The Genesis of a Purposeful Self

Abstract

When having a sense of purpose is considered to be an aspect of human behavior by our psychological theories, it has not, in our cognitive, behavioral, and psychoanalytic view of man been given much of a role. Nor has purposefulness been addressed in terms of the full implications of what an act of purpose must imply. What has been lacking has been an approach that places purpose within the broader issue of the relationship of meaning to reality. This broader issue might be described as follows: does meaning reflect an independent reality that is then reassembled by our nervous system into some faithful facsimile of a reality that is already there? Or do we somehow create our reality, and hence our meaning into something that could not have existed prior to that creation?