I Speak, Therefore I Am:

      A Behavioral Approach to Understanding Problems of the Self. (1)

            Robert J. Kohlenberg - University of Washington (2)

           Mavis Tsai - Independent Practice, Seattle, Washington



In clinical work, no concept is more befuddling than that of the self. To
illustrate, consider the following verbatim comments by a client named
Bernice:

          Beatrice: It's so fucking hard to be real, to be me.

          Therapist: If you aren't you, who are you?

          Beatrice: I'm whoever someone else wants me to be. I
          don't even know when I'm being myself.

The self that Beatrice is talking about possesses incongruous attributes
that seem to defy attempts to precisely define and specify it. She referred
to her self as something different from her body; that is, she described
her self as changing with other people's wants even though her body
obviously remained the same. Her self, then, is not physical--it is not her
body. Second, she implied that the experience of self, an internal
experience, is controlled by external others. However, this self that she
experienced was not really her because it was controlled by others. Third,
Beatrice implied that there is a self which is unchanging and not
controlled by others that she desires to have but is not sure when she has
it.

We have developed a behavioral theory of self that makes sense of what
Beatrice said. More generally, in this article we account for how the
experience of self develops in terms the early learning of language. We
also explore how this process can go awry, leading to variety of problems
of the self including being overly sensitive to criticism, not knowing what
you want, losing oneself in close, relationships, and, the chaotic self
experience of borderline personality disorder.

              The Development of Self: A Theory of Experience

Since normal and pathological views of self are based on the experiences of
the person, our focus is on the experience of self. Our approach is based
on an elaboration of Skinner's (1953, 1974) analysis of self and on our
clinical experience. We will explain the experience of self by identifying
and describing the something (the stimulus) that is experienced. To
illustrate, explaining a person's experience of heat involves identifying
and describing relevant stimuli (temperature, humidity, etc.) that result
in the person saying "that's hot." A complete account would also include
the person's history (e.g., growing up in Alaska or Hawaii) that explain
individual differences in relevant stimuli for saying "that's hot."

In the case of self experience, however, obviously the person doesn't say
"that's self" for us to identify and describe the relevant stimuli.
However, people do use self referents such as "I," "me," "Jamie," and
"Mommy" imbedded in longer phrases such as "I am here." According to the
behavioral theory of language, these self referents are under the control
of relevant stimuli in the same manner as "hot" discussed above. The key to
understanding self then, is the identification of the relevant stimuli that
evoke self referents.

                               Verbal Reports

Since our theory is built upon identifying relevant stimuli that lead to a
verbal report about the stimulus, a definition of verbal reports is called
for. Based on Skinner's (1957) behavioral approach to language acquisition,
we define a verbal report as an utterance that was specifically taught to
be evoked by a prior stimulus (technically known as the tact). To
illustrate, imagine a baby who is learning how to talk, and is reinforced
for saying "apple" by her parent's joy only when an apple is shown, and not
when a banana or an orange are shown. Eventually, just having the apple
present will result in the child's saying "apple" or "appee" or "ahp" as
the case may be. In behavioral terms we would say that the verbal report
(the utterance "apple", a tact) occurs when an apple is present. As a
result of this learning history, we would say the response "apple" is under
the stimulus control of the apple. Further, the actual apple (the relevant
stimulus) came to evoke the response "apple" because it was the only
stimulus that was present each time saying "apple" was reinforced.

     The Emergence of the Verbal Report "I" as a Small Functional Unit

In essence, we believe that a child learns the word "I" in a similar manner
to learning "apple." That is, the parents or caretakers naturally prompt
and model the child saying "I" only when certain stimuli are present. The
process for teaching "I," however, differs in important ways from teaching
"apple." First, unlike "apple" the word "I" is not taught as an independent
unit. That is, the parent doesn't hold up the stimuli appropriate to "I"
and say "this is an ‘I’." Instead, the verbal report "I" emerges as an
independent, single unit from previously learned larger phrases containing
"I." This is the same process that occurs in a concept learning task where
an element of a complex figure emerge as the relevant stimulus. The process
is described by Skinner as the "by-product of the acquisition of larger
responses containing identical elements" (Skinner, 1957, p. 120).. Second,
in normal, non-pathological development, as the child’s utterance "I"
emerges an independent unit, the stimuli that control the response "I"
transfers from the public stimuli used by parents to private stimuli
available only to child. On the other hand, impediments to this transfer
from public to private relevant stimuli are implicated in problems of the
self. We have designated three developmental stages relevant to the
emergence of "I."

During Stage I the child learns small units such as "mama," "light," and
"hot." In addition, the child also learns numerous large units which are
the focus of our account. Examples of large units are "I am hot," "I want
juice," and "I see mommy" (in actuality these statements might be "me see
mama" or "baby juice"). At this stage, these large units are learned as a
whole--that is, they are functional units and are not composed by the child
from the individual words they contain. Our proposition that toddlers do
learn units of this type has been verified by the observation of children
ranging between 18 months and 3 years (Cooley, 1908; Dore, 1985; Fraiberg,
1977; Peters, 1983). As in all discrimination learning, the parent must use
public stimuli (stimuli available to the parent) when teaching their
children to give Stage I verbal reports.

We will consider in some detail the stimuli a parent uses to help a child
learn "I see apple" as a large unit in stage I. There is a subtle but
importance difference between the utterances "I see apple," and the
exclamation "apple." "I see apple" is ostensibly controlled by a private
activity of the speaker--that is, the child would be describing his or her
private experience of seeing. In this sense, "I see apple" could also be
used to report on an imagined apple, i.e., the child is experiencing the
activity of seeing the apple but there is not public apple stimulus
present. In order to have the child's "I see apple" reflect this subtlety,
the parent in effect has the difficult task of trying to teach the child to
come under control of the private activity of seeing when saying "I see
apple." That is, the parent needs to detect when it is apparent that the
child is having the private experience of seeing the apple in order to
prompt the child to correctly say, "I see apple." Public stimuli that the
parent could use for this purpose include the overt orienting of the child
toward the apple such as head-turning, pointing, widening of the eyes, and
intense staring in the general direction of the apple. The actual orienting
would probably vary slightly from time to time depending on the location of
apple, child, ambient lighting, etc.

In addition to public stimuli, a wealth of additional private stimulation
are present such as the private activity associated with the public
orienting toward the apple (e.g, the vegetative components of the orienting
reflex, Sokolov, 1963). Another would be the particular visual system
activity associated with seeing the apple as well as a general component of
seeing (the general activity of seeing that occurs regardless of what is
being seen). The private components of the child’s relative location with
respect to others and objects we have designated as "perspective" after
Hayes, 1984.

During Stage II, smaller functional units emerge, such as "I am," "I have,"
"I want," and "I see," which can then be combined with particular objects.
It is during this stage that a child can say, "I want basketball" even
though she or he may never have uttered this particular phrase before. At
this stage, the private stimuli controlling the unit "I see" are the
private experience of seeing.

During Stage III, a single, even smaller unit "I" emerges along with the
experience of "I". Thus, the acquisition of the experience of "I" is
similar to one's acquisition of the experience of a basketball, mommy, or
heat in that they are all verbal reports under the control of relevant
stimuli. These experiences differ from "I," however, in that they are under
the control of specific public stimuli that can be separately learned. "I,"
on the other hand, is under the control a private stimulus and is not
learned separately as a small unit but emerges from the previously
mentioned larger units. It is at this point that perspective becomes the
relevant stimulus for "I" because it is the only element that is present
across all responses containing "I" as in "I am," "I have," "I want," and
"I see." In normal development, this private, relevant stimulus
(perspective) is unique in that it is always where the child is and does
not change as the child's body changes (e.g., as the child grows, has
chicken pox, etc.). It is also the place (location) where the wanting
occurred that controls the "I want," as well as the "seeing", "feeling",
etc. for the various "I X’s." These properties of the relevant stimuli that
control "I" account for the everyday non-pathological experience of "I" as
"an abiding, resting awareness, featureless and unchanging, a central
something that is witness to all events, exterior and interior" (Deikman,
1973, p. 325) and might even be responsible for spiritual experience
(Hayes, 1984).

Our theory that the self develops as a result of language acquisition and
that the meaning of "I" emerges from the meaning of larger phrases in which
"I" is imbedded is not a new idea. In 1908 Cooley (who was not a
behaviorist) collected data on the acquisition of "I" and developed a
theory of self based on his observations. Although not stated in behavioral
terms, his theory is in essence the same as ours. Cooley concluded that at
age 26 months, the child's use of I-phrases such as "I don't know," "I want
--," and "Come see me," seems to have been learned as "wholes" (p. 355) or,
in our terminology, large functional units. Cooley then goes on to say that
"From these she probably gets the I idea by elimination...(that is) the
rest of the sentence varies but the pronoun remains constantly associated
with the expression of the will, the self attitude." (p. 355) or, in our
terminology, emerges.

                           Disorders of the Self

In this section we will briefly describe how our theory accounts for
problems of the self. Due to space limitations, we only will discuss two
common self disorders--the unstable self and borderline personality
disorder. For a more complete discussion of the development and treatment
of self disorders (including multiple personality disorder) see Kohlenberg
and Tsai (1991).

As a result of childhood language acquisition, every person ends up with
more or less private control of "I." In a nutshell, our theory of problems
of the self involve an early learning environment which does not produce
sufficient private stimulus control over the verbal report "I."

                       The Unstable or Insecure Self

An example of a mild self problem occurs when the emergence of "I" has been
moderately impeded. We are unsure of who we are if we didn't receive the
early learning experiences that lead to the emergence of an "I" under
control of the private stimulus, and instead end up with "I" controlled by
ambiguous, inconsistent, or conditional relevant stimuli. In normal
development the emerging "I" comes under the stimulus control of the
"place" where the activities such as seeing, wanting, feeling, thinking
occur. If these activities are partially under public control, then the
experience of self (the place where wanting, feeling, and thinking takes
place ) will also be partially under public control. Further, since the
public stimuli, such as parent behavior, can vary from time to time, the
self experience will also vary depending on the degree to which it is
publicly controlled. Thus, a somewhat unstable self will occur because it
varies with who is present and in particular is variable in close
relationships. This occurs because public control over "I X" largely
involved the parent, an important, close relationship.

As an example of how this could happen, assume that "I see" has emerged as
a functional unit during Stage II after considerable experience with many
larger units, such as "I see ball," and "I see kitty." At this point in
development, both public and private stimuli are present that could control
the response "I see." Let' say that the child then reports seeing either an
imagined stimulus (e.g., an imaginary friend) or a public stimulus that
parents don't see (e.g., a fish which darts away). A parent who ridicules
or criticizes the child at this point will lessen control by private
stimuli and the child more likely will say "I see object X" only when his
or her public orienting responses and X are public and conspicuous (to the
parent and thus to the child). In other words, the child would need some
kind of external validation in order to say "I see X." Parents who take
their children's "I see" reports seriously when the parent cannot see the
controlling stimulus are reinforcing control by private stimuli. As a
result, the child more likely will say "I see object X" based on his or her
private seeing activity.

Keep in mind that we are not describing the process in which a child
becomes reluctant to report his or her internal visual experiences because
of fear or embarrassment. This type of suppression can occur only after the
child has learned to accept private experience as a valid object to be
seen. We are describing the process by which the object is seen in the
first place--the genesis of the relationship (or lack thereof) between
private experience and seeing.

In general, the fewer the "I X" responses a person has under private
control, the greater the confusion or difficulty he or she would experience
in answering questions having to do with personal preferences, desires, and
values when another person is present who is difficult to "read." Such
questions may include: "What do you like?" "What do you want?" "What do you
believe?" and "What are your goals?"

Extreme sensitivity to the opinions, beliefs, desires, and moods of others
is another way of saying that a person's "I Xs," which ideally are under
private control, are actually under public control. If a person's sense of
self is shaky, any perceived or actual criticism may be experienced as
devastating because it means any criticized "I Xs" were wrong or bad and
the critic's "I Xs" must be adopted. It also involves a shift from whatever
weak private control was present to control by the other. Under these
conditions, life is unpredictable, chaotic, subject to the whims of others
thereby is likely to be aversive.

                      Borderline Personality Disorder

According to our formulation as stated above, if a large number of "I X"
responses end up being under public control, there will be severe self
problems. This situation is produced by parents who are very inconsistent
in their own reactions to conspicuous public stimuli (e.g., a schizophrenic
or borderline parent). With such unstable parents, the "I see" response,
for example, only would be reinforced when the following relevant stimuli
(Sd's) were present: (1) the stimulus consisting of the child's public
orienting to a public object, (2) the stimulus of the parent's publicly
orienting, and (3) the stimulus of the parent not appearing to be
preoccupied, distracted, or having a psychotic episode. Under these
learning conditions, very little of the private activity of seeing would
come to control the "I see" response. Instead, the child's seeing mainly
would be controlled by the parent's mood and public orienting. Under these
extreme circumstances, when the parent is present, the child would see a
fish only if there were conspicuous public stimuli consisting of both a
fish and indications the parent sees the fish.

The "I" that emerges under these conditions would be dependent on the cues
provided by the parent. As a result, when the parent is present, what is
seen, felt, wanted, liked, disliked, and so forth, would be dependent on
cues from that parent. For example, one set of cues may be that the parent
appears to be in a good mood, is paying attention to what is going on
(e.g., the public stimuli), and gives indications that the child's needs
will be attended to. Then, based on the child's past experiences of "father
in a good mood," an extensive repertoire of "I X" responses, such as "I'm
hungry" and "I just saw a birdie," will appear and be reinforced. The "I"
that emerges under these conditions will be under public control; that is,
the sense or experience of "I" is dependent on the cues given by the
parent. When the parent is in a different state, however, withdrawn,
inattentive, or even hallucinating, a different "I X" repertoire is called
for and a different publicly controlled "I" experience would emerge (e.g.,
one that had no needs or feelings, or that is super-sensitive to the
parents' needs).

Borderline personality disorder is characterized as a chaotic interpersonal
relating and emotionality. A paucity of private control of "I" could lead
to this instability. The statement, "I feel empty," which is characteristic
of clients who are diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder,
could be an effect of the relative absence of private Sd's which control
"I." Since wanting, feeling, thinking, and the like are mainly not under
private control in the extreme case, the locus is primarily outside and
dependent on the parent's behavior. The "outside" location of the stimuli
evoking "I" would be experienced as depersonalization, and when these
external stimuli are absent--one would experience the absence or loss of
self. Since emptiness refers to something that was contained within and is
now gone, the presence and absence of the stimuli controlling the
experience of self could be tacted as "emptiness."

According to Linehan (1993), an invalidating parent environment leads to
the development of borderline personality disorder because such parents are
likely to (1) invalidate the child's reports of current emotional
experiences, especially negative ones (i.e., not take them seriously,
disbelieve the reports, respond as if the child is not feeling what he or
she communicates); (2) oversimplify the ease of controlling one's emotional
experiences, thinking, and action, and thus invalidate the child's
experiences of difficulty and need for help; and (3) excessively criticize
or respond punitively when the child expresses preferences, values and
beliefs that do not reflect those of the parents.

The behavioral view of Linehan's (1993) account is that invalidation is the
lack of positive reinforcement for private control over a broad range of
the child's "I X" responses, such as "I want," "I feel," "I need," and "I
believe." As pointed out, these contingencies not only will directly affect
the experience of "I want," "I feel," "I need," and "I believe," but will
also affect the "I" experience that emerges from these.

                                 Conclusion

Our behaviorally informed account of the self is based on the environmental
conditions that can produce stimulus control of those tacts known as
self-referents. We have pointed out how variations in these environmental
conditions could result in more or less control by private stimulation.
These variations in the source of stimulus control also offer an account of
those clinical problems that are referred to as problems of the self. The
advantages of this view of the self is that it capitalizes on the clarity
of behavioral concepts and avoids the reification, dualism, and
homuncularization of non-behavioral theories. The ultimate value of our
approach. however, lies in its utility in generating research on the self
and the development of effective clinical interventions for problems of the
self. We have taken some initial steps in this direction. In Functional
Analytic Psychotherapy (Kohlenberg and Tsai 1991), we proposed therapeutic
methods based on this model of the self that involve using the
client-therapist relationship as an environment in which control can be
shifted from public (the therapist) to the client's private control. We
hope this paper will encourage behavior therapists to do research and
clinical work on issues of the self.

                                 References

          Cooley, C. H. (1908) A study of the early use of self
          words by children. Psychological Review, 15, 339-357.

          Deikman, A. J. (1973) The meaning of everything. In R.
          E. Ornstein (Ed.), The nature of human consciousness.
          San Francisco: Freeman.

          Dore, J. (1985) Holophrases revisited: Their "logical"
          development from dialogue. In M. Barret (Ed.),
          Children's single word speech. New York: Wiley.

          Fraiberg, S. (1977) Insights from the blind.
          Comparative studies of blind & sighted infants. New
          York: Basic Books

          Hayes, S. C. (1984). Making sense of spirituality.
          Behaviorism, 12, 99-110.

          Kohlenberg & Tsai, (1991). Functional analytic
          psychotherapy: Creating intense and curative
          therapeutic relationships. New York: Plenum.

          Linehan, M. M. (1993). Cognitive behavioral treatment
          of borderline personality disorder: The dialectics of
          effective treatment. Guilford: New York

          Peters, A. N. (1983) The units of language acquisition.
          London: Cambridge University Press

          Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. New
          York: Macmillan.

          Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal behavior. New York:
          Appleton-Century-Crofts.

          Skinner, B. F. (1974). About behaviorism. New York:
          Knopf.

          Sokolov, Y. N. (1963) Perception and the conditioned
          reflex. New York: Pergamon



     (1) From the The Behavior Therapist, 18, 113-116. (go back... /
     voltar...)
     This article is based, in part, on a paper by the first author
     and Marsha Linehan on a radical behavioral approach to borderline
     personality.

     (2) Address: Department of Psychology 351635 - University of
     Washington
     Seattle, WA 98195-1635. - Voice (206) 543-9898 - FAX (206)
     685-3157 (go back... / voltar...)
     [Image]E-mail: fap@u.washington.edu