Integrative Strategic Psychotherapy: Four Components of the Self

The following describes a theoretical ISP model. Its concepts can organise a professional conversation and are not intended for self-diagnosis.

Someone says: “I understand why I do it, but I agreed again.” They can name their needs and explain how they ended up in an uncomfortable situation. Yet during the next conversation, the familiar “yes” appears before there is time to consider an answer.

Psychotherapy uses different maps to describe connections between experience, beliefs, and actions. Integrative Strategic Psychotherapy, associated with Oana Maria Popescu’s work, offers one such map.

The training description names Proto Self, early non-verbal experience; Core Self, representations of self and world; Plastic Self, mechanisms maintaining their stability; and External Self, present interaction with the environment. Popescu’s article The Development of the Self develops the model further.

Consider an ordinary request at work. You are asked to stay late. Tension appears, followed by “reliable people do not refuse,” and you hear yourself agreeing. Later, you resent another lost evening. The map helps separate parts of the episode and examine their connections.

Next time, you remember a colleague who once refused and received a sharp remark. An occasion when someone else calmly rescheduled a task barely stays in memory. The familiar rule gains confirmation again.

A conversation can explore where that rule became familiar, what it once provided, and what it costs today. Practical conditions remain alongside it: does the manager actually punish refusal, which duties were agreed, and who determines urgency? Personal experience and the workplace deserve attention together.

If the task can wait, a different response might be: “I cannot stay tonight. I have an hour tomorrow, or we can decide what to postpone now.” This tests a new behaviour in a specific situation.

Afterwards, there is material to examine: what you managed to say, where tension appeared, and how the other person responded. If the agreement was broken again, the next question may concern the working arrangement itself rather than finding a better sentence.

Bring one recurring episode and describe what you want to change. Ask how the professional sees the work, why they suggest a particular approach, and what you will observe together. You can later return to the original aim and adjust the direction of the conversation.

A separate article examines how praise and criticism pass through a familiar self-image. In recognisable episodes like these, a model can become meaningful in a person’s everyday life.