Flexible Selfing | The Self-as-Content, Process, and Context
I and I
It is so incredibly difficult to talk about the present moment without bringing in the concept of the Self and perspective taking. In contextual behavioral science terms the Self (capitalized here to distinguish it from the typical noun) is an outcome of our ability to derive relationships with the world. Through consistent relating of experience to a fixed point of reference that persists across time we acquire a sense of self, or I/Me-ness. Just as you were born into the world, so too is your sense of self born out of hundreds of millions of direct and derived relations to. . . you. It’s pretty hard to think about because once we have this sense of self we can’t help but have it. Right now you are reading this book. You have a body, but we know that nearly every part of your body can be taken out and replaced and it wouldn’t actually change who YOU are fundamentally. If your entire consciousness was downloaded into a robot and your biological body ceased to exist, would you still be you? If you woke up tomorrow and found that you had been transformed into a man-sized cockroach yet retained your human mind, would you still be you? These are questions for philosophy, but for a contextual behavioral science account of the Self read A Contextual Behavioral Guide to the Self: Theory and Practice, by McHugh, Stewart, & Almada (2019).
In traditional ACT the Self is described as having three overlapping components: Self-as-Content, Self-as-Process, and Self-as-Context. Deciphering these components has historically been a challenge for new learners of ACT. The diagram of the matrix means that we can visualize the Self, including these three components as well as other points of view of the Self with ease.
The Self-as-Content Through the Matrix
The four quadrants of the matrix contain content of human experience. Here the word content refers to literally everything, whether that’s the people, places, things, that are important to you, the ways of being that you want to embody, the inner stuff that shows up to get in the way, or your actions. It’s all content.
To put it simply, content is all of our learning history. It’s everything we’ve ever experienced, everything we’ve ever done, everything that has ever happened to us, and on, and on.
The Self is typically represented by the center circle of the matrix. This is the point from which both noticing and choosing happen. Naturally the content of our lives shapes our sense of self. If everything that has ever happened in your life happened completely differently, you might be a different person right now. We grow through our experience. But what happens when our sense of self is dominated by only certain pieces of content and not others? Let’s take it quadrant by quadrant to see what happens when the Self is overly dominated by the content within it.
Take for consideration the following phrases:
“Since our daughter died we have nothing left. She was our whole world. Our reason for living.”
“Now that my father is retired from work he spends all day on the couch just watching TV. He has no friends, he’s stopped taking care of himself. I’m getting worried about him, I don’t think he knows who he is without that job.”
“The most important thing to me is my undefeated record. I’ve proven I’m the best in the world. Who I am is a champion, period!”
Which of the four quadrants do these sentences remind you of? In some sense, each one points toward something important or the lack thereof. Such statements are common, and I’m sure you’ve met people like this. People who self-identify almost entirely through the people in their lives that are important, or their career, or their fame or fortune. If any of these things is jeopardized a crisis is triggered. A loss or death of the content is equivalent to loss or death of the Self.
To conceptualize this scenario visually imagine that there is a breach in the center circle of the Self, allowing the content of the lower right hand quadrant to rush in. The Self becomes dominated by the content from this quadrant.
The center circle of the matrix can have a gap in it along any of the quadrants resulting in the content becoming highly related to the self concept.
Clients often come to us with a gap in the lower left hand section of the center circle. They define themselves as the (negative) emotional and cognitive experiences they have.
“I am depressed.”
“I am worthless, ugly, and nobody will ever love me.”
“I can’t do it.”
“Things will never get better for me.”
This kind of talk from clients is familiar to any therapist and it’s usually one of the first targets of treatment. Many therapists begin by challenging this type of self-talk or trying to flip it to a positive but since this involves the highly complex realm of self-concept the most effective work will have to occur on a more precise level.
When the gap in the center circle is on the upper left quadrant clients conceptualize themselves as being their misdeeds. Every “negative”, “wrong”, or “sinful”, action they’ve ever done haunts them endlessly. On the other hand if the gap is in the top right, clients conceptualize themselves to a fault as the actions they do to support who and what they love. They rationalize working 80 hour weeks, sacrificing everything, pouring themselves entirely into self-righteousness.
From an RFT perspective what’s happening here is the point of reference that is the Self is becoming rigidly entailed with certain relational networks and becoming governed by inflexible rule sets.
Think about the clients you work with and see if you can conceptualize some of their self-identity as domination by certain content.
The Self-as-Process Through the Matrix
If self as content is a rigid domination by certain content, self as process is a flexible flowing of content and learning history. As we work with clients we foster this sense of self as process as an integral component to living a vital life.
The present moment is fleeting as we discussed in the previous chapter. What this means is that the flow of our experience is ongoing from birth to death. Just as time passes for us so do we pass from moment to moment through our lives. This ongoing flow of experience means that we can be the same person we were when we were born, yet not be the person we were a year ago. In what context would such a self concept be useful? Well, that depends on the kind of person you were when you were born, the kind of person you were a year ago, and the kind of person you want to be right now. The alternative to a flexible flow of the self is a rigid adherence to only a portion of learning history.
Through the matrix this flow of self as process can be conceptualized as that center circle of the diagram rotating freely with a gap still in it just like the one from a couple pages ago. This time the gap gets an even distribution between all of the quadrants allowing content from all of them to feed into the self and back out again. The rest of the matrix diagram also promotes this sense of ongoing process by the virtue that a matrix can be completed in any situation and any time and have differing answers depending on the time and place.
We are dynamic creatures, and this ongoing sense of self enhances metaphors of our inner experience being like the weather, coming and going as a natural process. For a more thorough reading of the self as process check out Mindfulness for Two by co-founder of ACT, Kelly Wilson
The Self-as-Context Through the Matrix
Here it is, what is often described as the most challenging aspect of Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, the self as context. But not to worry, because the matrix makes it a piece of cake. If self as content is defining the self as only a small piece of learning history, and if self as process is viewing the self for the ongoing process it is, then self as context is the content plus process in context.
If we take a step back and view the matrix diagram as a representation of a single snapshot of a complex and dynamic system that is a human life then we can also say that it is a snapshot of the self in context. As a client of mine once said after finishing a matrix for the first time, “In a good way—it’s simplistic. It’s everything going on in my life right now.” Simplistic without being reductionistic, that’s what the matrix is all about. Take a look at the following image of a filled in matrix, notice the movement and dynamism involved:
The sheer amount of information you can glean from this image is amazing, and notice how the upper right quadrant only contains a question mark. As you use the matrix more and more with clients you will begin to be able to “make the reads” from filled in images like this. This helps with case conceptualization and refreshing your memory of clients before sessions. I think of it as akin to looking at the scoresheet of a baseball game. To some it may look like scribbles and gibberish, but to somebody who is familiar it’s a complete story. What you are looking at here is a moment in context.
The matrix allows us to view ourselves and our lives as ongoing contexts, as well as parts of other ongoing contexts. We are constantly moving, shifting, changing, even if we are physically standing still. Our inner world and our outer world are continuously influencing one another. And the concept of our self is always integrating in our history as we learn. At the same time, at the center of it all is a consistent place from which we view this all happening. This stable center has existed from the moment you were born (if not in the womb) and continues now to you reading this book. When we talk about the self as context, we mean both of these ideas. The sense that our lives are fluid dynamic systems never staying still, and the sense that within that dynamic system is a persistent I/Me from which we are always capable of looking at the system itself. Throughout this book you’ve walked yourself through a number of matrices, take any one of those and look at it simply, gently, slowly, and with an understanding that there is a you-here-now capable of being with your life as well as a part of your life. And if you can be here with your life, the only questions you need to ask yourself are how do you want to be here with your life, and with who?
Perspective Shifting Through the Matrix
The act of completing a matrix is itself a perspective shift, and once you have the diagram you can use it over and over again to practice perspective shifting flexibly in any number of ways. Perspective shifting flexibly is sometimes referred to as “flexible selfing”, as it is an act of viewing and responding to the self from various points of the self.
Using the matrix there are several points to target when perspective shifting.
The main reference point is always the center circle. If this circle represents the self or point of view, then perspective shifting simply entails looking from the center circle to the other points on the matrix, and from those points back at the center circle. Not only are the quadrants fair game but so are the loops themselves, and the horizontal and vertical lines. The only thing not included in the basic matrix diagram that you would want to incorporate into perspective shifting is time.
Let’s say we want to perspective shift to the lower right hand quadrant (Who and what are important to you?). To do this we ask certain questions designed to force a change in perspective. Since this quadrant involves people and things you care about it is often easy to start here with perspective shifting. For example, if the client has listed family members or friends who they care about and whose opinions they trust in this quadrant, we can ask the client to view their own actions through the eyes of their loved ones. How we phrase these perspective shift questions is important. Take a look at the two questions below, each posed by a therapist to a client, and notice the differences in approach:
“What would your mother think about the choice you just described?”
“If you were your mother watching your actions in that moment, what would you be thinking or feeling?”
The first question is not dissimilar to many questions therapists and lay people ask each other colloquially. The second question forces a more complete shift into the perspective of the mother. Phrasing questions in this manner prompts clients to think about their own experience in ways they may not have before and to consider information in new ways.
Such perspective shifting can occur across any dimension of the matrix. From the upper left quadrant (What do you tend to do when the inner stuff shows up?), we can ask questions like “If you were currently pushing people away, right now in this moment, what would you be noticing in terms of thoughts or feelings? How would that feel in the body?” This same question can be used by substituting any toward move or away move.
In the lower left hand quadrant (What inner stuff shows up that can get in the way?), perspective shifting questions can be posed from the perspective of cognitive or emotional content itself:
“If you were the thought ‘You can’t do anything right.’, and you had a body, what would that body look like? What position would it be in? How would your body be facing you?”
“If you were this feeling of worthlessness, and you were facing yourself right there on the couch, what would you be seeing? What would you say to that man there on the couch?”
We can also do this with the loops or patterns themselves:
“Let’s say for a second you are the stuck loop sneaking up on you on one of those good days. What would you be seeing? When would you strike? Why this moment? What’s going on here?”
Perspective shifting is a rich source of therapeutic content and where it can take you and your clients is only limited by imagination. While perspective shifting is not new to the matrix approach, the diagram of the matrix can be used as map to help you see where you have targeted perspective shifting with a client and where you may want to explore next.
Experiment with perspective shifting as you work with clients, and keep in mind that time is a valid dimension you can perspective shift from and to. If the you reading this book now could talk to the You from five years ago, what would you say to that person? What insights would you share? What would you want them to know?