True self and false self
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The true self (also known as real self, authentic self, original self and vulnerable self) and the false self (also known as fake self, idealized self, superficial self and pseudo self) are a psychological dualism conceptualized by English psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott.[1] Winnicott used "true self" to denote a sense of self based on spontaneous authentic experience and a feeling of being alive, having a real self with little to no contradiction.[2] "False self", by contrast, denotes a sense of self created as a defensive façade,[1] which in extreme cases can leave an individual lacking spontaneity and feeling dead and empty behind an inconsistent and incompetent appearance of being real, such as in narcissism.[1]
Characteristics
In his work, Winnicott saw the "true self" as stemming from self-perception in early infancy, such as awareness of tangible aspects of being alive, like blood pumping through veins and lungs inflating and deflating with breathing—what Winnicott called simply being.[3] Out of this, an infant begins to guarantee that these elements are constant, and regards its life as an essential reality. After birth, the baby's spontaneous, nonverbal gestures derive from that instinctual sense,[1] and if responded to kindly and with affirmation by the parents, become the basis for the continuing development of the true self.
However, when what Winnicott was careful to describe as
The danger was particularly acute where the baby had to provide attunement for the mother/parents, rather than vice versa, building up a sort of dissociated recognition of the object on an impersonal, not personal and spontaneous basis.[9] But while such a pathological false self stifled the spontaneous gestures of the true self in favour of a lifeless imitation, Winnicott nevertheless considered it of vital importance in preventing something worse: the annihilating experience of the exploitation of the hidden true self itself.[3]
Precursors
Helene Deutsch, a colleague of Freud, had previously described "as if" personalities, pseudo-relationships substituting for real ones.[10] Winnicott's analyst, Joan Riviere, had also explored the concept of the narcissist's masquerade, which is essentially a superficial assent concealing a subtle hidden struggle for control.[11] Freud's own late theory of the ego as the product of identifications[12] came close to viewing it only as a false self;[13] while Winnicott's true/false distinction has also been compared to Michael Balint's "basic fault" and to Ronald Fairbairn's notion of the "compromised ego".[14]
Karen Horney, in her 1950 book, Neurosis and Human Growth, based her idea of "true self" and "false self" through the view of self-improvement, interpreting it as real self and ideal self, with the real self being what one currently is and the ideal self being what one could become.[17] (See also Karen Horney § Theory of the self).
Later developments
The second half of the twentieth century has seen Winnicott's ideas extended and applied in a variety of contexts, both in psychoanalysis and beyond.
Kohut
Kohut extended Winnicott's work in his investigation of narcissism,[18] seeing narcissists as evolving a defensive armor around their damaged inner selves.[19] He considered it less pathological to identify with the damaged remnants of the self, than to achieve coherence through identification with an external personality at the cost of one's own autonomous creativity.[20]
Lowen
Alexander Lowen identified narcissists as having a true and a false, or superficial, self. The false self rests on the surface, as the self presented to the world. It stands in contrast to the true self, which resides behind the facade or image. This true self is the feeling self, but for the narcissist the feeling self must be hidden and denied. Since the superficial self represents submission and conformity, the inner or true self is rebellious and angry. This underlying rebellion and anger can never be fully suppressed since it is an expression of the life force in that person. But because of the denial, it cannot be expressed directly. Instead it shows up in the narcissist's acting out. And it can become a perverse force.[21]
Masterson
James F. Masterson argued that all the
Symington
Symington developed Winnicott's contrast between true and false self to cover the sources of personal action, contrasting an autonomous and a discordant source of action – the latter drawn from the internalisation of external influences and pressures.[23] Thus for example parental dreams of self-glorification by way of their child's achievements can be internalised as an alien discordant source of action.[24] Symington stressed however the intentional element in the individual's abandoning the autonomous self in favour of a false self or narcissistic mask – something he considered Winnicott to have overlooked.[25]
Vaknin
As part of what has been described as a personal mission to raise the profile of the condition, [26] psychology professor (and self-confessed narcissist) Sam Vaknin has highlighted the role of the false self in narcissism. The false self replaces the narcissist's true self and is intended to shield him from hurt and narcissistic injury by self-imputing omnipotence. The narcissist pretends that his false self is real and demands that others affirm this confabulation, meanwhile keeping his real imperfect true self under wraps.[27]
For Vaknin, the false self is by far more important to the narcissist than his dilapidated, dysfunctional true self; and he does not subscribe to the view that the true self can be resuscitated through therapy.[28]
Miller
Alice Miller cautiously warns that a child/patient may not have any formed true self, waiting behind the false self facade;[29] and that as a result freeing the true self is not as simple as the Winnicottian image of the butterfly emerging from its cocoon.[30] If a true self can be developed, however, she considered that the empty grandiosity of the false self could give way to a new sense of autonomous vitality.[31]
Orbach: false bodies
Susie Orbach saw the false self as an overdevelopment (under parental pressure) of certain aspects of the self at the expense of other aspects – of the full potential of the self – producing thereby an abiding distrust of what emerges spontaneously from the individual himself or herself.[32] Orbach went on to extend Winnicott's account of how environmental failure can lead to an inner splitting of mind and body,[33] so as to cover the idea of the false body – falsified sense of one's own body.[34] Orbach saw the female false body in particular as built upon identifications with others, at the cost of an inner sense of authenticity and reliability.[35] Breaking up a monolithic but false body-sense in the process of therapy could allow for the emergence of a range of authentic (even if often painful) body feelings in the patient.[36]
Jungian persona
Jungians have explored the overlap between Jung's concept of the persona and Winnicott's false self;[37] but, while noting similarities, consider that only the most rigidly defensive persona approximates to the pathological status of the false self.[38]
Stern's tripartite self
Daniel Stern considered Winnicott's sense of "going on being" as constitutive of the core, pre-verbal self.[39] He also explored how language could be used to reinforce a false sense of self, leaving the true self linguistically opaque and disavowed.[40] He ended, however, by proposing a three-fold division of social, private, and of disavowed self.[41]
Richard Rohr
Richard Rohr explores the spiritual dimensions of the concept of True self and False self in his book Immortal Diamond.
Criticisms
The philosopher
Literary examples
- Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights has been interpreted in terms of the true self's struggle to break through the false self, and the social overlay that makes the false self socially acceptable.[46]
- Sylvia Plath's poetry has been interpreted in terms of the conflict of the true self and the false self.[47]
- In Joanne Greenberg's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, the heroine sees her outward personality as a mere ghost of a Semblance, behind which her true self hides more completely.
See also
- Alter ego
- Anima and animus
- Authenticity (philosophy)
- Bad faith (existentialism)
- Character mask
- Crystallized self
- Ego death
- Ego ideal
- Higher self
- Honne and tatemae
- Hypocrisy
- Impression management
- Mask
- Parentification
- Persona
- Psyche (psychology)
- Psychology of self
- Religious views on the self
- Self-actualization
- Self-concealment
- Self-love
- Self psychology
- Superficial charm
- Unthought known
References
- ^ a b c d Winnicott, D. W. (1960). "Ego distortion in terms of true and false self". The Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development. New York: International Universities Press, Inc: 140–57.
- ^ Salman Akhtar, Good Feelings (London 2009) p. 128
- ^ a b Jacobus, Mary (2005). The Poetics of Psychoanalysis. Oxford. p. 160.
- ^ Grolnick, Simon (1990). The Work & Play of Winnicott. Aronson. p. 44.
- ^ Minsky, Rosalind (1996). Psychoanalysis and Gender. London. p. 118.
- ^ Klein, Josephine (1994). Our Need for Others. London. p. 241.
- ^ Klein, Josephine (1994). Our Need for Others. London. p. 365.
- ^ Minsky, Rosalind (1996). Psychoanalysis and Gender. London. pp. 119–20.
- ^ Phillips, Adam (1994). On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored. London. pp. 30–31.
- ^ Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (London 1946) p. 445
- ^ Mary Jacobus, The Poetics of Psychoanalysis: In the Wake of Klein (Oxford 2005) p. 37
- ^ Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection (London 1997) p. 128
- ^ Adam Phillips, Winnicott (Harvard 1988) p. 136
- ^ J. H. Padel, "Freudianism: Later Developments", in Richard Gregory ed., The Oxford Companion to the Mind (Oxford 1987) p. 273
- ^ Erich Fromm (1942), The Fear of Freedom (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 2001) p. 175
- ^ Quoted in Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (1961) p. 110
- ISBN 0-393-00135-0.
- ^ Eugene M. DeRobertis, Humanizing Child Development Theories (2008), p. 38
- ^ Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession (London 1988) p. 136
- ^ Heinz Kohut, How Does Analysis Cure? (London 1984), pp. 142, 167.
- ^ Lowen, Alexander. Narcissism: Denial of the true self. Simon & Schuster, 2004, 1984.
- ^ Fox, Margalit (April 20, 2010). "Dr. James Masterson, expert on personality disorders; at 84". Boston.com – via The Boston Globe.
- ^ Neville Symington, Narcissism: A New Theory (London 2003) pp. 36, 115
- ^ Polly Young-Eisandrath, Women and Desire (London 2000) pp. 112, 198
- ^ Neville Symington, Narcissism: A New Theory (London 2003) p. 104
- ^ Simon Crompton, All about Me: Loving a Narcissist (London 2007) p. 7
- ^ Vaknin S The Dual Role of the Narcissist's False Self
- ^ Samuel Vaknin/Lidija Rangelovska Malignant Self-Love (2003) pp. 187–88
- ^ Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child (2004) p. 21
- ^ Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession (London 1988) p. 135
- ^ Alice Miller, The Drama of Being a Child (2004) p. 45
- ^ Susie Orbach, Bodies (London 2009) p. 67
- ^ D. W. Winnicott, Winnicott on the Child (2002) p. 76
- ^ Susie Orbach, The Impossibility of Sex (Penguin 1999) pp. 48, 216
- ^ Susie Orbach, in Lawrence Spurling ed., Winnicott Studies (1995) p. 6
- ^ Susie Orbach, Bodies (London 2009) pp. 67–72
- ^ Mario Jacoby, Shame and the Origins of Self-Esteem (1996) pp. 59–60
- ^ Polly Young-Eisendrath/James Albert Hall, Jung's Self Psychology (1991) p. 29
- ^ Daniel Stern, The Interpersonal World of the Infant (1985) pp. 7, 93
- ^ Daniel Stern, The Interpersonal World of the Infant (1985) p. 227
- ^ Michael Jacobs, D. W. Winnicott (1995) p. 129
- ^ Neville Symington, Narcissism: A New Theory (London 2003) p. 97
- ^ V. R. Sherwood/C. P. Cohen, Psychotherapy of the Quiet Borderline Patient (1994) p. 50
- ^ Paul Rabinov ed., The Foucault Reader (1991) p. 362
- ^ Quoted in Jon Simons ed. Contemporary Critical Theorists (2006) p. 196
- ^ A. Schapiro, Barbara (1995). Literature and the Relational Self. p. 52.
- ^ Kroll, Judith (1976). Chapters in a Mythology: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath. pp. 182–84.
Further reading
- D. W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality (London 1971)
- Jan Abram and Knud Hjulmand, The Language of Winnicott: A Dictionary of Winnicott's Use of Words (London 2007)
- Susie Orbach, 'Working with the False Body', in A. Erskine/D. Judd eds., The Imaginative Body (London 1993)
External links
- Self (True/False)
- The Wikiversity course Unmasking the True Self