Central Ego functioning can be divided into nine stages -- two 'objectively visible', and seven 'subjectively invisible'.
This is DGB Philosophy-Psychology's 'Stimuulus-Belief System-Response' counter-thesis to B.F. Skinner's -- and Behavioral Psychology's -- 'Stimulus-Response' Model. This is a slightly modified, updated version of my 1979 (Evaluation and Health) model.
The 9-stage model can be envisioned and compartmentalized as follows:
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A/ Albert Ellis' 'Activating Event': 'The Objective-Phenomenal (or Kant's 'Noumenal') World'
1. Stimulus
...............................
B/ Albert Ellis' 'Belief System': 'Our Subjective-Phenomenal or Phenomenological World'
2. Stimulus-Perception ('The Stimulus-Perception or SP Ego')
3. Stimulus-Interpretation ('The Stimulus-Interpretation or SI Ego')
4. Stimulus-Evaluation ('The Stimulus-Interpretation or SE Ego'
5. Response-Perception ('The Response-Perception or RP Ego')
6. Response-Interpretation ('The Response-Interpretation or RI Ego')
7. Response-Evaluation ('The Response-Evaluation or RE Ego')
8. Response-Selection ('The Response-Selection or RS Ego')
.........................................................
C/ Albert Ellis' 'Consequence': 'The Objective-Phenomenal (Skinner's Behavioral) World
9. Response (Action) (The Dialectic Interaction Between our Subjective and Objective World)
Now again, the negative side of this type of model is that you can make the personality sound so technical that virtually nobody wants to study it -- the 'I' inside the 'it' can get completely lost -- and with it the element of human passion and drama. It becomes a completely 'Apollonian' model -- losing the 'Dionysus' and 'Eros' within each of us...
However, from an 'Epistemological-Ethical' (and/or 'Cognitive-Behavioral') point of view, there is a ton of 'psychopathology' and 'self-created-emotional-behavioral-distress' that can occur within the confines of this model.
If our 'Central Ego' is functioning properly, then there is 'no need to fix what is not broke'. However, if we are creating a lot of unnecessary misery in our personality and/or not accomplishing the goals, values, dreams that we want to, then perhaps it is worthwhile to explore some of the different 'functional problems' that we can self-create at each and/or every stage of this 9-stage Central Ego model.
We will start to re-introduce more of the 'human drama in the personality' and in each and every one of our lives once we start talking about the 'dialectical interaction between The Central Ego and The Rest of The Personality -- meaning: 1. 'The Supportive-Subsidiary-Special-Interest-Ego-States'; and 2. 'The Transference-Memory-Templates-Complexes-and-Dynamics-In-The-Subconscious-Depths-Of-The-Personality'.
With this in mind, let us explore some of the more concrete details of this DGB Cognitive-Behavioral, Central Ego model.
-- dgbn, Jan. 9th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
