This is perfectly correct and usable in written English.
You can use it when you want to convey the idea of something containing an inherent understanding of itself. For example, "This computer understands itself as the last word in technological advancement."
The military understands itself as a group endeavor.
"It tells us that the church still understands itself as an environment dominated by men".
But there's another America as well, one that understands itself as a distinctive culture, rather than just a set of political propositions.
The present communication understands itself as the flashlight helping the Fe0 research community out of the valley of confusion.
The journal understands itself as a bridge between scientists and all stake holders including the general public.
These questionnaires reflect the multiplicity of empathy conceptions in psychology, since each understands itself as operationalizing a different definition of empathy.
Authentic Dasein comes to understand itself as guilty.
Islam understood itself as the conclusion and fulfillment of the Old and New Testament revelation.
But the movement understood itself as engaged in a struggle for something more foundational: for citizenship, the status from which freedom and equal rights flowed.
Market fundamentalism understood itself as the diametric opposite of the communist command economy, but in fact made the same cardinal mistake: to believe that a rational model could encompass, predict and optimise the dynamic complexity of collective human behaviour.
The most recent attempt to form a church-state by a sect that understood itself as the chosen people distinguished by God through a special new revelation was undertaken by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons as they are commonly known.
