Guiding Process Self-Expression
Self-expression is one of the eight guiding processes of psychodynamics. The decision to be made is: – “What do I (don’t I) reveal?”
Choosing which part of yourself to reveal and conceal is an aspect of functional psychodynamics. As a life in social roles is only possible if you can do both: Revealing what you wish to and concealing what you wish to. However, as people constantly express all that is happening inside them with body language (posture, facial expression, gestures) and tone (modulation, rhythm, intensity, tempo and pitch of speech), only impulses which are conscious can be hidden. Everyone tells much more of themselves than they, themselves, know. In counselling, this is crucial. Often, matters which a person is deliberately hiding or of which they are unconscious, also become visible. Change can be accomplished by gaining information from the involuntarily ‘expressed’, which allows access to that which has been internally inhibited, negated, denied, repressed, not understood or perceived.