ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R

Advances in Psychological Science ›› 2016, Vol. 24 ›› Issue (1): 83-90.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2016.00083

• Regular Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Self: A Perspective from psychological counseling and therapy

SUN Bingli1,2; TIAN Yu1,2; SUN Haiyang1,2; WANG Wenzhong1   

  1. (1 Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China)
    (2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China)
  • Received:2015-02-13 Online:2016-01-15 Published:2016-01-15
  • Contact: WANG Wenzhong, wangwz@psych.ac.cn

Abstract:

Self is a core concept of psychological counseling and therapy. With respect to psychoanalytic, behavior, and cognitive therapies, the concept of self is only focused on behavioral and cognitive levels, and the newly emerging mindfulness based therapy extends the concept to body and perception. Findings for embodied cognition and cognitive neuroscience research suggest that body, perception, and cognition are inseparable, and they are closely connected with self. By incorporating extant evidence from psychotherapeutic theories and empirical studies, the current paper proposed an integrate concept of self, comprising rationality (symbolic function, cognition and emotion), sensibility (non-symbolic function, sensation and perception) and body (physiological function).

Key words: psychotherapy, mindfulness, embodied cognition, self diamond structure