In a recent article Leonard Geller (1982) criticized the concept of self-actualization as developed by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow on both theoretical and empirical grounds. His critique is based upon an assumption of a psychosocial understanding of self and a linear thinking approach to the human context. In this article it is argued that the use of the term "self" in the human potential movement is fundamentally somatic, and that linear thought as it is usually understood is inappropriate to understanding concepts such as self and autonomy as well as any living system. The roots of such a somatic understanding are explored in systems biology and the formalizations of a logic of self-reference. A development notion of self-image is then sketched based on self-distinction as the central element.

Confusions as to how we use the concepts self, personality, subpersonality, and so on persist. Updating a previous contribution, the notion of identities, as distinct constructions and organizations of the somatic being, is introduced. In this way it is possible to account for the observation that people exhibit, or experience within themselves, varying personalities in differing contexts, and at the same time acknowledge the underlying unity of being of the person.

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