The Self as the Subject of Welfare

Abstract

If we wish to be free to live our lives so that they are expressive of our sense of self, then our relationships with others have to function so that they support us in this freedom. The mode of living that is that of the self is always a complex set of dynamics involving the relationships of the self both to its external environment and its internal environment, where there is a complex and often faulty feedback loop between these two relationships. While a well-functioning self is open to adapting the ways in which it acts (thinks, feels, moves, and senses) in rela¬tion to changes in its external environment, if it is stuck in internal patterns of past adaptation to an environment that no longer presents, then it is not free to engage openly and creatively with his or her current environment.