True Self, False Self
“Only the true self can be creative and only the true self can feel real.” This is a psychological concept promulgated by Donald Winnicot, a post Freudian psychoanalyst who originated the concept of true self/false self. This concept resonates with me and I hope to share some of my thinking and feeling on this subject in the hope they will be useful to you.
George Santayana wrote: “Masks are arrested expressions and admirable echoes of feeling, at once faithful, discrete, and superlative. Living things in contact with the air must acquire a cuticle, and it is not urged against cuticles that they are not hearts; yet some philosophers seem to be angry with images for not being things, and with words for not being feelings. Words and images are like shells, no less integral parts of nature than are the substances they cover, but better addressed to the eye and more open to observation. I would not say that substance exists for the sake of appearance, or faces for the sake of masks, or the passions for the sake of poetry a virtue. No thing arises in nature for the sake of anything else; all these phrases and products are involved equally in the round of existence.”
Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, 1922
I think all of us here at the Upper Delaware Unitarian Universalist Fellowship are here because we have given much thought to who we are and why we are here in this world and to the choices we make. We have not blindly accepted the environment we were born into.
We are here in this room on this Sunday because we have chosen to belong to a fellowship that promotes independent thinking and spiritual values. This is a real choice we make.
Each of us comes into this world with a unique set of genes and neurons. Even before I learned of the neuropsychiatric findings of the last decade I became aware of this when I worked at White Plains Hospital. My job was filled with stress and many crises. When I needed a break, I would go up to the neonatal nursery and gaze at the newborns. There they were all lined up in rows in front of a picture window, swaddled up except for their faces. Those were spiritual moments for me. I would ponder the miracle of life. I would think about those lives to be lived and hope for the best possible for them.
One thing was abundantly clear. They were not all alike. Some were tranquil, some wriggled tensely, even though asleep, some cried furiously. No, they were not blank slates. They had come into this world with their own unique set of genes and neurons giving them their own individual set of characteristics with which to face the world they had just entered.
And that world, what would it be like? Hopefully with a pair of parents who were lovingly prepared to care for their newborn, to raise him or her to be a confident human being, at home in the world and with himself as a whole self filled human being.
As we know, in this imperfect world, the baby who is himself imperfect must strive to become a self, alive and real in his mind and body, having feelings that are spontaneous and unforced. A self at home within himself, with others and able to be creative.
The baby must meet the expectations of her parents, her family, teachers and others, the expectations of her culture in general. Expectations that don’t always fit who she is, who she could be.
Expectations are bits we hear that don’t always fit who we are. We accommodate the environment in order to blend in and to be accepted, to be safe. Our “real” self gets lost, we have developed a false self and lose our way. We have done this in order to feel safe and blend in order to protect ourselves from the chaos of others.
Throughout our lives we are making choices. How do we live in their world, how do we relate to others, who do we fall in love with, what friends do we choose, what kind of work do we do, how do we spend our time. These choices are large and small.
Some of us go along the paths of life in a single-minded way as if the choices are pre-ordained. Others struggle mightily and never feel sure of their way or feel as if they are making the right decisions.
The question of choice is an interesting one. How do we make choices. What is the dynamic operating in the individual that leads him or her to make those choices. Are they being made by the healthy whole being in a way that is sustaining and fulfilling?
I am now going to give you some examples of choices that come from the layers of a self who has been conditioned in a way that lead to a false self that made choices that were not safe. Choices that result from a childhood environment that was not safe or nurturing.
The first story is my own.
I was raised in a household with a very unhappy mother. She was volatile and I made sure that she never knew how much her behavior was upsetting to me. I became a person who always had to be in charge and who was never out of control. A telling story is when I was traveling to Baltimore from New York City to attend a conference. If you are familiar with the Baltimore train station, you know there is a long escalator. I was traveling with a small suitcase and when I got to the top, I tripped over the suitcase. I fell hard and I knew that I had broken something. I knew that what was best for me was to simply lie there and wait for the emergency medical people to come. But surprisingly, when two men approached me and asked me if I needed help, I instructed them to pick me up. A police officer came and brought a wheelchair. As I sat there, I knew that I had broken my thigh and my left wrist (my dominate side.) My colleague, who had been behind me on the escalator asked if there was anything that she could do for me, and I replied, “Call my brother, and tell him that I am not able to come to dinner tomorrow night as we had arranged.”
This is crazy behavior and of course, she didn’t call my brother and deliver the message, she called him and told him what had happened. I was taken to a community hospital and seen in the emergency room. This hospital did not have electric door openers and I was sure that I didn’t want to stay there. I called my brother and said, “You have had boys who have broken bones, what hospital did you go to.” I made a plan to hire an ambulance to take me to another hospital. When I was recovering in the hospital, the policeman from the rail station called me to let me know how impressed he was with my bravery. It wasn’t bravery, it was crazy. I could not stand being in a situation where I was helpless. Of course, it was my way of coping and surviving, but it is a false self that I adopted to protect myself as a child.
To illustrate how difficult it is to overcome patterns of dysfunction, I can say I am much more aware of my need to “not be helpless.” But I can still operate on that basis without awareness, until it is too late. As an example is my failure to have an architect look at my design for our house here in Beach Lake.
Another example is a client that I saw for a number years. My client came from a family that came from Europe after the Holocaust. Upon arrival they converted to Lutheranism not wanting to be identified as Jews. Both parents became physicians and my client was the eldest of three sons. Steve and his brothers were not told of their Jewish background until they were adolescents.
Of course they knew there were secrets in the home. Secrets are always felt. My client never felt at home in his life. He became a lawyer to fulfill his parents’ expectations and he hated being a lawyer.
He wanted to be married and have children but always chose women who were not in his league culturally or intellectually. The relationships never worked out. He also struggled with identity issues. He didn’t feel Jewish or did he feel authentically Christian.
Finally after much work he was able to accept that he was not in the world to fulfill his parents expectations. He left the law and became a high school social studies teacher. He is outstanding in that profession. He teaches AP classes and lectures in the community on the Holocaust. He has married a Jewish woman who is his equal in intelligence and culture; they have two children.
The third example is a short one. It is about Judy, who gave me permission to share her story. For those of you who were at Crispin’s service on vulnerability may remember that Judy stood up and told us about how her son recently told her, “Mom, everything that you do is motivated by fear.” In thinking about this, she knew that it was true and that it came from her father’s death when she was a teenager.
So to review what I am saying: The true self is the core of you – the original you you are meant to be, unshaped by upbringing or society. The state you were born to be. It is whole and still exists inside you. Your false self is your adapted self, the part of you that adapted. The part that altered and repressed needs in order to survive in the environment in which you found yourself – your mother, father, your family, your culture.
It is true that one must make adaptions to live with others and self, but often we make adaptations that keep us from being whole.
Now I ask each of you to take a few moments to reflect on your own adaptations that have perhaps prevented you from being true to yourself.
And if you wish to share we would be glad to hear them.
