ON THE WAY TO THE SELF: A SUMMARY

Ernest Harms
Grand Central Hospital, New York, N . Y .

It was originally planned that this summary would be written by Margaret

E. Tresselt, co-organizer of the conference on which this monograph is based.
Without her help this publication would not have appeared. Unfortunately,
she became ill shortly before the opening of the conference and was not able
to attend. The task of preparing this summary has therefore fallen to me.
In thinking about a summarization of the contributions made to this monograph, it appeared to me that the most advantageous approach would be a
return to the historical view adopted in the Introduction. Indeed, ego psychology-the intimate preoccupation with the self-has been a serious concern
of man ever since he attained self-consciousness. The earliest expression of
the ego problem-after the pictorial and symbolic language of early man had
changed, through mans rational maturation, into intellectual speculationis to be found in that most esoteric yet simple exhortation of Greek religiosity
Know thyself: a message as bottomless in depth in its religious aspect as it
is unlimited in horizon for rational meditation,
It has not often been recognized how much specific ego psychology is contained in the Nazarene message. From I am the Father to I say unto
you, a messianic vision of a self-experience is the mainspring of the unequal
mediation that has become the psychological basis of the I and thou relationship upon which most of our Western ethical civilization has been built,
as Ernst Troeltsch has demonstrated so irrefutably in his classic work. Western civilizations greatest historical tragedy has been that those who made
themselves the authoritarian representatives of its major religion destroyed
the essence of the aboriginal Christian manifestation that was the assurance of
the possibility of self-experience of the eternal truth. Translated into the
language of modern scientific experience, this means the denial of the ultimate
self-assertion and self-control that are the fundamental elements of a civilization based upon scientific insight.
In spite of this, wherever in Western civilization a period of intensified cultural activity occurred, behind it or at the center of it we find a philosophy or
psychology with an intensified ego content. As an example I point to Marsilio
Ficino who, using as his basis the Plotinic Self-show, inspired the Italian
Ricertimento, known to us as the Renaissance.
It was hardly a hundred years later that a wandering, restless chevalier
by religion, if any, Rosicrucian; by profession, if any, soldier and diplomatknown as RenC Descartes, formulated the psychological concept from which
all the scientific striving of modern man since has taken its start. It was his
Cogdo, ergosum--this amazingly simple ego concept-which, although bitterly
contradicted is today still the concept upon which every school child as well
as every extravagant philosopher builds what we call his knowledge. Whatever any future philosophical effort may produce, I strongly doubt that any
undertaking will be able to avoid starting out with the Cartesian formulation.
Modern mans attempts since Descartes to establish and work out a broader
889

890

Annals New York Academy of Sciences

and more adequate concept of the self-experience have been set forth in our
introductory remarks. These remarks might have been more detailed and
might have described more individual trends. However they could not have
added more than Thorne does in the last contribution to this publication in
describing the efforts of two more recent American psychologists who viewed
the problem in much the same way that we do but whose meritorious effort
did not go beyond a personal formulation of the problem as we face it today.
As the problem presents itself t o us, we cannot but relate it to the mythological concepts of God pictured as the ego vision broken by hostile circumstances into innumerable pieces that must be reassembled in order that God
may be reborn and attain new glory. The philosophy or psychology of the ego,
or self, which should be a central concept in our modern multifaceted scientific
world, is equally fragmented into a multitude of aspects, concepts, and angles.
I t is dissected by a variety of scientific disciplines, each demanding that the
concept be approached from its specific point of view. Only if the presentation
corresponds totally to the specific aspect of the particular discipline is it accepted as correct. A sober viewer can envision only with difficulty how a total
picture of a psychology of the self might look if one were to include in it the
points of view of all those sciences that deal with ego problems. This of course
does not exclude the possibility that some day a new and as yet unknown
aspect or concept may appear that will offer a central view within which it
may be possible to incorporate all possible specific aspects.
I n considering the major task related to the problem of ego, or self, in the
wider scientific and narrower psychological spheres, we might approach it by
attempting to lay tangents on a circle the interior of which is empty or clouded.
We might also attempt to establish a fundamental structure around and above
which a further structure might be erected, I n planning this publication we
tried to combine both approaches. We selected four basic structural aspects
and, with these in mind, asked our 12 contributors t o make tangential approaches to the problem of a total view of an ego-psychology. Although we
did not expect that we should be able to offer more than a blueprintlike version
of a real cgo-psychology, we find ourselves in the position of having made inroads into the general ego problem that offer a more colorfuI and inspiring
birds-eye view of the task we have set ourselves: to encourage an intensive
occupation with the problem of ego, or self, wilh a totalistic and fundamentalistic aspect as background.
The first of this monographs four parts is devoted to The Development of
the Self. I do not believe that we need to explain or justify the selection of
this topic as the theme of one of the sections of this publication. There is
hardly a more important area for study than the psychology of the human self.
An entire book could be devoted to the subject of the development of the self,
and the selection of three special aspects for presentation was not an easy task.
The physical aspect, of course, had to be considered and, as part of it, the
neurological aspect was unquestionably the most important. Fred A. Mettlers
emphasis on the fact that the self of modern neurology is not the same as the
Cartesian soul, that it cannot be considered as something static but must
be considered as a process, places us in solid confrontation with the basic
question: Where does a scientific psychology of the self start? We are accord-

Harms : Summary

89 1

ingly given, after an exhaustive survey of the problems and achievements in

this special fieId, the clearly forniuIated advice: Within the frame of reference
of neural structure and function it is profitable to analyze the self into percept
and concept.
Charlotte Buhler, the developmentalist of contemporary psychology, makes
her contribution especially challenging with her emphasis on the fact that her
presentation was her first study of the development of the human self. However to expect, therefore, no more than an exploratory study would be a mistake, for we are offered here an exhaustive inventory of the developmental
aspect and a definitive discussion of efforts made in this area by others. Leaving us in no doubt as to the difficulty of setting up a clear and systematic approach to the developmental aspect of the basic problems of self-psychology,
this contributor offers theoretical and factual insights of utmost importance.
I t was not as a compromise nor as a compliment to the still strongest school
of American psychology that we included a presentation of the behaviorist
point of view in our limited list of topics. I t is generally expected that a Watsonian psychologist will deny the existence of what in the general frame of
present psychological concepts is designated as the self. Edward Joseph
Shoben, Jr., has given wide scope to the problem: accepting, historically, the
behaviorist position but going beyond it by posing the question: But what of
self-behavior, the tendency of people to react to their own persons as social
objects? Starting with self-psychology from the point of view of our awareness of ourselves as persons, Shoben adds an important tangent to the modern
discussion of the self-problem. His discussion also makes evident what we
ourselves had in mind in asking that a voice from the behaviorist camp be included in the chorus of our discussion, namely, that behaviorist geneticism
could, if put to work within a frame of reason, make an important contribution
to self-psychology. Shoben clearly formulates this thought in the last sentences of his excellent presentation:
. . . the components of the individuals history interact in complex ways to
give an unique character to his caring, his selective responsiveness to the world,
his values. The structure of the self, conceived in this fashion, obviously
undergoes changes as new experiences are undergone, evaluated, and assimilated. This dynamic character of selfhood makes for technical and practical
problems in the study of the mediating role that it exercises in relation to overt
behavior, but until we know something more of the way that selfhood interacts with other aspects of the individuals experiences, we are unlikely to know
much about the forms of behavior that are distinctively and crucially human.
One factor in that crucial distinctiveness seems to be each mans capacity to
incorporate within himself complete stimulus-response systems with neither
the stimulus nor the response always accessible to observation and report, even
by the actor himself. Facing up to this fact, approaching it with carefully
contrived inferential skills and inventive experimental methods, may well be
the next great task and challenge of psychology.
We are happy to have this evaluation of the venture we have here undertaken,
and we are especially happy that it comes from the behaviorist camp.
Turning toward The inner aspect of a psychology of the self, it must appear
almost natural that The Dynamics of the Selj was selected as the topic of Part

892

Annals New York Academy of Sciences

11. Of the various directions taken by psychology in our day, the dynamic
basic aspect is the one most American psychologists consider their own, or the
one which a t least they tolerate. We may, therefore, find greater interest in
what is offered in the three lectures of this session than in those of the first
session.
F. S. Rothschild, who is known throughout the world for his new approach
to and new interpretation of the problem of self, offered us the essence of his
concepts in a remarkable paper. Replacing the old geneticism with what he
calls the diosemiotic syntax, and the old teleology with what he develops as
the idea of intentionality, he gave a new dynamic approach to the total picture
of human existence and to what he calls the role of mans subjectivity. This
is an attempt toward the development of the pluralistic monism of which our
classical transcendentalists dreamed. An attempt to realize such an achievement is here now made in the form of an approach to modern psychology that
expresses itself in such an important statement as: No act of true self-realization is possible unless the free spirit and will of man first fulfills the requirements of inner unity with the materiality and emotionality of his organism.
Being well aware of the manifold and highly individualized character of the
occurrences of the term subjectivity, most of us are puzzled by the problem
of the possibility of classifying or even systematizing this variety of applications. We must therefore welcome warmly the attempt made by William C.
H. Prentice in his paper The Self as a Person, to draw together all the aspects
under which self as a concept can and should be considered: a most necessary
task for any consolidation of a psychology of the self.
I n contrast to Prentices discussion of the inner aspect of self-awareness,
Muzafer Sherif presents what we might call a social psychology of the self.
Even in simple self-awareness, Sherif points out, an environmental aspect is
involved: the constancy of experience of space and time that is basic in any
aspect of consciousness of the self. Besides this physicalistic aspect there is
the social and human aspect. It is that part of the world of man in which he
mirrors himself by self-reflection regarding his self-fulfillment. Sherif has
made it a life task to study the relatedness of the human individual and his
self to his environment. He has offered in this paper an exhaustive report on
the varieties of the dynamics from the outer world that bind, form, and develop
the human self.
In Part 111,under the topic The Self and World Concepts, we wanted to offer
a kind of cross-sectional and exemplifying view: how Weltanschauungis a forming and influencing element of our individual self. We selected three points
of view, all of which are known to play an essential role in the mental life of
our times, Although in many respects not completely developed, and although
denied major importance by a strong opposition, the existentialist concepts, we
felt, offer more interesting matter for discussion of the self-problem than do
other more broadly represented world concepts.
Antonia Wenkarts presentation of the complex of thoughts by which the
present existentialist school has documented its new approach injects into the
realm of the psychology of the self a new phenomenological realism that leads
from speculation about, discussion of, and experimentation with the Welt
concept to the Lebens Welt (the self-experience, the lived world), and from the

Harms : Summary

893

body as a mass of scientific factors to the body as ~ e ~ b h a ~ (the

~ ~ body
g k e as
~~
self-experienced). Such an approach, of course, demands a new scientific
attitude. In the frame of our discussion it demands acceptance by the wider
scientific sphere of a new methodological approach, and this contributor has
attempted to introduce us to it.
Among wide circles, not only of medical and psychological scientists, but of
the general intellectual public, Freudian psychoanalysis has grown from a
method to a psychoanalytic Weltanschauung. Freud demanded a different
way of looking at human matters and at the world man has built. As is well
known to everyone, and as has been emphasized in our introduction, the concept of the self plays a central role in the world of Sigmund Freud. Devoted
pupils have developed an unreal and almost mythological image of how the
psychoanalytical concept came about and what relationship it bears to the
personality of its creator. This question has indeed been a challenging one for
all those who gained bits of information about the stormy history of what
Freud himself called the psychoanalytic movement. More historically
minded persons have in the course of their reading about these events become
dubious of how much of reality has been permitted to come out into the open.
The dubiousness was especially aroused when Ernest Joness three-volume
biography of Freud appeared.2 That the Jones biography is a highly edited
presentation of Freuds life became evident to many readers who possessed a
feeling for historical reality. George W. Henry, whose remarkable feeling for
history and psychiatric facts is well known, has here made a first attempt to
show factually and concretely how Freuds self and personality were linked
to the psychoanalytic theories that he created. It is not a pleasant picture,
but this attempt at self-psychology on the biographical and historical level is,
I believe, of utmost importance.
Walter Houston Clark has accomplished something very important in taking
the problem of the religious individual out of the realm of theological speculation, and in realistically attempting to tackle the problem of religious selfexperience as represented in mystical experience. He is indeed right when he
maintains that we are lacking a proper searching study of the psychology of
religion and therefore of the religious aspect of self-psychology.
The broad interest in problems of the abnormal self, not only in the psychiatric field but in general conceptional speculation, made it obligatory for us to
devote Part IV of this monograph to Abnormal Self-Psychology. In our choice
of special topics and speakers we made it evident that we did not wish to present one school and one approach only, but rather wished to initiate a discussion of the widest possible scope. We see our problem not only as one of the
psychology of the self in general, but as one within the practical occupation
with self-problems from the angle of pathological experiences.
Luke J- Zuckers paper, in addition to being an important independent contribution to the subject of pathology of the self, appears to us to have significance because it tackles ego-pathology from outside the major known dogmatic
concepts. If we are to gain a sound basis for a psychology of the self in its
psychopathological aspects, we need objective nondogmatic conceptions.
John W. Perrys paper is of dual importance: first, the scope of the Jungian
primordial image has for the first time been widened beyond what Carl G.

894

Annals New York Academy of Sciences

Jung himself presented. Perry has furthermore here widened the scope of
Jungs concept of individuation, making it acceptable for extended evaluation. Most important, however, Perry, like William Stephenson in his Study
of B e h ~ v i o r shows
,~
that the central concept of Juiigian self-psychology-the
principle of individuation-can be understood and accepted within the frame
of present-day academic psychiatry. This comes close to establishing individuation as a concept that in the future may prove to be of central importance for the psychology of the self.
From a different point of view, Frederick C. Thornes self-constancy concept adds to the core of aboriginal views of a psychopathology and psychotherapy in the frame of a general psychology of the self. It was a major thesis of Freud that the study of the abnormal mind was of basic importance to
the development of a wider view of normal and general psychology. I pointed
out in my introduction the importance of ego- and self-psychology as developed
by Freud for the growth of general self-psychology. One of the important
results of this monograph is the recognition that this thesis of Freuds has been
considerably widened by contributions from other schools of psychopathology
working on a nucleus of central concepts that may prove of utmost importance
in working toward the consolidation of the field that is the aim of this publication.
We who organized the conference that has resulted in this monograph believe that we have made available through it a substantial array of special
presentations home of which will certainly establish more solid foundations for
a future psychology of the self than have existed thus far. Some readers will
have in mind the fact that this publication is part of a broader effort to establish a sound fundamentalistic basis for psychology. Accordingly, it is to
be expected that we shall gird ourselves here to further this effort. Some of
our critics may contend that we have failed to fulfill our task, or that we have
accomplished too little. As we have already stated, different sections of the
field of psychology demand different approaches. We, of course, had the
fundamentalistic basic aspect in mind from the beginning. May we be permitted to illustrate our position with an analogy: if one builds a house on solid
rock, one has little trouble with the foundations, but if one must build on shifting sand or swampland, pillars must first be sunk. We have been dealing with
unsolid ground in attempting to build a fundamentalistic house for a psychology of the self. Its actual fundamentalistic character, therefore, will become
evident only after we have advanced to the ground floor of the structure.

References
1. TROELTXII,
E. 1931. The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches. Macmillan.
New York, N. Y.
2. JONES, E. 1953-1957. The Life of Sigmund Freud. Basic Books. New York, N. Y
3. STEFIIENSON,
W. 1953. The Study of Behavior. Univ. Chicago Press. Chicago, Ill.

Printed in tlze United States of America