Psychology of Self - Winnicott's Selves

Winnicott's Selves

D. W. Winnicott distinguished what he called the "true self" from the "false self" in the human personality, considering the true self as based on a sense of being in the experiencing body: 'for Winnicott, the sense of being is primary, the sense of doing an outgrowth of it'. As he memorably put it to Harry Guntrip, 'You know about "being active", but not about "just growing, just breathing"'.

Nevertheless, Winnicott did not underestimate the need as well for a false self, seeing indeed 'the False Self...as a necessary defensive organization, a survival kit, a caretaker self, the means by which a threatened person has managed to survive'.

'Winnicott postulates that there is a continuum of false self development ', distinguishing indeed five levels of organization of the false self:

1. 'At the pathological end of the continuum the false self acts as if it were the real person' - the true self remaining concealed, only a virtual possibility. However, the false self always lacks "... something essential": sociallly, the person is perceived as false.
2. Less severely, the false self protects the true self, which remains unactualised - for Winnicott a clear example of a clinical condition organised for the positive goal of preservating the individual in spite of abnormal environmental conditions of the environment.
3. Closer to health, the false self supports the individual's search for conditions that will allow the true self to recover its well-being - its own identity.
4. Even closer to health, we find the false self "... established on the basis of identifications".
5. In a healthy person, the false self is composed of that which facilitates "... a polite social behavior, good manners and a certain reserve". It is this essential courtesy that makes possible life in society: 'the false self acts to allow smooth passage through the world by inducing appropriate and socially acceptable ways of expressing love and hate'.

As for the true self, 'Winnicott's conception of the self became increasingly that of a "hide and seek self"', in his growing concern about the possibility of 'thefts of the child's or the patient's creative ownership of their own knowing, in their own time'.

Winnicott believed that 'in health there is a core of the personality which corresponds to the true self', and which 'must never be communicated with or be influenced by external reality. The question is: how to be isolated without having to be insulated?'.