Definition excerpted with permission from Ginger, Serge International Glossary of Gestalt Psychotherapy (Seven languages including English. Order from FORGE at 183 rue Lecourbe; 75015 Paris, France) Paperback 1995.
-in the Gestalt sense, one of the three 'functions' of the self - which also consists of the ego and the personality. The self generally functions in the id mode at the beginning of the cycle, during the so-called pre-contact phase. For certain writers, assimilation (post-contact) also takes place, out of awareness, in the id mode.
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