Subject: A 'relational' self
The question of identity has been at the forefront of philosophical questioning for centuries. In our Western, self centred world, where the self is linked, through religion to god and ones life is judged by what you do as an individual in the eyes of God it is easy to see how our narcissistic way of conceptualising our ideals, seen solely through the prism of oneself, come about.  In Asia where your identity is 'relational', you merge and share 'your identity' with the people around you to obtain the benefits of the society as a whole and through that, the elevation of your shared identity and your understanding of yourself is purely with reference to others.
It's a fundamental variance and effects the societies in which it is practiced. It explains the Japanese insistence on respect for the social norms which if you have travelled to Japan, are so intriguing to a western born person. The uniformity of interactive formality, the bow and hand clasping, the lack of overt touching and the respect for the space between you (except when you are crammed like sardines onto a train) is all part of the tradition of respecting individuality but within within the wider society.
So we have. The 'relational' view, we are someone's son or brother, the 'atomistic' view, we are a biological unit, or the western view that there is no essence of self, we never exist outside the path between birth and death and even then, we only exist as part of a mental interplay in our own brain.
In the Verdict tradition, in India, atman is the the 'personal' essence of being which makes each individual who he or she is. The Buddhist has a concept of anatta, literally 'no atman', believing that there is no self, only the five aggregates. We are a composite of 'rupa' : the form of matter or body, 'vedana' : sensations and feelings, 'sanna' : perceptions, 'sankhara' : mental activity, 'vinnana' : consciousness. There is no atman that has physical form, sensations, thoughts, or perceptions of consciousness, other than an aggregate of all these things and self therefore is not owned or identified by one person and explains why, in rebirth the self is not reborn.
The term Anatta does not deny self, only the self which could be described as eternal, immaterial and indivisible, that religious self which continues even after death. In the anatta view there is something which is 'myself' but there is no such discrete entity as 'my self'. The personal selves we take ourselves to be in conventional reality is an illusion and liberation only comes when we detach ourselves from this and enter a de-personalised existence through meditation.
This lack of self is different to the self or 'no self' which asserts itself in modern day western philosophical thinking it's a removal of the focus on me in the singular and tries to grasp me in relation to everything around me.