Inner Self

There is a relation that we have with ourselves, possibly the primal relationship on which all other relations are modelled.
This is a strange relationship, it is the house after the party it is where when everything else has gone you always can come back to. The self that we are, is constructed out of values, capacities and characteristics, i.e. how we may react in given situations. It is a strange area, as with other relations it can have different emotional aspects. Some people are at peace and at one with this self, listen to its needs and its cautions. This merging, this unity between the self that is and the self that does is the relationship that existential psychotherapy aims for. It is the I Me relationship, Bubers term, for a reltaionship where the two sides merge, as opposed to the I We relation where there is no merging but there is a respecting of the inner self of the other, and in distinction to the I It relationship which treats the other as an object.
There are other ways to relate, the self can be ignored and left. This strange circumstance can happen out of our powers of imagination. Narrative is the application of imagination to action, it produces, interprets facts to provide a story, a framework to provide meaning for actions. Actors are pivotal in this, an actor implying certain actions, thus the hero will cast aside adversity, as will the captain of industry, or the alpha male. Everyone's lives are predominantly constructed with these stories and roles.
Many many peoples lives are led through these roles. Their needs for their ego are satisfied through this, feeling good about themselves through achievement using the axioms of their role to guide their life. All can be fine, until moments of crisis, when either all or part of their world collapses and they realise from the perspective of their self that their life has been empty. It is as if they stand at their grave stone looking back, weeping for what should have been.

The inner self needs to act, needs to realise itself, it needs its existence, as it was produced through its being in the world. To act there are three possibilities, to wish and to expect which are passive from the self and to intend which is where the self decides on action to achieve its desires. A wish merely hopes the world is a certain way, expectation deems that's how things usually are, and intention is what the self desires. The set of actions that the self can choose, the creation of their expectations is derived from their history. In here are their future possibilities, in here are their capacities that inform their expectations, which can acts as a brake or an accelerator to their actions. History is as most historians will tell you a political art. It is an interpretation, a creative act. As such a person has a large set of raw materials from which to construct their history. Given this history is a narrative act of stories and actors you can see how a persons future has all the possibilities of the story of their past. The only point here is that the desire for order precludes a too frequent reevaluation of ones history.

As a therapist entering into this paradigm then ones motivation is to be an ally to the client in their search for truth and their authenticity. Whilst the former is understood to be objective the latter is certainly not. Authenticity derives from the values of the inner self. This quest is one via description rather than analysis. The therapist holds a light to the clients life such that they can see their values and actions and decide if they are the right ones for them. Emotions that come out in this process are reactions between the self that is and the self that acts, the therapist shouldn't seek to lessen these through comforting but rather look for the message that is communicated through this. This then will allow the client to know themselves better, and a client who knows their inner self better is better placed to have a more satisfying life. At the gravestone then one can look back with pride.