Intrapersonal Communicology: Reflection, Reflexivity, and Relational Consciousness in Embodied Subjectivity

Abstract

Ruesch and Bateson operationalize the intrapersonal level as a “one-person communication system” and describe the function of the communicative agent as a “self-observer.” In this article, I seek to establish a theory of intrapersonal communicology. My analysis follows a phenomenological and psychoanalytic consideration of G. H. Mead's concept of the “I” and “me.” In doing so, I articulate the ground of intrapersonal communicative experience as the phenomenological embodiment of social and cultural relations. We begin our psychological development in group relations (i.e., in the order of the family) and from the effects of this experience on our capacities for trust, autonomy, and initiative, we can begin to entail our social embodiment in a recognizable identity for the experience and articulation of our adult agency. My argument is that communicative embodiment and intersubjective social experience are simultaneous events.