The Self-Concept as a Factor in Counseling and Personality Organization.

In the foreword, Arthur Combs cites 3 impressive considerations about Victor Raimy's just-now published doctoral dissertation on the theory of the self concept. One is that the importance of the self concept for the understanding of human behavior must be regarded as one of the most outstanding developments of the past 25 years in American Psychology. Another is that many of the concepts Raimy sets forth in a perceptual approach to behavior are basic to modern humanist thought. Raimy was searching for some "central, controlling factor" in personality which could serve as the focal point of organization for at least some relatively massive, behavioral patterns. This hypothetical factor was finally recognized as having considerable relation to an individual's thinking about himself, and a tentative label of "Self-Concept" was appended. The dissertation itself is concerned with a method for classifying self-references (positive, negative, ambivalent), and thereby tracing changes in self-esteem, to vertatim records from client responses during psychotherapy. Fourteen case studies are included to document the research. (TA)