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The Process of Constructing the Self and Its Relation to Psychotherapy
di Patricia M. Crittenden
pag. 17 di 19
It also delays responding. Thus, when danger is eminent, full integration
carries risk to survival. In safety, however, full integration permits more finely adapted
responses. Because the perception of imminent danger implies the need for prompt selfprotective
action, integration is most difficult to accomplish under conditions of perceived threat
or danger.
Determination of which representation will guide immediate behavior depends upon the
interaction of maturation, experience, and context. When the parent is a source of danger,
children’s learned mental and behavioral strategies may not prepare them well for the (safe)
world outside the family. On the other hand, when the context is dangerous, interaction with the
parent may assist the child to acquire culturally adaptive, self-protective strategies. In either
case, change in context may yield a mismatch of self to context. For example, under dangerous
conditions, formerly safe individuals may generate defensive responses too slowly whereas,
under safe conditions, formerly threatened individuals may respond too rapidly on the basis of
partial processing that elicits unnecessary or maladaptive self-protective behavior. There may
also be a need for psychotherapy when the natural process of self-adaptation has come to a halt.
This can occur when (1) there is no external impetus to change, for example, when a family
system settles into a dysfunctional pattern that everyone is afraid to change, or (2) the
individual’s current strategies function to prevent attending to or resolving the problem, for
example, when there is dependence upon any addiction from alcoholism to “workaholic” selfdistraction.
Both of these situations can lead to a stable state of discomfort and, ultimately, to
depression. In both cases, a combination of introducing a mild and unexpected threat (Guidano,
1991) and providing a safe opportunity to explore it may break the impasse. Under such
circumstances, a comforting guide can be a great advantage. Thus, one function of
psychotherapy is to unsettle existing patterns while providing a safe and comforting relationship
within which to explore new strategies, new self-other representations and integration of multiple
representations in a process of on-going adaptation of an emergent self to a changing and
variable context.