True self and false self

True self (also known as real self, authentic self, original self and vulnerable self) and false self (also known as fake self, ideal self, perfect self, superficial self and pseudo self) are psychological concepts often used in connection with narcissism.

They were introduced into psychoanalysis in 1960 by D. W. Winnicott. Winnicott used true self to describe a sense of self based on spontaneous authentic experience, and a feeling of being alive, having a real self.

The false self, by contrast, Winnicott saw as a defensive facade—one which in extreme cases could leave its holders lacking spontaneity and feeling dead and empty, behind a mere appearance of being real.

To maintain their self-esteem, and protect their vulnerable true selves, narcissists need to control others' behavior – particularly that of their children seen as extensions of themselves.

Winnicott saw the true self as rooted from early infancy in the experience of being alive, including blood pumping and lungs breathing—what Winnicott called simply being. Out of this the baby creates the experience of a sense of reality, a sense that life is worth living. The baby's spontaneous, nonverbal gestures derive from that instinctual sense, and if responded to by the mother, become the basis for the continuing development of the true self.

However, when what Winnicott was careful to describe as good enough parenting—i.e. not necessarily perfect!—was not in place, the infant's spontaneity was in danger of being encroached on by the need for compliance with the parents' wishes/expectations. The result for Winnicott could be the creation of what he called the false self, where "Other people's expectations can become of overriding importance, overlaying or contradicting the original sense of self, the one connected to the very roots of one's being". The danger he saw was that "through this false self, the infant builds up a false set of relationships, and by means of introjections even attains a show of being real", while in fact merely concealing a barren emptiness behind an independent-seeming facade.

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. 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.

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