“The contemporary Western conception of the Self – individualized, bounded, with interior depth and temporal continuity, self-possessed, autonomous, free to choose – was not natural, given, or universal, it was historical and cultural achievement.” (Rose, Abi-Rached pp. 203)

Their are two basic models of the self: the interdependent, sociocentric self that arises out of relationships between the group, community, or tribe and then there is the egocentric model that has arisen in the West. The self is holoarchic (a holon is both a part and a whole). The self perceived as separate and individualized from the social unit, with it’s own autonomy and free will; and the self perceived as indistinguishable from the social unit form a dualistic gap that in my opinion gives rise to many forms of psyhcopathology in the “individual”. How do we bridge the gap between these dual aspects of the self? Deconstructing social dualisms can be part of this reconciliation, but in order to understand how the dynamics of the self, it many be helpful to understand the plastic nature of the brain and the neurological basis for the formation of personhood.