IJSP Number 6, 2024

30 "It's an idea of mine that I don't take very seriously myself." Henle's approach comes close to the situation of psychotherapists and supervisors in that they also have to develop an "ear" for the occurrence of such dialogical expressions and sequences in the flow of conversation with clients or supervisees. By examining everyday statements of the type quoted, Henle quickly realized that although they had self-reference in common, they differed significantly in the nature of this self-reference. Apparently, they express different functions that this self-reference has for people in their lives. In a preliminary compilation, Henle lists several such functions of the self, as she calls it (she uses the terms ego and self synonymously). To some of these functions she also adds corresponding personalizations that people often use for them - the fact that such personalizations such as the "inner critic" or the "inner friend" also appear in psychotherapy concepts should not make us forget that they have their origin in everyday experience. Henle names the functions of acting and observing (actor and observer), critical evaluation (critic), accepting or rejecting ("inner friend" and possibly "inner denier"), impulsive functions (ego as tool, means, victim), protecting / decorating / embellishing (facade self), the functions of realistically assessing vs. imagining, dreaming (realist vs. dreamer). She emphasizes the relationships between these functions (for example, that of observing is often closely linked to that of critical evaluation but is therefore not identical to it). And she points out that the human tendency to personalize at least some of these functions, i.e. to experience and treat them as if they were independent persons ("the inner child"), obviously has a function of its own: These are apparently functions that are not only relevant to a person's "inner life", but which their "inner life" seems to mutually coordinate with their relationships to other people. Henle proposes the following assumption as a starting hypothesis, "… that the phenomenally present inner figures here described may give us a clue to the kind of person an individual seeks and the kind of person he is able to relate to outside himself. Thus, we may seek the outer friend - or many outer friends - in place of the inner friend who is not sufficiently developed. Of course, outer friends are essential, but they cannot replace the inner friend. In fact, without some development of the inner friend, it seems that we cannot relate to the outer one. If we do not like ourselves enough, we will not believe that the other likes us; if we do not accept ourselves enough, we will not let the other accept us." [ 11, p. 401 ] Similarly, she suspects that a dreamer will perhaps look for his realist outside himself, that a fair, objective and just "inner critic" will also bring with him the willingness to accept criticism from outside and to learn from it if it is justified and objective, whereas an unfair, inhuman "inner critic" only ever makes us experience criticism from outside as an attack, makes us run away from it or go on the counterattack.