The Social Construction of Self

05 Oct The Social Construction of Self

This week’s emphasis on self and culture has made a clear case for the social construction of self. Daniels provides an overview of the many concepts of self/soul throughout world religions and cultures and talks about the lack of sophistication of the English language in describing the self or soul compared with other languages. It reminds me of how we’ve been told since children that the Inuit have 30 (?) different words for snow, and that we as middle-class Americans don’t need 30 words because we see so little snow that snow is snow. Even as children hearing this we marveled at Inuit acuity in being able to parse out differences that we could not see. This seems one of the reasons that as transpersonalists and seekers we’ve sought meaning from other cultures who have a more sophisticated understanding of the transpersonal than ours does.

Ours, as Cushman outlines, is perhaps hopelessly mired in materialism, particularly consumerism. After WWII there was a period of unprecedented affluence, at least for the American middle-class, which was exploited by the advertising industry. The picture they painted ignored the reality of the lives of women, persons of color, and the poor. The materialist worldview leaves people feeling empty inside, a feeling that was also exploited by the psychotherapy industry (it creates more customers). Over the decades since, people have been desperately trying to fill up the emptiness inside through the consumption of goods, services, and entertainment.

I really notice this in my psychotherapy practice. One young man quit therapy because I just didn’t get it: he is too special to have to pay his dues for the success he imagines. (He expects to become a “lifestyle guru” like Ralph Lauren.) We see single clients shopping for partners through the consumer model of the dating apps. Our culture seems to be a baffling mess of entitlement and addiction. Yet we need to be aware that our search for spiritual fulfillment may be just another shiny toy we’re trying to add to our collection to ease our hunger.

Cushman, P. (1995). Constructing the self, constructing America: A cultural history of psychotherapy. Da Capo Press.

Daniels, M. (2021). Shadow, self, spirit revised edition: Essays in transpersonal psychology. Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic.

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