This discussion posits that Dr. Herzog's article represents a transition from the use of epigenetic, linear, structural metaphors to those of an emergent, nonlinear, context-dependent process. In particular, Dr. Herzog's article addresses variations in awareness of self states over time, which he calls the variable unconscious, and the idea of relational templates, which he believes largely determine the content of the unconscious at any particular moment in time. Using the work of Edelman and Tononi, Coburn, Beebe and Lachmann, and Lyons-Ruth, I suggest that a non-linear model of consciousness and unconsciousness offers an alternate way of understanding why human experience is both variant and patterned, regular and irregular, constant and changing. The discussion concludes that broader and more flexible self-awareness is an emergent capacity of a relational system in which one component of the system may be the experience of a safe, recognizing, valuing other.