How the Self Is Formed‘become thatthe concept ofthe self may wellbe the succesor ro is indeterminacy ofthe soul, ake the words of Thomas Moore, whodefine the soul; that definition is an “intel- lectual enterprise,” whereas “the soul prefers to imag re, 1992, p- 1). People who are oriented to their souls try soul would direct them, but the soul does not speak cl interpretations ofits directions ae very diffuse. Furthermore, since this life is a temporary interlude in the soul's eternal life, the mun- purity few experience. Most people nowadays do not talk about their souls. Almost Still the soul has a dynamic where the id, ego, and superego unconscious hes been far more fruitful incomprehensible experience, and it has been incontrovertible as a source of impelling energy. But ir has aso been a source of separ ration between that which the person knows about herselfand what the unconscious represents. Though more experience rooted than the soul, the unconscious nevertheless maintains only a ghostly ink to surface experience, which is directed by cryptic motives buried in unreachable ling systems. The unconscious so often contradicts the surface of existence that it has become easier than ever to be ‘confused about who you relly are. Popeye would have no part of such complexity. Dynamics of the Self Now, after a century of extensive writings, the self has recently received a new level of acceptance and may well serve as the con- ‘Why the Selft temporary conceptual heir to the soul and the unconscious. The ‘concept ofthe self that I'am proposing and that I will elaborate in this book has four key processes that deepen an understanding of the person, on both the surface level and the deeper levels normally attributed to both the soul and the unconscious: 1. Point/counterpoint relatedness 2. Configuration 3. Animation 4. Dialogue Point/Counterpoint ‘The concept of self addresses the interplay among whatever aspects face value, not as simply a substitute for what is obscured. In the Janguage of the self, this means that there isno “real” self, hidden by surface experience, but rather @ community of selves that vie for ascendancy, For example, an intellectual man, feeling unhappily caught into a studious way of life, gets fed up and says his “real” self is a surfer. Not so. In terms of the interplay among his options, he is talking about two of his selves—the intellectual self and the surfer __self—each with its own character ‘Therapists considering the population of selves that | propose can lear a lesson from music, where point/counterpoint interaction is 2 familiar compositional factor. In poinycounterpoint,indepen- dent musical voices are set against one another. Some are comple- mentary, others dissonant, but all contribute to the integrity and ‘ichness of the entire piece of music. In a culture where harmony ‘in music, asin other things is frequently considered the ideal, any- thing short of a smooth blending of voices can seem like a blemish ‘that distracts attention. Yet, as the musicologist Arthur Bullivant says, “There is no fundamental reason why contrapuntal music