Figure 1. Schematics of the nested layers of the Self showing (A) their nested organisation (reproduced from Solms and Panksepp, 2012) and (B) their integration and contribution to experience over time. The primary, core self is the most phylogenetically ancient and therefore ontogenetically primary self – a site of integration of integrative, evaluative experience and agency. This is brainstem mediated. The secondary self stores with greater precision the memories with greater powers of discrimination for evaluation, but finally the tertiary self is empowered with the cognitive tools built on abstraction from primary experience through its secondary process and considered ‘offline’. Cortically mediated. These layers of processing are reflected in the artwork, “Profile of a collaged mind, finding sense through fragment and movement – autism as sensory motor disruption to core self”, shown in Figure 2b.
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