##Short answer Your attempt to define **self-structure** is almost there. >Self-structure is how a person organizes all their experiences, knowledge, values and beliefs. Ie what is the typical protocol when dealing with new information, new experiences, etc and how do they compact that in their short/long term cognition. How do they accept, challenge or deny new info? You have one half of its definition in a sense, because self-structure is not just about **how** a person organises all their experiences etc. Rogers' concept of self-structure is also about the actual structure of the self. What **are** the core values and beliefs within the person's experiential world? Are they congruent with the real world or are they incongruent? I will go into that in a moment. Your attempt to define **inconsistent experiences** is almost there >Inconsistent experiences are those that is unexpected and challenges how you view yourself or how you view reality. For eg, in childhood, the world seems all about having fun, things seem peaceful. But the experience of working (having new responsibilities, realizing life is hard) and having a dispute with a co-worker (the world is not always peaceful), directly challenge that. Inconsistent experiences can be unexpected, but they can be expected sometimes. Take for example, you could have a belief that a certain other person is a good person and would not harm anyone, although you keep getting little hints that this belief may be wrong. The first few times could be unexpected, but after a while you may pick up a pattern to when you notice these little hints. You can expect these little hints to come up during those moments and therefore they will not be *totally* unexpected. Inconsistent experiences can challenge you or not. It is all down to how you choose to deal with the inconsistency. If you choose to take notice of the inconsistencies and examine them, they can challenge your structure of self, and in certain situations, they can alter your structure of self slightly, or even drastically. In my example your belief regarding that person could change, but it may not change your structure of self. It could do both in the sense that you could take it that you are not a good judge of character and therefore judge everyone else with suspicion. If you choose to ignore the inconsistent experience(s), they will not challenge the structure of self at all. ##Slightly longer answer Self-structure and inconsistency with experiences are covered in Carl Rogers' 19 propositions (Rogers, 1951). These propositions form the basis of Rogers' concept of the self. They state that everyone exists in a continually changing world of experience, and they are at the centre of their experiential world. **The structure of the self** is formed as a result of interaction with the environment, and particularly as a result of evaluating all interaction with others — an organised, fluid but consistent conceptual pattern of perceptions of characteristics and relationships of the "I" or the "me", together with values attached to these concepts. This is because: - The person reacts to the field as it is experienced and perceived. This the person's perceived "reality". - The person reacts as an organized whole to this experiential world. - A portion of the experiential world gradually becomes differentiated as the self. The structure of the self involves the concepts of who they are — where they believe are in society, who they are as a person, their core values and beliefs. Notice that this involves the **perceived** reality, because what is perceived can be, to varying extents, very different to **actual** reality (See [Johari Window][1] for a cognitive psychology example of what I am referring to here) Now the self has been formed, the person has one basic tendency and striving — to actualise, maintain and enhance themselves (See [Maslow's concept on this][2]). Your behaviour can be seen to help or hinder self-actualisation, and the best vantage point for understanding your own behaviour is from your own internal frame of reference. Behaviour, according to Rogers' theory of the self, is basically the goal-directed attempt of the person to satisfy their needs as experienced, in their experiential world. Again, this is experiential world as opposed to the real world which potentially can be different. Emotion accompanies, and in general facilitates, such goal directed behaviour. It is the kind of emotion related to the perceived significance of their behaviour for the maintenance and enhancement of their self. The values attached to experiences, and the values that are a part of the self-structure, in some instances, are values experienced directly by the person, and in some instances are values introjected or taken over from others. The values can be perceived in a distorted fashion, as if they had been experienced directly. As experiences occur in life, they are either: - symbolised, perceived and organised into some relation to the self, - denied symbolisation and ignored because there is no perceived relationship to the self structure, - or given distorted symbolisation, because there is a perceived relationship to the self structure but experience is **inconsistent in some way with the structure of the self**. Most thoughts and beliefs that are adopted by the person are those that are consistent with the experiential world; and, most of the ways of behaving that are adopted by the person are those that are consistent with the concept of self. For a more in depth take on the theory, Rogers (1951) is a recommended read. ###References Rogers, C. (1951). *Client-centered therapy: Its current practice, implications and theory*. London: Constable. ISBN 978-1-84119-840-8. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs