The Psychiatric Significance of the Personal Self

Drawing upon literature reviews in psychiatry, the social sciences, and philosophy, this article defines the concept of the "personal self" and briefly describes its importance to the following areas of psychiatry: (1) mental illness, (2) psychiatric ethics, (3) diagnosis, (4) the clinician, (5) clinical research, (6) psychiatric pluralism, and (7) the goals of psychiatric treatment. The personal self is a Western common-sense concept which is characterized by five aspects: agency, identity, trajectory, history, and perspective. Because of the intimate and often ambiguous relationship between the personal self and mental illness, the personal self has considerable psychiatric significance in moral, professional, research, and existential realms.