The Process of Constructing the Self and Its Relation to Psychotherapy

This transformation is well described by learning theory in terms of reinforcement contingencies that change the probability that the self will act in particular ways. Responses that are punished may, in the future, be inhibited. Responses that precede expected punishment that does not occur may be repeated, in a compelled manner, when undesirable outcomes are expected. When the inhibited or compelled behavior is temporally, but not causally, related to the outcome, there may be a basis for development of disorders of inhibition and compulsion, i.e., persistent inhibition or display of behaviors that do not function as the individual implicitly assumes that they function (Crittenden, 1997). In the terms of cognitive psychology, this form of representing the relation of self to external non-self is procedural memory (Tulving, 1979) The cognitive transformation requires only the brainstem and cerebellum (Thompson, 1985). Affect. The second transformation is based on the relative intensity of the stimulation and is associated with affective feeling states. Stimulation that is highly discrepant from current stimulation, i.e., that reflects a substantial change in intensity of stimulation, elicits processing through the more recently evolved limbic system (Le Doux, 1995). Typically such stimulation includes very loud sounds or silence, very bright light or darkness, sharp painful touch or feather light tickling of a few body hairs, etc. Such stimulation generates physiological change in heart rate, breathing, etc. that prepares the body to fight, flee, or, in extreme cases, freeze. It creates, in other words, several dispositions to act (Damasio, 1994).