What all this work suggests is that a foundational idea of the Humanistic Psychologists is simply wrong – there is no authentic core to us, no essential, happy and perfect version of the self that can be exposed by stripping back the repressing expectations of society. In fact, the self is modular. We’re made up of many competing selves, all of which are equally ‘us’, and which fight for dominance. Different versions of us emerge depending on where we are, what we’re doing, who we’re with and how aroused we happen to be. Our sense of who we actually are turns out to be critically dependent on
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