Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson and Teela Robertson, M.C., on Memetic Self-Mapping in Psychotherapy

Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson is a Canadian counselling psychologist and theorist known for “self-mapping” and the memetic self—identity as a network of culturally transmitted ideas (memes), memetic mapping. He has published work on the use of memetic maps to enhance client reflectivity and therapeutic efficacy. Robertson has served as Lead Psychologist at the University of Regina’s Collaborative Centre for Justice and Safety. He authored The Evolved Self: Mapping an Understanding of Who We Are (University of Ottawa Press, 2020) and co-authored Mapping an Understanding: How to Represent the Self in Psychotherapy and Research Visually (Pete’s Press, 2025) with Teela Robertson, for clinicians and researchers.

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen speaks with Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson about Mapping an Understanding, co-authored with Teela Robertson, and its theoretical claim that psychotherapy rests on a culturally evolved “self” capable of reflection, belief, and coherent planning. Robertson explains how memetic self-mapping helps clients see the whole person rather than a problem-focused fragment, making change feel possible and, in practice, often client-initiated. They discuss limits (the method works best for average-or-higher conceptual functioning), clinical flexibility across CBT, Adlerian work, and EMDR, and how trauma reshapes volition, continuity, and intimacy. Resilience, he argues, blends agency with the acceptance of the uncontrollable.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You have a new co-authored book, Mapping an Understanding: How to Visually Represent the Self in Psychotherapy and Research, with Teela Robertson, MC. First, what is the theoretical foundation of the manual in psychotherapy?

Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson: The foundation of the manual is the self. In some of my earlier work, I proposed that psychotherapy and psychology have generally adopted a Kuhnian paradigm that defines our science and discipline. That paradigm is based on the idea that we have selves and minds, and that the mind and self are described in particular ways. The self we have now is capable of recognizing objective reality and of standing or hovering outside it. We are capable of holding beliefs and having internally consistent thinking.

Our ancient ancestors did not have that, or had it only in parts; it was not fully developed. The completion of this ideal of the self, capable of having a mind defined in the way I have described, may have occurred as recently as three or four thousand years ago. We do not know, because in evolution it is difficult to draw a dividing line and say, “This species begins here and ends there.” It is gradual and highly arbitrary where we place those dividing lines. Nonetheless, we have a conceptualization of the self, and psychologists have been trying to teach people to develop that self for some time now. There was a period in psychology around the time of the Second World War, and earlier, when this was not the case.

Classical behaviourism did not accept this conceptualization of the self. It viewed the self as an illusion. That position still predominates in much of academia, but not in psychotherapy. The old classical behaviourists no longer exist; they have become cognitive behaviouralists.

In cognitive-behavioural approaches, when people lack skills in certain areas, we aim to teach them those skills. That is a defining feature. Some time ago, I developed a method of mapping the self. My daughter and I have simplified that process so it becomes more time-efficient for psychotherapists to use with clients. We democratized it so clients can do much of the mapping themselves. My daughter has used self-mapping and confirmed that it works. It is not just my work; it is her work with her clients as well. We have had some excellent results.

One longstanding problem in psychology is that clients often do not want to change. They would prefer the world to change instead of themselves. What we find is that once people have created their self-map, they can see change in it much more easily. In fact, the client initiates the change much of the time, not the therapist.

Jacobsen: When they look at the self-map, what do you mean by they initiate it? Is it a verbalized, explicit process? Or do they begin to internalize, reflect, and change, and you observe this as the psychotherapist or counsellor?

Robertson: We have observed both. I have one case of a young Cree man with whom I worked. He had a history of violence. He once broke the car window of a john who was attempting to pick up an Aboriginal woman, using a bat. He was angry that there are johns who use sex workers — in this case, Aboriginal sex workers.

Another time, he accosted a man in a bar who was physically disciplining a child there, or being rough with a child. This young Cree man is physically imposing - he described himself as “a big Indian” - then said to the man, “How would you like me to do that to you?” I reframed that in my own mind as an Aboriginal activist.

The next time I saw him, he noticed the new meme of an Aboriginal activist on his self-map. He looked at me and said, “That is almost prophetic, Lloyd.” Why? Between our two sessions, he had decided to begin advocacy at the band level. This was a band in northern Saskatchewan. He had become involved with the chief and council, and now considered himself an Aboriginal activist — something he would not have called himself the last time we met.

So that is where the convergence occurs. It was not my suggestion, although I had noted and reframed his actions in that direction. He pursued that direction on his own after seeing his initial self-map. What happens in part — and this is an explanation I have for it — is that when we invite clients to change, we often focus on the negative. They focus on it as well, and they begin to believe, “This is who I am.” That feels definitive and unchangeable. It feels unreal to imagine changing who you are, or that they would change who they are. In fact, we are not asking people to change their entire selves. We are asking them to change a small part of themselves that may not be central to who they are, but becomes central when we focus exclusively on negatives. By seeing the whole self, they recognize, “I can still be myself, and I can change this part over here.”

Jacobsen: What remains the most significant area of resistance to change in therapy, traditionally, and in self-mapping?

Robertson: Traditionally, the most significant resistance to change is the idea of change itself, which I have just described. Regarding self-mapping, I will mention a limitation we have. It works exceptionally well with people who are average or higher-average in intellectual functioning. It does not work as effectively with clients who have difficulty grasping conceptual relationships. That stands to reason. That is why psychologists use multiple approaches. If we relied on only one therapy, we would narrow our clientele and fail to serve much of the population.

I use cognitive-behavioural therapy. I also use Adlerian psychotherapy, and I use eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing. I have a range of therapeutic skills. With clients, I discuss the issues they wish to address. Then I offer several possible approaches, and together we select the direction. The idea is that they can choose an approach, and if it does not help, we have alternatives. We can move to another approach if the first choice does not bring about the change they deserve. In all cases, I ensure the work is client-directed. That is true with self-mapping as well.

We now have software packages that enable clients to identify who they are across four scales. We ask for things like: ten statements of who I am; ten things I believe to be true; ten things I like about myself; and ten things I would change about myself if I could. We identify memes that represent who they are from those 40 items — sometimes more, depending on the person; the program is flexible. Those memes go onto a page, and we can draw connections between them, understanding that some lead to others and some attract others. That interconnectedness is what holds the self together.

Rather than having us be completely unpredictable every time we enter a new situation, we become a person with a predictable self. For example, if I ask you to do something illegal, Scott, and you say, “That is not who I am; I am not that kind of person,” then you have told me something about yourself — that you do not engage in illegal behaviour, or at least do not identify with doing so.

Jacobsen: Trauma is relative. How does trauma get defined in a self-mapping context so it can be worked with in a therapeutic setting, whether you are using EMDR, cognitive-behavioural therapy, or another tool?

Robertson: The objective in trauma treatment is for the person to function and problem-solve with sufficient confidence to move forward and make decisions, and trauma interferes with that entire process. That is the end goal. Before we reach that point, we may need to address hypervigilance, feelings of powerlessness, depression, flashbacks — those sorts of issues.

In terms of the self, and that is what this interview is about, that is an area I would love to study scientifically. I have developed a couple of research proposals, and I hope to secure short-term funding to conduct research that will demonstrate what we have found anecdotally. People experiencing trauma, or the stress of trauma, show changes in their sense of self. One factor in the self, for example, is volitional control, a sense of personal agency. That is reduced. We do not see volition in the map as much, if at all. There are ways in which trauma becomes visible in the mapping.

We have developed seven characteristics that we look for in a healthy self. One of them is individual volition. Another is a sense of continuity, that I am the same person today as I was yesterday, even though I may change in some ways; I am still recognizably myself. We also look for work or a sense of contribution. I believe, and I tell parents, that no matter how old the child is, the child should contribute in some way to the family dynamic. As the child grows, this can include chores. This helps the child develop a sense of capability. If that is missing, we see it represented in the self-map. They lack memes that demonstrate capability.

Intimacy is also key. One of the issues with individuals diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, and I still use that term because I see it as distinct from autism, is that intimacy is not often reflected on the map. If it is present, it may appear unusually. I once worked with a person with Asperger’s who identified himself as a son, not because of emotional closeness, but because he was grateful his father allowed him to live at home. That is not the form of familial intimacy that someone raised in a healthy emotional environment would typically express.

We examine these characteristics and, if they are missing, explore their absence to determine whether the map truly represents who they are or whether those areas were overlooked during self-description. We aim for a fuller picture of the self. If certain areas are missing, we work to restore them — or develop them for the first time.

The areas of research I am pursuing include the effects of trauma on first responders — police, firefighters, and correctional officers. If they repeatedly face incidents that would generally be traumatic, how does that affect their self-definition? I suspect it has an impact, but research will determine the extent.

Another area I want to pursue is intimate partner violence. How does intimate partner violence affect the victim’s sense of self? People want to see themselves as capable, self-directed individuals. Intimate partner violence can teach the opposite — that they are not capable, that they are victims. Victim psychology is an area I want to explore. How does that shape the development — or erosion — of the self? That will require significant research.

Jacobsen: Speaking in statistical terms, does trauma manifest differently in cases of physical abuse versus sexual abuse versus verbal/emotional abuse in intimate partner violence?

Robertson: I do not know of research that would back me up on this, but my experience is that yes, the nature of the trauma does affect people differentially. However, I will add another caveat. The same incident may be traumatic for one person and not traumatic for another. One issue I have is that trauma has become a loose term. Over the past ten or fifteen years, the meanings of several terms have expanded to the point that they are less valuable in discussion. Trauma is one of those terms. Now everything is a trauma.

A mother told me about three months ago that she never gives her three-year-old a timeout because timeouts can be traumatic. “Upset” is not the same as “traumatized.” But if children do not experience challenges and consequences for their actions, then ordinary disagreements can feel traumatic later - and that is not a sign of a healthy self. The whole issue of self-construction needs to be examined. One advantage of self-mapping is that it is holistic: we look at as much as we can at once and see how it fits together.

One of the approaches you mentioned was EMDR. It is effective with some people. But if someone is in a setting where, for example, I once worked with a group of university staff in eastern Canada. It was around the time the alleged discovery of a mass grave at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School was widely reported in the news. Several of them reported symptoms consistent with trauma. Why? If we are resilient, something that happened a long time ago, involving people we are unrelated to, in a place across the country, why would that become traumatic?

I think many people have lost a sense of resilience we once demonstrated. We have had people fight in major wars. The idea of trauma in psychology came from the First World War and soldiers returning home, which was then called shell shock. That was real. But not all soldiers experienced trauma. In fact, the majority did not. So we have a capacity for resilience, and we need to work on instilling that resilience — not only in people who have already suffered trauma, but from childhood onward.

Jacobsen: What are the consistent self-concepts in the self-mapping of most resilient individuals — those for whom trauma does not significantly alter their sense of self, regardless of what happens?

Robertson: A sense of volition, the belief that I can make changes in the future. That can become a trap: if you believe you can make changes and those changes don't happen, how does that reflect on your sense of self? We cannot always control every situation. What I tell my clients — and I am not the first to say this — is that we can control how we respond to every problem. That is the challenge.

Most resilient people possess volition, but also an understanding that there are some things I cannot control — and that is okay. They do not have to control everything. But they still believe they can affect their future in positive ways, even if they cannot control every situation. Those are elements that contribute to a resilient self.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Lloyd.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Further Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.