In Michaei Foley’s Life Lessons from Bergson he describes the philosopher’s ideas about the “self”
Bergson constantly distinguished between two selves, meaning two levels of process – a superficial self whose reactions are socially conditioned and a deep, intuitive self capable of empathy and free will…..This deep self is always in danger of being misrepresented by the categorizing self, dismissed as irrelevant by the utilitarian self and snuffed out as a threat to popularity by the social self
It’s interesting that nobody has ever found “the self”.
We talk about the benefits of “self-confidence” but what is this “self” we have confidence in?
We talk about the benefits of having “self-awareness” but who, exactly, is aware of this “self”?
Whatever you think about the concept of the “self”, I think it’s pretty clear there is no fixed entity called the “self”….no unchanging thing.
I often found the concept of a “community of selves” to be a more useful model when working with patients. People often identify much more closely with one aspect of their personality, or with one role in life, than they do with their other ones. For example, I fully identified with my doctor self while I was at work, and yet in other times and places my dad-self, or husband-self, or my teacher-self would feel much more prominent.
So, I’m quite taken with Bergson’s two selves – the superficial and the deep.
I especially like his description of the deep, intuitive self as being capable of empathy and free will, whilst the superficial self is more reactive, more subject to the pressures and influences of others.
Read the last sentence of that passage from Foley’s book a second time….
Our deep, intuitive self is constantly interacting with our superficial self, but look at the potential “misrepresentation” of the deep self – by the “categorising self” (…our left hemisphere?), by our “utilitarian self” (….makes me think of evolutionary biology) and by our “social self” (…with all that pressure to conform and fit in)
Heroes Not Zombies 
Great post!