I just came back from a conference where I presented on how to prepare clients before they process traumatic memories with EMDR. One of the ideas I shared was that before asking the brain to revisit and reorganize painful experiences, we need to make sure the Self is the one in the room doing the work.
The suggestion raised an obvious question: Who else could be there?
Telling a therapist that they may be dealing with the ego can sound strangely non-clinical. We use the word “ego” so casually that it has almost become an insult because it carries the idea of arrogance, self-importance, defensiveness, or fakeness. That’s why I tried to name it something else.
The Narrator
In my first book, I tried “hollow self” because I thought “ego” lacked substance. Once I understood its neurobiology better, I thought calling it “the narration self” was more appropriate because narrating is what this relational actor does.
Framing it as a “narrator” is useful because it allows us to understand its purpose within the system. Its main job is maintaining a coherent, defensible story about who you are. That story needs constant upkeep, so while you’re living your actual life, some portion of your attention is somewhere else, reviewing what just happened, deciding what it meant, rehearsing how you’ll describe it later, patching the version of events that keeps the story intact. As you may notice, its functioning still includes the self-referential “obsession” that gets most of the criticism, but it’s not a flaw. It’s a task.
Neurobiologically, the narrating self is what develops strongly when a brain network, specifically the default mode network, takes over the show, because the deeper circuits that would otherwise organize real connection never got the activation they needed. Often, it’s because the people we depended on early on weren’t consistently there for us or for our needs. What it means is that the person’s brain built the narrator as the best available solution: a way to make sense of needing someone who couldn’t always be counted on.
An important characteristic is that it doesn’t operate in the present even when it’s consuming a lot of energy in real time. The self should be the one assimilating the story, but if it gets hijacked by the narrator, part of what’s actually happening gets lost.
The cost of this is bigger than it sounds. A mind spending most of its resources reviewing and patching a story has very little left over for attending reality. Curiosity requires spare attention, and the narrating self doesn’t have any to spare.
You can see this most clearly in a conversation. You are telling someone something that matters to you, and they’re nodding, seemingly present, but clearly drafting their response, already telling you something comparable about them, equating it to something that happened last week. They’re not actually curious about what you’re saying. They’re managing what it means for their story.
This is why I suggested paying attention to who’s actually present during a session: Is it the narrator or the self doing the processing? And what kind of memory is being worked on? Is it a memory that’s become part of the narrative? Or one that still carries its own emotional charge, separate from the story built around it?
I’ve experienced it with my clients and seen it happening to some of my supervisees. The client leaves an EMDR session after having done a lot of heavy lifting, with a lot of information showing up about the past, with deep emotional moments, and still reporting the same negative cognition, the same level of upset, and not really believing in the resolution they found. The narrating self can be really moved and generate lots of new material, giving the clinician the impression that another memory channel opened, while for the client, it feels more like another chapter, another piece of evidence for or against the version of themselves the narrator is maintaining.
One of the main messages of my talk was to notice that in those cases, the felt experience didn’t actually land anywhere, because the one doing the work was not looking to receive it.
This also means that explaining the concept of the narrating self to a client without an active intervention won’t change it. The narrating self will simply absorb the explanation and probably turn it into new material that helps it sound interested and interesting: another paragraph in the story, proof of how special they are if the story is about being unique, or how damaged they are if the narrative is about victimhood.
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Still, this actor has real value, for the clinician and for the client. Knowing how the brain works, and how this type of issue runs automatically, draining our resources, can motivate change. Explaining that the narration has been working harder than it needs to, and that adjusting it will release some of that overload, could be life-changing.
The idea that the ego should be controlled or eliminated is not new. It’s been said it’s extensible in different contexts. But the approach I’m suggesting is about observing it as opposed to annihilating it. What can actually interrupt it is to work on developing another relational actor: the observing self.
It’s easier to build a new circuit than to change an already consolidated one.
The Observing Self
An observing self is a mode of activation that develops by noticing, in real-time, the narration, mid-sentence, the way you’d catch yourself starting to draft a reply while someone is still talking. That noticing has to be rehearsed. It doesn’t develop on its own, and it doesn’t develop quickly. First, it requires acknowledging that the narrator is an internal actor that has been running things. Then, it requires deliberate practice, the same way any underused capacity gets stronger through repetition, engagement, and intention. Having a therapist who knows to work toward that capacity specifically is of great help too.
I have to confess that my biases and previous understanding of the ego made me overlook its purpose. The self doesn’t come back online because the narrating self finally ran out of things to say. It comes back online when there is a better understanding and connection with the narrator. You come to understand that the narrator exists because you were trying to make sense of people who could hurt you and still be the ones you depended on. But the narrator, like every other mechanism in us, has a positive intention and will stay quiet during processing if it gets that the system needs closure to heal—when the narrator becomes a supportive witness.
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