Stage-1: Emotional Sensitivity

Feelings ground us in our psychosocial reality and provide the pole of an "I" in relating and interacting.

Everyone is born with emotional sensitivity. We know that some feelings are unpleasant, but avoiding them just generates alternative feelings. A stout barrier to feelings can be created, but this just maintains feelings like calmness, indifference, numbness or deadness.

The readiness to own up to feelings is a sign of maturity. It is required to manage intimate and social relationships effectively. Transient insensitivity, neglect of feelings or subordination of feelings is not usually a problem, but persistent insensitivity is.

Psychotherapists who seek to strengthen the self continually re-focus on feelings when trying to help those who are unaware why their personal life is going wrong.

The goal of a nascent self is to receive approval. Feelings of being approved are equivalent to possessing or being a «good self». Conversely, rejection or disapproval strikes at the sense of self and produces a «bad self». You feel undermined and even destabilized. You feel that you need to alter what you are doing or saying or feeling. You may become ready to do almost anything so long as it will remove that sense of badness and gain approval.

Because different people treat you differently, you are liable to alter how you function (i.e. who you are or seem to be) in accord with the group or the particular relationship. While such a shifting sense of self may puzzle others, it does not worry you too much.

Ideally, the world makes minimal demands and one or two others provide you with a degree of unconditional positive regard. Although approval in the form of total acceptance is unattainable once infancy passes, the popularity of romantic comedies reveals how much this ideal persists. Carl Rogers made it a foundation of his brand of psychotherapy.

The goal of sensitivity from the perspective of the nascent self is to feel good and get approval, and there is a wish to be close to whoever creates good feelings.

Stabilizing the sense of self means stabilizing feelings, especially getting sufficient love, protection and approval from at least a few other people. Interactions with these confidantes should be pleasant and supportive, flowing without frustrations or disruptions. Typically, you will all share a sub-culture within which much may be taken for granted without value-clashes.

The possession of a "confiding relationship" was, for a while, a criterion of mental health. So how are confidantes to be found? We scan and test our social contacts in order to identify those who are liable to provide a good personal fit: metaphorically the right chemistry or DNA. Those people are then valued and attachment is sought. Given that people and situations change, finding confidantes is a constant task throughout life.

Ventilation is necessary because feelings cannot be totally bottled up when this Mode is active. Expressing emotion allows the implied self-states to be valued and recognized. Such unrestrained expression of feelings requires a suitable recipient in a suitable environment.

Certain situations enable acceptable ventilation: informal times with close friends, family life, and occasionally strangers met in passing.

If primitive or destructive feelings—hate, jealousy, envy, misery—need to be expressed, then social conventions help with control. Others dislike ventilation that is a dump of negativity or takes the form of a rant or explosion.

The sense of self is stabilized in social life when feelings exist within a social role that defines a relationship. For example, healthy individuals often like a shoulder to cry on, someone to complain about, and opportunities to compete. It takes two to make such relationships work. Each must feel the part and be comfortable in that role.

Permanent role pairings within stable relationships include: dominant-submissive, independent-dependent, adult-childlike, soother-complainer, supporter-achiever. Often these roles are reversible to ensure a fair balance and shared burden.

Eric Berne popularized pathological versions of this pairing phenomenon in his popular Games People Play (1968).

The sense of self becomes focused and affirmed when a person expresses a like or a dislike.

Likes and dislikes are the basis for personalizing everyday activities e.g. the choice of clothes, decoration of a room, leisure activities, pets, favorite restaurants, choice of music.

In encouraging the expxression of likes/dislikes, Facebook.com appears to have tapped into something fundamental. The public display of likes/dislikes can have a profound effect on self-esteem.

The sense of self is nourished by personal approval. The only channel for approval in this Mode is via the expression and recognition of feelings. Approval results when others accept and empathize with your feelings, whatever they may be.

So the requirement to experience self-esteem is to be genuine in your personal functioning. Such openness allows others the opportunity to respond with a warm non-judgemental mirroring. Denying or falsifying emotions for defensive purposes blocks such feedback, and ultimately leads to a weakening and clouding of the sense of self.

Some people do not develop their individuality any further and can be successful by using mental compartmentalization. At work their behaviour is determined by a strong identification with the professional role, and relationships are governed by work needs, rules and goals rather than personal impulse. Outside work, emotionality is allowed free rein.

The longer a person stays in Stage-1, and the more gratification from irrational emotional outpourings or moody resentful withdrawals, the greater the tendency for relationships to deteriorate. Intimate relationships are often time-limited because each party goes their own way to escape; only to repeat a similar drama with a new partner. Once settled in a family, domestic life is likely to be marked by emotional dramas.

Acceptance of intense emotionality can lead to unhappiness and unpleasant reflex habits that are difficult to break: at the extreme, there may be abuse or addiction.

You cannot yet wholly adopt values based on Individual being (L'4) because there is insufficient inner stability for creating a self-concept. Nor can you move to a Mode based on Sensory being (L'1) because the superficiality here does not allow for development of individuality, for learning, or for self-strengthening. You cannot move to the outer circle (Vital-L'2, Transpersonal-L7, Relational-L'5) because, as methods, they were under personal auspices, which demands a solidified self that has not yet been created.

Remember: the focus here is on modes for individualizing, not on methods for stabilization.