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‘operate’ on parts of the anatomy, and which ancient wisdom(s) suggests ‘affect’ healing inother parts of the body. It is important to park the notion of absence for the moment because itssignificance for this study renders treatment crucial, but more appropriate, later on.So far consideration has been given to the anatomy (Quine in Warburton, 1999) and geneticmake-up of selves (Dawkins, 1978) as well as the physiology and neurobiology of emotions andfeelings (Damasio, 2004; see also the recent insights of Prof Mukandun, 2008) . Further insightsare available from the field of psychological enquiry. Psychologically, the self is an individualwho possesses emotional, social, relational and cultural needs. This self exhibits behaviourswhich reflect the satisfaction or otherwise of those needs.Maslow arranged these into ahierarchy of the prepotency of needs which, when realised, would lead to what he called selfactualisation(Maslow 1970). Goleman reports the workings of the amygdala, the small part ofthe brain which controls the ‘fight or flight’ instinct that generates a reflex response to dangerand thus protects organisms from imminent harm (Goleman 1996 p.5). Damasio presents arange of data, including the results of MRI scans, to show activity of the amygdala when inresponse to stimuli (Damasio, 2004).These research-informed insights resonate with Freud’s (1856-1939) attribution of certainbehavioural phenomena to the id, that part of the self which, in evolutionary terms, goes back toour reptilian ancestry and which, up to a point, explains certain primeval, instinctual reactions.His own psychoanalytic work led him to deduce that there was/is a part of the self that operatespsychologically on a plane above this. The ego, as he called it, controls normative human andbehavioural interactions and might more easily be identified with the emotions as opposed toinstincts. It is the ego that controls the id. Only when a self is acting in control of their50Simon Hughes Ph.D. Thesis (October 2012)