Neuropsychology and the self-concept.

The biological basis of the self is discussed in relation to neuropsychological findings in cases with focal brain injury. This material demonstrates that the self is deposited at an early phase in the process of object realization and distributes into the private space of imagery and the external space of object perception. A disruption or truncation of this process results in an erosion of the self that is similar across the different perceptual modalities. From the pattern of pathological breakdown, it is concluded that the self is a categorical, relational entity that achieves autonomy in the context of an act of cognition that is fully derived, i.e., actualizes completely. The autonomy depends on the completeness of this derivation. The preliminary locus of the self in the mental state entails a holistic or multimodal phase of potential before perceptual individuation. The relation of the self-concept to antecedent phases in the microgenesis of a cognition, the relation to feeling, personal history, and the immediate past, points to a limbic transition in the outward development of the mental state.