The self-knower has become a hero within many contemporary cultures. This hero goes by various different titles, including the" self-insightful/' the "self-actualized/' the "autonomous and mature/' the "representative of independent thinking/' the "morally virtuous/' and many more. The common denominators of civilization's preoccupation with the self knower are (1) the mundane, popular literature that draws our attention to our "inner being" and (2) the remarkable intensity of therapies and quasitherapies that promise insight into the true core of our inner being. A characteristic example...

How diverse or potentially overlapping are the numerous self-models, self-theories, and directions of self-research? It has become clear that the processes associated with the self are complex and diverse, and that many of the approaches associated with the self have been pursued in isolation. Moreover, the fact of there being different traditions within developmental and social psychology, as well as different traditions in Europe and North America, has also led to a certain cacophony when we examine the self-field as a whole.
The chapters here confront these differences,...

The self-knower has become a hero within many contemporary cultures. This hero goes by various different titles, including the" self-insightful/' the "self-actualized/' the "autonomous and mature/' the "representative of independent thinking/' the "morally virtuous/' and many more. The common denominators of civilization's preoccupation with the self- knower are (1) the mundane, popular literature that draws our attention to our "inner being" and (2) the remarkable intensity of therapies and quasitherapies that promise insight into the true core of our inner being. A characteristic example...