apes do not cover parts of
their bodies and feel no compunction over having sexual intercourse in
public" (Breger, 1974, p77).
Forward (1989) has noted the role
played by shame in ensuring that childhood sexual abuse has such serious
effects on the victim [for the full details on which, see under toxic parenting].
Blume summarises the effect this way .....
"Shame is a deeper sense of
worthlessness, a sense of inner innate badness, not in relation to one's actions,
but one's very self. The child victim of incest feels
shame as well as guilt. We feel guilt over what we have done, but shamed by
what we are. [.....] The child victim of incest feels soiled and spoiled.
She feels contaminated by the dirty act that she 'permitted' or even 'asked
for'. Because the event(s) occurred in childhood, while her
self-esteem and her identity were still developing [.....], these feelings
weave their way into the very fabric of her being" (Blume, 1990,
pp112-113).
Shannonian Theory: See companion
resource.
Shyness and Social Anxiety: TO FOLLOW.
Sign: [Latin signum
= mark, token] (1) In general usage, a sign is "a gesture or motion of the
hand, head, etc., serving to convey an intimation or to communicate some
idea" (O.E.D.). (2) In
philosophical usage, a sign is a physical action engendered by some stimulus or
mental state, whose function is to act upon the world indirectly, that is to say, through the mediation of one or more
external agencies, human or otherwise. It is a premeditated request for action
of a certain sort on the part of certain others in the world.
Signification, Cassirer's Notion of: See Bedeutungsfunktion.
Signify, To: [Latin significare = "to act as sign"] To signify is "[1]
to be a sign or symbol of; to represent, betoken, mean. [2] To have the import
or meaning of; to mean, denote. [3] To make known, intimate, announce,
declare" (O.E.D.). By extension, to predict a future
state of affairs, or to lead towards a particular ratiocinative conclusion.
Similarity, Gestalt Law of: [See firstly Gestalt Laws.] This law of perceptual organisation describes the
situation where an array of separate items in the visual field falls by
accident or design into two or more physical clusters by attribute
[compare proximity, Gestalt law of], whereupon the clusters tend to be
perceived as coherent natural groupings. What seems to happen is that the mind
adds a "subjective contour" of its own to redefine the cluster as a
figure, and then submits the completed form to the pattern recognition stage of
perception.
Simple Abstraction: See abstraction, simple.
Simple Idea: See idea, simple.
Simplicity: There is a long tradition in scientific theory
that complex explanations sometimes crumble before a simpler alternative. This
is because the original theorists "compounded their entities"
unnecessarily [see Occam's
razor], and generally ignored the "principle of parsimony".
Chater (1997) has reviewed the various positions here, and draws attention to
the fact that complex problems require more "epicycles" [=
iterations] of reasoning to reach a conclusion. He then extends this argument
to cognitive science. Simplicity, he proposes, "is a fundamental goal of
cognition" (p495), because it delivers practical value. He therefore
suggests that psychologists would do well to study "Kolmorogov
complexity", that is to say, the principle that the explanation of a problem
must "lead to a construction of the object described" (p496).
Sinn: [German = the sense/logic of something; also
the mind possessing same.] See mind.
Smart Thing (ST): The ST is Smyth's
(2005) thought experiment notion of an imaginary machine possessed of sufficient
objectively assessable architectural features (a) to allow it to survive in a
hostile environment, (b) to allow it to "look after itself", and (c) possibly
to bless it with a subjective consciousness. Smyth presents what he calls
"an axiomatic model" of this "sentient entity", in the form
of a minimal set of six such features. Fundamentally, therefore, he is telling
us what qualities make his ST - and, by extension, any other ST -
"smart". The six axiomatic properties are (1) sensory input, (2)
"a 'present' register", containing "the current sensory data
set", and responsible for providing ST with "a snapshot of the
current situation", (3) a "register stack", containing a
"continuum of immediate past sensory data sets", (4) a long-term
memory, containing "histories of previous actions taken", (5) a
"processor", capable of assessing the relative costs and benefits of
potential new courses of action, and (6) "a single command centre",
whose job is "interrogating and marshalling" all the other centres,
and making the necessary decisions.
ASIDE: All cognitive
scientists should know about registers and register stacks. Readers unfamiliar
with the role played by such structures in modern computer design should pause
at this juncture and check out Section 3.1 of our e-paper "Short-Term
Memory Subtypes in Computing and Artificial Intelligence (Part 6)"
before proceeding.
ASIDE: Our standard caution
with all hierarchically organised decision-making models (including our own) is
that the notion of a single command centre immediately invites the wrath of
philosophers from Aristotle to Dennett. For Aristotle, it invites the “infinite
regress” criticism [see consciousness, Aristotle's theory of], for Ryle
it is part of the "Ghost in the Machine" he so derides [see consciousness,
Ryle's theory of], and for Dennett it invites his "fame"
criticism [see consciousness, Dennett's theory of and homunculus
fallacy].
Now the
crux of Smyth's argument is that being sentient is not the same as being
smart, and being smart is not necessarily the same as being conscious. His ST
is objectively both sentient and smart, but
may or may not also be conscious. Worse - there is no way of ever knowing,
one way or the other. This puts him fairly and squarely in Turing
test territory, but (like Turing's subsequent critics) he doubts that
simply cross-examining the ST will tell you what you would really like to know.
Smyth also puts his ST to Chalmers’ (1996) zombie
test. The key question here is whether the ST has conscious experience, but
the central difficulty is that although the ST has language there is no point
asking it, because it is known to be bright enough to reply that it is, even if
it is not!! And so Smyth's conclusion is that such experiences as "being
conscious and having free will [.....] have no
objective reality". An ST, he argues, will be conscious if and only if it
acquires a subjective experience of consciousness, but only it will ever really know! And the same inherent limitation applies, he fears, to the rest of us -
human STs - as well.
Social
Intelligence: This is "the ability to understand and manage
people" (Salovey and Mayer, 1990, p187). The point about social
intelligence is that you have to set it apart from intellectual intelligence
both conceptually (it accesses different resources) and empirically (it varies
orthogonally). [Compare emotional
intelligence.]
Social Model of Inner Speech: See inner
speech.
Social Skills Training: This is the name given to any
formally constituted scheme for the improvement of socially directed behaviour
in a particular needful client group. Hayes
(1994/2006 online) reports on the problems peculiar
to adults with learning disability,
noting that these are frequently in areas taken for granted by the rest of the
population. They will often include impulsivity,
poor perception of facial expression and body language, poor auditory
perception of emotional voice quality, invasion of other people's
"personal space", inappropriate touching, and mood swings. She gives
the example of case Roger. As far as remediation is concerned, she recommends
amongst other things thinking out loud [she calls it "selftalk"].
This is because it makes explicit the sort of moment-by-moment "stream
of consciousness" content of adult thought [the contents of inner speech, perhaps]. Here is her example, and
her reasoning .....
"Self talk is simply describing your own
techniques for dealing with particular situations so that the learning disabled
child becomes aware of what the parent is doing, and why. [] For example, a parent might say, 'Since I
know that I want to look nice when I go out, I'm going to go look in the mirror
and see if I look all right. Oops! I think I need to comb my hair before I go.'
Certainly, most adults would take a quick glance in the mirror before going
out. Few, however, would make a point of describing to a child what is
happening, or why. This is exactly the sort of behavior the child with a
learning disability might not notice, but the non-LD child would pick up
without instruction" (Hayes, 1994/2006 online).
It is also helpful to make explicit
one's intention when one finds oneself communicating with the aid of facial
expression, thus .....
"Adults with visual perception problems often miss
the messages that people send and receive through facial expression. Such
common expressions as a frown, narrowed eyes, or pursed lips, which might
signal that what is being heard is inappropriate in some way, are often missed.
Parents and teachers can help by using role-playing often, or by simply asking
for feedback in day-today situations: 'David,
what do you think my face is saying to you? Do I look like I am pleased
about what you are doing, or not?'" (Hayes, 1994).
[For the use of cognitive
behavioural therapy in promoting social skills, see Smith (2002/2006 online). For the clinical use of avatars
in the treatment of autistic
spectrum disorders, see the entry for the AS Interactive project.]
Soft Bipolar
Disorder: This is Akiskal's (1994) name for a variant form of bipolar disorder lacking
hypomania or mania, and characterised
instead by short and frequent recurrent depressions and mood reactivity. Phelps (2006) counsels against the use of anti-depressant drugs in
this category of disorders, recommending instead cognitive behavioural therapy and interpersonal therapy.
Somatisation Disorder: This is one of the seven DSM-IV
disorder groups under the category header of somatoform disorders. It is characterised as follows
.....
"The essential feature of
somatisation disorder is a pattern of recurring, multiple, clinically
significant somatic complaints [.....]. The somatic complaints must begin
before age 30 years and occur over a period of several years (Criterion A).
[They] cannot be fully explained by any known general medical condition or the
direct effects of a substance [..... and t]here must be a history of pain
related to at least four different sites (e.g., head, abdomen, back, joints,
extremities, chest, rectum) or functions (e.g., menstruation, sexual
intercourse, urination) (Criterion B1). There must also be a history of at
least two gastrointestinal symptoms other than pain (Criterion B2)"
(DSM-IV, 2000, p486).
Somatoform Disorders: This is the DSM-IV header category for seven specific disorder groups, namely body dysmorphic syndrome, conversion disorder, hypochondriasis,
pain disorder, somatisation disorder,
somatisation disorder not otherwise specified, and undifferentiated
somatisation disorder. These seven disorders have in common memory impairment
and unexplained physical complaint, and map largely onto what used to be lumped
together as hysteria.
Soul:
"[SOCRATES:] What do we say about the
soul, then? Is it visible or invisible?"
(Plato, Phaedo; Tredennick
translation, p130).
[Greek = psuche; Latin = anima;
German = Geist] [See firstly the Catholic Encyclopedia account of the concept of
soul in primitive religions, classical literature, and ancient philosophy.] The
soul is "the principle of life in man or animals [and] of thought and
action in man, commonly regarded as an entity distinct from the body"
(O.E.D.). Rohde (1893, 1920/1925)
traces the notion of soul to the Homeric age, to their use of psuche to indicate some sort of
life-spirit (p390). The early Greek philosophers - the Pythagoreans - looked upon it as follows .....
"So
far as our scanty and dubious evidence serves us, the substance of the
Pythagorean doctrine of the soul may be stated as follows. The soul of man,
once more regarded entirely as the 'double' of the visible body and its powers,
is a daimonic [from daemon, q.v.]
immortal being that has been cast down from divine heights and for a punishment
is confined within the 'custody' of the body. It has no real relationship with
the body; it is not what may be called the personality of the individual
visible man: any soul may dwell in any body" (Rohde, 1925, p375).
Empedocles then noted
the inevitable interaction between spirit and mind, speaking still of daemones [= "the spirits
within"], but asking now where spirit and the things we today call
"cognition" interact. Here is the issue [a long passage, heavily
abridged) .....
"'Thinking'
has its seat in the heart's blood [.....]. Or rather this blood actually is
thinking and the power of thought; the material substance and its vital
functions thus also for Empedocles completely coincide.
Plainly, nothing in the nature of a permanent substantial 'soul' is here
intended [.....] but rather a capacity of bringing together and unifying the
individual sense-activities [.....] Both capacities, that of sense-perception,
and that of thought [.....] are present in all organisms; in men, in beasts,
and even in plants [..... and] are entirely bound up with the elements and
their combination, and in man they are joined to the body and its organs; they
are the powers and faculties of this body, and not of a special and invisible
entity, the soul. The soul-daemon is not made out of the elements, nor is it
for ever chained to them" (Rohde, 1925, pp380-382).
The Platonic view of soul was (a)
that it had three fundamental partitions to it [see soul, tripartite],
and (b) that it was immortal. The problem then is specifying the nature of the
interaction between soul and body - specifically, whether the soul is pure
whilst the body is feral and undisciplined. Plato's position is as follows (a
long passage, heavily abridged) .....
"The soul is a pure spiritual
essence; it contains nothing within it that is material, nothing of the 'place'
where Becoming is shaped into a distinct resemblance to Being.
It is incorporeal and belongs to the realm of the 'invisible', which in this
immaterialist doctrine counts as the most real of all, more
real than the most solid matter. [..... And though enclosed within the
body it remains a stranger to the body [.....] as its mistress and leader.
[.....] Body and soul never fuse into one [.....] and yet the body and its
impulses have the power to influence profoundly the immortal being that dwells
within it. [.....] Though no organic connection exists between them, yet there
is a certain 'symmetry' between the individual soul
and the body that is lent to it" (Rohde, 1925, pp465-467).
ASIDE: Interestingly enough, a modern computer
program also weighs nothing either when executing (the electrons which are
flowing have a discrete mass, but were in the circuit anyway to start with) or
when stored on magnetic medium (there is no change in mass when the polarity of
a ferrous medium is altered). We should therefore not be too critical of the
ancients when their conclusions sometimes strike us as quaint.
In De Anima,
Aristotle complains that "it is hard to know whether we should investigate
the parts of the soul first or their functions, for instance thinking first or
the intellect, perceiving first or the perceptive faculty, and so on"
(Aristotle, De Anima, §402b; Lawson-Tancred translation, p127). In the end, however, he decides
that "the soul is connected with the body, and is inserted into it [..... and] it is by their partnership that the body acts and the
soul is affected" (ibid., §407b; p142). However, he then raises an
intriguing side-issue (especially so, when considered in the light of the
modern modularity
debate) .....
"Now the soul comprises
cognition, perception, and belief-states. It also comprises appetite, wishing,
and the desire-states in general. It is the source of locomotion in animals,
and also of growth, flourishing, and decay. Is each of these things the
business of the whole soul? Is it with the whole soul that we think and
perceive and are moved and perform and affected by each of the others? Or do we
do different things with different parts? And indeed is life located in one of
these parts or several or all of them?" (Aristotle, De Anima,
§411a-b; Lawson-Tancred translation, pp152-153
[Aristotle's personal pronouncement on this question is that the soul is, in
the end, not divisible]).
Modern discussions of soul began
with Descartes and his doctrine of Cartesian dualism, and soon degenerated
into a series of confrontations, initially between the British Empiricists and the Continental
Rationalists. Gradually, however, the terminology has changed, so that
one's position on soul nowadays depends reflects your religious orientation.
Soul,
Plato's Metaphors for: Compare and contrast "charioteer of the
soul" and "pilot of the soul".
Soul, Tripartite: [See firstly soul.] This
term refers to the Platonic notion that the soul needs to be seen as having
three fundamental aspects, namely reason, desire, and self-assertiveness,
despite the fact that it acts much of the time as a coherent whole (Ostenfeld,
1982). It also implies that there exists a "divine element", namely
intelligence, burdened down "by its preoccupation with food and other bodily
pleasures" (Ostenfeld, 1982, p214). Following a sustained analysis of
Plato's writings, Ostenfeld (1982) resolves this apparent contradiction this
way: "While the soul per se seems unitary it is tripartite while in
a human body" (p214). However, it then follows that close
attention needs to be paid to the all-important interface between body and
soul, and nowhere more so than in our attempts to explain the body's
"self-assertive element" (p216). Plato saw our self-assertiveness as based upon "a natural
aggressiveness" (p216), such as that which prompts an eating dog to defend
its bone so determinedly, and it was this, for him, which explained why human
instincts were so often at odds with their intellects. Here is one of his
several attempts to summarise the relationship .....
"[God] made the divine with his
own hands, but he ordered his own children to make the generation of mortals.
They took over from him an immortal principle of soul, and, imitating him,
encased it in a mortal physical globe, with the body as a whole for vehicle.
And they built onto it another mortal part, containing terrible and necessary
feelings: pleasure, the chief incitement to wrong, pain, which frightens us
from good, [etc.]. To this mixture they added irrational sensation and desire
which shrinks from nothing, and so gave the mortal element its indispensable
equipment" (Plato, Timaeus, §69;
Lee translation, p95).
[Compare Hamilton's triad. For more on the conflict of reason against
desire, see the "charioteer of the soul"
metaphor.]
SPD: See
semantic-pragmatic disorder.
Special Educational Need: See learning disability and special
educational need, the basics.
Special
Educational Needs and Disability Act, 2001: This Act made it unlawful for schools or
colleges to discriminate between students on the grounds of disability, thus
extending disability rights into education.
Special Need: See learning disability and special
educational need, the basics.
Specific (Developmental) Dyslexia: See learning disability and special educational need, the basics.
Specific (Developmental) Language
Disorder (SDLD/SLD): Same
as specific language impairment.
Specific Language Impairment (SLI): The key to understanding this
diagnostic description lies in the very precise technical meaning attached to
the words "specific" and "language".
ASIDE: Readers who are not totally familiar with the
terms pragmatics, speech act, and perlocutionary effect should carefully
consult those entries before proceeding. They may
also appreciate our "gentle introduction" to this subject [click to view
self-contained PowerPoint tutorial] before taking on
the really heavy stuff.
As more fully explained in the entry
for diagnostic terminology, general, a specific disorder is one
which affects one area of competence (a particular cognitive function, say) but
more or less totally spares all others. As more full explained in the entry for
speech versus language, language is
the functional deployment of speech, together
with a host of supporting non-verbal behaviours, in support of willed
ideation. What we have with SLI, therefore, is a language problem per se, not attributable to deafness,
say, nor low intelligence (as with Down's syndrome), nor poor socio-emotional
development (as with Asperger's disorder), nor neurological deficit (as with
cerebral palsy).
ASIDE: Bishop (2000) cites difficult-to-come-by data from Bartak et al (1975), comparing a number of behavioural and linguistic indicators of autistic and "receptive" SLI children. This data shows marked similarities betwee