Self

From No Subject - Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis
Jump to: navigation, search

The term self is used in several different senses. It can refer to the ensemble of the psychic agencies, the narcissistic organization of the psyche, or the conscious part of the psyche that enables the individual to recognize himself or herself as an agent and a subject endowed with reflexive consciousness. The German Selbst is sometimes encountered in Freud's writings to refer to the person. Beginning in the 1940s, Melanie Klein used the word self in the general sense of representation of the inner world. We can...