A coherent self is analogous to having a viable internal gyroscope, acting as a source of guidance throughout life by orienting us toward our values. A gyroscope does not have a permanent action plan nor does a gyroscope hold a map of the territory. The gyroscope orients us and helps us determine where we are headed. The gyroscope of the coherent self aids in determining which of our diverse needs and desires are the best ones to pursue at any given point in our life. Such a gyroscope serves as a reliable source of information, facilitating the purposeful articulation of our essence.

A reliable guidance system in life is based on a self that is able to organize emotional experiences into meaningful patterns. Having a predictable and coherent emotional life facilitates a meaningful organization. The adaptiveness of these emotional patterns requires coherence and consistency in our interpersonal, emotional interactions because fundamentally, emotions are interpersonally communicated. The self organizes these interpersonal, emotional exchanges in order to predict and guide our emotional responses and actions in the world.

Consistent emotional interactions with our caregivers in infancy, as well as others throughout our life, increase the predictive value of these emotional patterns. Our first experiences of such emotional interactions are at the baby-caregiver level. For example, mother and baby exchange emotions, developing a pattern of relatedness. Mother and baby establish the mutual rules, meanings, and consequences to the emotional exchanges. These emotional exchanges are reciprocally influential and determine the expression, and even the experience of emotions. This reciprocally shaping aspect of emotional exchange extends throughout life to all interpersonal relationships. The meaning of an emotion will be shaped by our life-long patterns of interpersonal interactions around that emotion.

Coherence and consistency are the foundations of the coherent self. Coherence in our emotional exchanges arises from a congruence between what we feel and how that feeling is responded to in our relationships. When we have an emotion that is matched interpersonally, this validates what we experience and we gain confidence in trusting our emotions to inform us about our world.

Consistency arises when our interpersonal exchanges are similar, over time, to similar emotional experiences. We develop consistency when our interpersonal exchanges are similar for similar emotional events. This gives us a sense that the world is a predictable space, a space we can organize and come to understand.

Emotional coherence and consistency in our lives allow us to experience our inner and outer world as predictable and meaningful. If our emotions are met with contradictory and inconsistent responses from critical people in our world, we lose the ability to trust our feelings or the feelings expressed by others. Without trust in our emotional experiences, we become skeptical of our judgment and doubtful in making choices. When the lack of interpersonal coherence is extreme, the result is often an inconsistent sense of self. For example, the inconsistency and lack of coherence that often accompanies child neglect and abuse can result in considerable disorganization of child’s sense of self. In the extreme, the resulting disorganization may lead the child to question his or her very ability to comprehend what is real.

If we live in a world with sufficient emotional coherence and consistency, we can learn to trust our subjective experience. This allows us to use our emotional responses to help us make sense of life events and to appropriately our evaluate the situation. We eventually come to rely on our emotional responses to inform us about what would be the best-fit choice. The resulting self-efficacy adds to our ability to flourish.

A coherent self recognizes thoughts and feelings as valid, useful responses to the events in our life. This is not to say that the coherent self is free of doubt, tensions, and competing desires. However, a coherent, emotional self is able to use empathy and compassion when struggling to manage tension and conflict. Compassion soothes the distress of being conflicted, thereby reducing our need to use coping mechanisms such as dissociation, selective forgetting, and impulsivity. When we are able to tolerate frustration and distress, we can think about our situation and come to an understanding of our experiences. This affords us the possibility of having greater consistency in the pursuit of goals.

We experience a coherent self as having a sense of being grounded in our core values and beliefs. These central values come to have a coherent consistency and are felt as an inner essence that we can rely upon to manage our disparate needs and desires. This enduring sense of self helps us to create meaning in life and to act with purpose.