When an action is directed back at the subject—such as doing something to "myself", "yourself", or "themselves"—Polish uses the independent reflexive pronoun. Unlike English, which changes the word depending on the person, Polish uses the exact same word for everyone!
However, this pronoun changes its form (declines) depending on its grammatical role. It does not have a Nominative form, because "oneself" can never be the subject of a sentence.
| Case | Form | Common Uses |
|---|
| Accusative & Genitive | siebie | Direct objects, dbać o (take care of), do (to) |
| Dative & Locative | sobie | Indirect objects, na (on) |
| Instrumental | sobą | zająć się (look after), z (with) |
Accusative & Genitive: Siebie
Use siebie when you are the direct object of the action, such as with akceptować (to accept) and krytykować (to criticize).
You also use siebie after prepositions that require the Accusative or Genitive cases, such as dbać o (to take care of) and having zaufanie do (trust in).
Dative & Locative: Sobie
When a preposition takes the Locative case, the pronoun changes to sobie. A common example during therapy is skupiać się na (to focus on).
Instrumental: Sobą
When a verb requires the Instrumental case, such as zająć się (to look after / occupy oneself with), or when using the preposition z (with), the pronoun becomes sobą.
For extra emphasis, Polish speakers often add the word sam (oneself / alone) before the pronoun, adjusting it to match the case. For example, z samym sobą means "with oneself."