Seeing One's Self: Locating Narrative Memory in a Framework of Personality

Individuals confront the continuing challenge of attending to the competing demands of internal and external stimuli. The emerging I-Self applies three principles of evaluation, categorization, and subsidiation to organize these informational demands. These principles guide the development of the five systems of personality--cognition, affect, motivation, behavior, and psychophysiology. These systems interact to create various Me-Selves that comprise the different roles and contexts of the personality. Each Me-Self contains evaluations (valenced responses to self and others), categories (self- and other representations), and sequences in time (the self and others in past, present, and future). Narrative is the perceptual expression of a particular Me-Self in consciousness. Narrative memory allows for meaningful analysis by consciousness of specific Me-Selves and the cognitions, affects, and goals associated with those selves. Applications of this position to research and psychotherapy are discussed.