The Search for the Authentic Self

The search for the authentic self is a concept that derives from Winnicott's notion of a true and false self paradigm. Winnicott's model can be seen as both normal and pathological. It is normal when it is adaptive to social demands without the surrender of one's inner, true self. It is pathological, when the inner, true self surrenders to a false self which characterizes one's relationships to others as well as to the external world. The authentic self is, in essence, comparable to Winnicott's true self.

Winnicott (1960), in his consideration of the role of early parental significance in infant development, suggests that “this becomes of clinical significance for us in our handling of certain types of case(s) with affective and character disorders” (p. 41). He refers to the idea of a “true self” as the core of personality. He also suggests that this core needs to be able to be isolated in order to maintain its integrity. This isolation, an aspect of “good-enough mothering,” protects the infant from the anxiety of annihilation. However, “if maternal care is not good enough then the infant does not really come into existence, since there is no continuity of being; instead the personality becomes built on the basis of reactions to environmental impingement” (p. 54). These concepts imply a split between what is considered to be true and false selves which are organized to cope with what is felt to be an invasive external environment.

Theoretically, the concept of a false self has relevance, though it is difficult to conceive of any subjective experience as “false.” Consequently, patients tend to refer to what Winnicott described as a “false” self as their “real” self. Phenomenologically, the idea of one's self being false does not make sense. This is certainly so in the case to be presented; a man who has always been convinced that those aspects of his personality which he abhorred were aspects that represented