Research Catalog

Title

The private self / Arnold H. Modell.

Author

Modell, Arnold H., 1924-

Publication

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1993.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

250 pages; 22 cm

Summary

The concept of the self is the subject of intense debate in psychoanalysis - as it is in neuro-science, cognitive science, and philosophy. In The Private Self Arnold Modell, a leading thinker in American psychoanalysis, studies selfhood from the inside by examining variations on the theme of the self in Freud and in the work of object relations theorists, self psychologists, and neuro-scientists. His significant contribution is an interdisciplinary perspective in formulating a theory of the private self. Modell contends that the self is fundamentally paradoxical in that it is both dependent and autonomous - dependent upon social affirmation, but autonomous in generating itself from within: we create ourselves by selecting values that are endowed with private meanings. (Modell presents an extensive view of these self-generative and self-creative aspects.) The private self is an embodied self: the psychology of the self is rooted in biology. By thinking of the unconscious as a neurophysiological process and the self as the subject and object of its own experience, Modell is able to explain how identity can persist in the flux of consciousness. In arriving at his unique synthesis of psychoanalytic observations and neurobiological theory, Modell draws on the contributions of Donald Winnicott in psychoanalysis, William James in philosophy, and Gerald Edelman in neurobiology. The Private Self boldly explores the frontier between psychoanalysis and biology. In replacing the "instinct-driven" self and the "attachment-oriented" self with the "self-generating" self, the author offers an exciting and original perspective for our understanding of the mind and the brain.

Subject

• Self-perception
• Social perception
• Self
• Ego (Psychology)
• Social Perception
• Ego
• Self Concept
• Self
• Self-perception
• Social perception
• Neurobiologie
• Psychoanalyse
• Selbst
• Selbstbeobachtung
• Selbstbild
• Zelf
• Theorieën
• Percepcao (psicologia)
• Percepcao e motivacao social
• Psicologia individual

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 232-246) and index.

Contents

Thinking about the self: structure and consiousness -- Private and public selves -- The private self in public space -- The dialectic of self and other -- Solitude, passionate interests, and the generative aspects of the self -- Process and experience: the unconscious structure of the self -- Private meaning and the agency of the self -- Value, "instinct", and the emergent motives of the self.

ISBN

• 0674707524
• 9780674707528
• 0674707532
• 9780674707535

LCCN

93014974

OCLC

• ocm27811721
• 27811721
• SCSB-1999291

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library