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Phil,

I never had time to go into detail with David about this either, though this is one of his early ideas. My sense is that "I, me and you" signify different stages in the development of the self. "Me" is the first pronoun to develop in childhood, followed by "I," and eventually "you" (or the "other). I'm not sure how this fits in with his current stuff. I wonder if anyone else has more information about this?

N.

Interesting to speculate, building on your sense of the different stages of development, on whether the pronouns might have different ages. Even more interesting if there were consistency across groups of people, e.g. I wonder if most 'me' pronouns in a group would be younger than most 'I' pronouns, having developed earlier as you suggest. research project anyone? Phil

Phil,

It occurred to me later, after my first posting, that there may also be a connection between the "I, me and you" pronouns and the Freudian concept of the ego, id, and super ego (I=ego, me=id, you=super ego).

If you look on Wikipedia, the definition of ego is particularly enlightening: "The word ego is taken directly from Latin, where it is the nominative of the first person singular personal pronoun and is translated as "I myself" to express emphasis. The Latin term ego is used in English to translate Freud's German term Das Ich, which literally means "the I"."

webmaven
Your post has reminded me of how any discussion about personal pronouns can usefully acknowledge the lingusitic context that they emerge from, in particular the rules of grammar associated with subjects, objects and verbs. So here are some egg-sucking grammar 101 basics for those who would like a reminder. In fact, I bet you all know these - and I am describing them to make a particular point, so please bear with me.

Take the simple sentence: "Jack likes Jill". In linguistic terms, "Jack" is the Subject and is in the Nominative case ('pertaining to naming'), "likes" is obviously the Verb - and "Jill" is the Object and is placed in the Accusative case ('case of that which is caused', in other words, acted upon by the verb).

Reversing the sentence: "Jill likes Jack", "Jill" is now the Subject in the Nominative and "Jack" is the Object and in the Accusative. Because English doesn't show case changes in proper nouns (names), the words don't look any different.

When we use personal pronouns (a word that is used 'in place of' a noun), things start to look more complex.

If we make Jack the Subject and perceiver and Jill the Object and perceived, we can replace the nouns with pronouns.

So we get the sentence: "I [Jack] like you [Jill]". Here, "I" is Nominative and "you" is Accusative.

Reversing the sentence: "You [Jill] like me [Jack]", "You" is now in the Nominative case and "me" is in the Accusative. Notice that though "I" and "me" look different, they refer to the same noun.

A reminder of other cases in English, taking just the First Person as an example:
SUBJECT PRONOUN = I
OBJECT PRONOUN = me
POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVE = my
POSSESSIVE PRONOUN = mine
REFLEXIVE PRONOUN = myself

Latin has two more cases and Russian adds a third (I'm glad I learned English first!)

Enough grammar. My point about working with pronouns is this: if we ask, for example, about a client's 'me', treating it as separate from the client's 'I', we run the risk of embedding a suggestion that there is a difference and even creating a false difference where there is none. Might this confuse the client by complicating their system with apparent extra perceivers? It is well known that some clients want to please the facilitator by having an answer, preferably in the positive.

I think where a client indicates without prompting that (for example) their 'me' is different to their 'I', it's valid to work with that - pronouns can be metaphors, symbols, perceivers. I am unconvinced that introducing a process that presupposes that pronouns are separate perceivers would be valid.

So, you want to keep your pronouns personal, do you? I can certainly understand that. ;-)

Any "one size fits all" approach to therapy is very dirty indeed, and not at all clean. You're right that we don't want to introduce a process that presupposes that pronouns are separate perceivers if there is no indication that the client perceives the pronouns as separate and distinct.


It's always the best practice to take our cues from the client.

webmaven

I'm Mickey Judd.
I met David in 1993. My work with "I, me , you" found people who had "I & me" in the same physical position. I agree, we need to be open to let the client tell us what is true for her/him.
On another note I would like to exchange telephone(Skype) sessions on doing clean language on early trauma if that works for anyone.
My email is mickeyjudd@yahoo.com
Much love to all.
Mickey

The pronouns are at the centres of gravity of the individual galaxy (like stars). Cultural pronouns orbit the individual stars (like planets). The structure holding them in stasis was first navigated using space.

Each pronoun has an associated defining moment (mainly, there are also momentum and field pronouns).

I'm in a way disappointed to find this discussion dated years after David and I explored this territory really quite thoroughly (in 05/06).

Steven

What kind of "I" is that "I" that is disappointed to find a discussion about something you explored with David?

Is it just that our metaphors for how we perceive pronouns are different to yours?