Susan Blackmore [Jolyon Tracianko]

'Selfplex' is the term used by Dr Susan Blackmore to depict 'self' effectively as the key confluence of schemas - 'the ultimate memeplex' - which provides the concept of 'I', the cognitive awareness of who I am, how I think, what I feel, what I believe...why I am the way I am. Someone's sense of identity or identities.

A significant number of modern developmental psychologists accept that we are not born with a unitary self-concept as such. Rather there is a potential for it which is developed - shaped and reshaped over and over again. This is through direct teaching about 'you' - eg: "you are a clever girl", "you are a bad boy", etc - combined with reflection and trying to make sense - meta state - from experience and observation (incoming memes).

(Blackmore's selfplex construct is prefigured in some ways by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's work on the evolution of self-reflective consciousness and fits with George Herbert Mead's argument that the self is a 'social product'.)

The implication of this is that there is no intrinsic self - or at least no hard evidence or it! - beyond a set of innate temperamental dispositions - as described in Hans Eysenck’s Dimensions model - which can be found more or less in all the higher mammals. Everything else that might be described as part of self is learned or developed in some way.

Certainly, as a determined atheist, this would appear to be Blackmore's position. However, I see nothing in the selfplex concept which precludes there being some kind of 'spiritual self' as our 'core being'. There simply is no evidence for it which is scientifically credible.

Discussion of the possibility of there being a spiritual self raises the old mind/body dualism debate which has bedevilled philosophers since the times of Plato and Aristotle and which hasn't really moved on since the works of René Descartes in the 17th Century.

However, while 4Q/8L allows for the relationship between the metaphysical (Upper Left) and the biological (Upper Right), such discussions are largely beyond the remit of Integrated SocioPsychology which, while not focussing on the spiritual, allows that it will matter - perhaps even critically! - for it for those who have belief.

                                                                                       The selfplex, self-esteem and mental health
The general concensus is that, in most psychologically-healthy children, the sense of self - the selfplex - is fairly well-developed by 6-8 years.

Thus, children who have a fairly positive set of schemas about themselves are likely to have high self-esteem and consequently are likely to be high in self-efficacy. Those who have negative schemas are likely to struggle more in coping with the ups and downs of life.

Ralph Allison

According to Dr Ralph Allison, arguably the world's leading researcher into Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), the sense of self should largely be formed by the age of 7. Those who suffer trauma - such as sexual abuse or being caught up in a war zone - before the selfplex is robust enough are at risk of developing full-blown MPD and experiencing different 'personalities' ('alters') taking them over during periods of their later life. Those who suffer such trauma after a strong selfplex has formed are at risk of developing the lesser form of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) in which they cannot accept certain thoughts and behaviours in certain contexts as being theirs - but they do not go so far as to attribute them to alters.

An explanation for MPD may well be that, with upto 8 vMEMES working in the selfplex - as illustrated in the graphic below - if the unitary self-concept is not strong enough, then the vMEMES, each pursuing its own needs and wants, may well appear to be acting as if they are different uinque personalities. If the selfplex actually fractures, all it may need then, following the principles of Stanley Schachter & Jerome Singer's Cognitive Labelling Theory ,is for each vMEME's 'personality' to be given a name - eg: 'Joe', 'Jessica', etc - and imagination may indeed start to attribute personality charcteristics to the vMEME's way of thinking.
 

Thus, the alters of MPD may be rooted in vMEMES pursuing their wants and needs but named and the schemas and behaviour associated with the vMEME incorrectly labelled as being those of the name given to the vMEME. Those who have developed a strong selfplex are likely to cope much better with different vMEMES directing different thoughts and behaviours in different Environments because they have a much more settled sense of self.

DID and MPD are hugely controversial diagnoses in the worlds of Psychiatry and Psychology. A substantial number of 'experts' claim MPD cannot possibly exist and put diagnoses of it down to iatrogenic causes - eg: therapists putting ideas about alters into the minds of gullible clients. However, it it does exist, then strong vMEMES in a weak or even fractured selfplex may well be the root of it.

In addition to DID/MPD, there are a number of other mental health issues linked to conflict in the selfplex between vMEMES. The great Sigmund Freud linked such conditions as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Manic-Depression to conflicts between different parts of the mind - and he had only identified 3 (compared to Spiral Dynamics 8!).

What Freud termed Ego Defence Mechanisms are strategies - Selfplex Defence Mechanisms - employed to reduce conflict in the selfplex between the vMEMES and the schemas they employ.

Clearly vMEMES impact upon the selfplex, influencing the formation, development and sometimes decline of the schemas from which it is formed. The stronger the selfplex is, the more able you will be to balance out the sometimes conflicting needs and wants of your vMEMES.

Click here to learn about Integrated SocioPsychology open workshop programmes which incorporate the selfplex as a key concept.