The phrase "always seen itself" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing a perspective or self-perception of a subject over time.
Example: "The organization has always seen itself as a leader in innovation and sustainability."
Alternatives: "has consistently viewed itself" or "has always perceived itself".
Spain has always seen itself as too traditional.
America has always seen itself, and has been seen, as the land of progress, pushing back the frontiers of knowledge.
AS ONE of the country's fastest-changing cities, Miami has always seen itself as a place of the future.
Declining or not, Russia has always seen itself as a great power that should be surrounded by buffer states.
Once banned by the pope, the order has always seen itself as a kind of Catholic elite.
"Microsoft has always seen itself as a growth company," says Matt Rosoff of the independent analyst firm Directions on Microsoft.
The Voice always saw itself as an oppositional paper, offering an irreverent, muckraking, avant-garde alternative to the establishment press.
But HGS always saw itself as a drug company, whereas Incyte was until recently more of an information company that would sell its discoveries to others.
The explanation is invariably in terms of ingrained barbarism (even though Turkey has never done anything to Greece as atrocious as what the Greeks did to each other in their civil war), and Greece always sees itself as little David heroically facing up to a grunting, incoherent, and probably smelly Goliath.
DJs like Ewan Pearson, Ivan Smagghe and Ralph Lawson were early icons, vital components of an event that always saw itself as more than a club night or afternoon.
It is indeed melodramatic - although, as someone who has always seen life itself as being full of melodrama, I simply find that this adds to its realism.
