self-recognition

The experience of one's own life, personality, etc.; recognition of oneself as a full-bodied individual.

A recognition made chiefly by oneself; an understanding reached by one's own thought and reflection.

Graham therefore insisted that sentencers not deprive juvenile non-homicide offenders "of the opportunity to achieve maturity... and self-recognition of human worth and potential" by sentencing them to die in prison.

The process by which the immune system distinguishes the body's own cells, DNA, etc. and those of a foreign, possibly pathogenic, agent.