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One recent development in psycho-analysis has been the increasing use of the concept of the False Self. This concept carries with it the idea of a True Self.
This concept is not in itself new. It appears in various guises in descriptive psychiatry and notably in certain religions and philosophical systems. Evidently a real clinical state exists which deserves study, and the concept presents psycho-analysis with an aetiological challenge. Psycho-analysis concerns itself with the questions:
How does the False Self arise?
What is its function?
Why is the False Self exaggerated or emphasized in some cases?
Why do some persons not develop a False Self system?
What are the equivalents to the False Self in normal people?
What is there that could be named a True Self?
It would appear to me that the idea of a False Self, which is an idea which our patients give us, can be discerned in the early formulations of Freud. In particular I link what I divide into a True and a False Self with Freud's division of the self into a part that is central and powered by the instincts (or by what Freud called sexuality, pregenital and genital), and a part that is turned outwards and is related to the world.
My own contribution to this subject derives from my working at one and the same time