THE SELF AS PERPETUAL EXPERIMENT: Psychodynamic Comments on Some Aspects of Contemporary Urban Culture

The author examines the interaction between a dominant trend in contemporary urban culture and the dynamics of the search for identity and exemplifies it through the therapeutic work with a young woman who sought to find a personal voice and style within urban space. Sociologists and philosophers ha...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychoanalytic psychology 2003, Vol.20 (3), p.425-440
Main Author: Strenger, Carlo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Female
Human
Lifestyle
Postmodernism
Psychodynamics
Self-Concept
Urban Environments
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The author examines the interaction between a dominant trend in contemporary urban culture and the dynamics of the search for identity and exemplifies it through the therapeutic work with a young woman who sought to find a personal voice and style within urban space. Sociologists and philosophers have argued that contemporary urban culture, in a Nietzschean way, views the self as the locus of perpetual experimentation. The self is to be created like a work of art, ranging from the shaping of the body to the conscious creation of one's lifestyle. The search for authorship over one's life has become an integral part of culture, and helping patients in this search requires clinicians to develop a new vocabulary.
ISSN:0736-9735
1939-1331
DOI:10.1037/0736-9735.20.3.425