The Process of Constructing the Self and Its Relation to Psychotherapy

But, in their ZPD, the interaction takes on reciprocal qualities that promote exchange between parent and child in ways that create new possibilities for both. In the ZPD, attachment figures perceive the signals of the child, interrupt their own behavior and modify it to meet the needs of the child, and maintain a reciprocal interaction that molds to the child, fitting the child’s need, while concurrently forcing the child to make adjustments that propel development forward. Like two malleable pieces of clay, each ready for working, the attachment figure presents one surface of the clay of self to the child. That surface should mold comfortably to the child while still requiring the child to adjust and mold to the parent. Coming out of this reciprocal experience, both selves are changed. Through this process of shaping and reshaping, selves emerge and function in the immediate context of now before being modified again. In this dynamic interaction, each is creating a newly emergent self that is better adapted to immediate conditions and to the future development of the other. This increases the range of adaptability of each. That parents assist in the creation of the child’s self is obvious. That interaction with children promotes change in parents may be less obvious - unless one has had a child. The experience is profoundly self-modifying, changing forever how one sees oneself, how one reacts to others, and the range of interpersonal skills that one develops. This occurs in the interpersonal dance of protecting, comforting, and challenging a child and is on-going and continuous across the life-span. An advantage of conceptualizing the self as an ever-emergent process is that it emphasizes the continuing adaptation of self-organization to life’s ever-changing challenges.