Cognitive‐Experiential Self‐Theory of Personality

Abstract Cognitive‐experiential self‐theory (CEST) is a psychodynamic theory of personality that achieves a high degree of integration through a synthesis of the psychodynamic, emotional unconscious of psychoanalysis, the affect‐free unconscious of cognitive science, and principles of learning theory. According to CEST, people operate by two information‐processing systems, a predominantly conscious, verbal, rational system and a predominantly preconscious, automatic, experiential, learning system. The two systems operate in parallel by different rules and are interactive. The influence of the experiential system on the rational system can account for everything that the psychoanalytic unconscious can and,…