The Concept of the Self and the Self Representation

As a psychoanalyst with a strong interest in developmental, structural, dynamic, and economic (drive) theory,1 I have been fascinated to learn that a number of leading neuroscientists have independently come to a position where a concept of “the self” is absolutely necessary to make their theoretical constructs coherent and understandable. Coming at a time when some psychoanalysts (e.g., Van Spruiell, 1981) have given up on the usefulness of the term, makes it all the more striking that a number of neuroscientists find the concept of “the self” indispensable. Neuroscientists do not use the term “self” in the same way psychoanalysts do. For that matter, the term does not have the same meaning in the hands of each neuroscientist, nor in the hands of each psychoanalyst. Nonetheless, here might be an area where analysts and neuroscientists could begin to build a fragile bridge of understanding between their two different fields. It is with that purpose in mind that I undertook this paper, in which I hope to outline what many psychoanalysts mean when they use the term “self”, hoping that it might catch the interest of neuroscientists just as their work did for me, and that this might lead to a richer dialogue.

What follows will not deal with neuroanatomy, neurons, neuronal circuits, brain structure and development, or the biochemistry of neurotransmitters and neuroreceptors. I shall focus on events and situations that exist only on a psychological plane. The term “structure,” shared by both fields, will not refer to a tangible entity that can be seen or demonstrated under a microscope or in a research laboratory. Here “structure” will refer to a set of psychic2 events that have attained the quality of constancy, regularity, and predictability. Thus the “superego”,3 or what we refer to as conscience in everyday terms, is a psychic structure. It has no tangible substance and we cannot isolate it in a specific part of the brain, yet we all know, and poets and philosophers ha