Bill mentioned that the results of the self-image research Dick Robertson and I
did were published. We tried to publish in the American Psychologist but were
rejected. As far as I know, the research has not been published.
The direction I went at this point was to study the self-image of people I was
treating in pyschotherapy. There is one case which I wrote up for my own
benefit. I did not try to publish it.
The case study uses the ideas from PCT to obtain a set of statements which
describe the patient. Then it uses Q methodology to have the patient describe
herself under a number of different circumstances. The various Q sorts which
were obtained were factor analyzed which lead to a number of different
self-images which described the patient. I used the results obtained to help
guide the therapy. This was a case of a woman who was trying to decide whether
to support her parents or her sister who was claiming that the father sexually
abuse her.
This case study and others like it lead me to the idea that there was no one
self-image which describes a person under all circumstances. It also lead me to
the idea that there was a superordinate entity to the self-images which was
different from the self-images and comes closer to the essense of the person.
Awareness is more closely associated with this superordinate entity. The lower
level self-images are the means by which the Observer Self has to cope with a
given situation.
ยทยทยท
From: David M. Goldstein
Subject: Bill Powers (951004.0715 MDT)
Date: October 5, 1995, 10:20 pm