I present two major self-models: self as subject and self as object. My position is that in development and psychotherapy, there is an overemphasis on the role of the other, resulting in the over-reliance on the self-as-object model. I argue for an endo self (ES), a term that I have created to indicate a unified body/mind state with a coherent subjectivity existing a priori to contact with others; this relationship is necessary to elaborate this pre-existent self. I discuss three themes basic to this re-evaluation of the self, which I follow with a discussion of the characteristics of the ES.

Keywords: agency, self-to-self relations, self-referential, embodiment, Reich