The emergence, loss, and reemergence of individuated self: aesthetic flow and narrative in self-illness ambiguity

Known as self-illness ambiguity, subjective confusion about whether patients or their mental illnesses are in control may partly stem from clinical methods mimicking medical models that diagnose illnesses (e.g. viruses) as present or not irrespective of sufferers’ life stories. Researchers accordingly propose narrative contextualization as a way of disambiguating self from illness. But what if heightened self-attention is symptomatic of mental illness? Wellbeing may then associate with a smaller ‘me’ versus ‘not-me’ divide, a position Csikszentmihalyi’s flow psychology and Dewey’s aesthetics both support. What I call aesthetic flow involves embodied, non-linguistic dramatic structure, suggesting another way to view narrativity. By lessening self-preoccupation – and perhaps illness severity – this kind of narrativity may help dissolve self-illness ambiguity. However, a perplexity remains. Aesthetic flow depends on encountering resistance, including psychological obstacles. In life, as in art, this resistance delineates and individuates. Thus, aesthetic flow might lead to a temporary loss of self, followed by its reemergence in more immersively relational forms. A second complexity is that experiences of ‘self’ vary across time, cultures, and individuals – much like concepts of ‘justice’ or ‘love.’ This fluidity makes broad generalizations about selfhood and illness problematic. My solution partly sidesteps this by downplaying the importance of self.