Reformulates the notion of the ego and provides a new perspective for understanding ego development and the role of the ego in spiritual life.In Recentering the Self Michael Washburn presents a new account of the ego ego development and the role of the ego in spiritual life. He starts by tracing the premodern antecedents of the notion of the ego in Greek philosophy and Christian theology and then explains the seventeenthcentury emergence of the notion in Descartess radically new account of the souls relation to the body. Reviewing subsequent criticisms of the notion the author formulates a revised conception of the ego that highlights the egos inherently twosided nature as a subject and agency that although rooted within interior consciousness lives originally and primarily in the material social world.