Chapter 18. The Hazards Inherent in Managing the Regression

A third group of analysts, by no means so well organized as the previous two, and spread all over the analytic world, also start from the gulf separating us normal adults from the child in the patient, but think — in many ways similarly to myself — that it is due to mismanagement of the child during his early formative period by the adults, above all by his mother. The mismanagement, the lack of ‘fit’ between mother and her child, may create lasting structural alterations in the child's mind. For instance, according to Winnicott, one of the most frequently-met results is a kind of split in the ego; in response to the mismanagement — probably by introjecting the indifferent, overwhelming, or inadequate environment — a false ego or self is brought into being in order to cope with the unsympathetic world. This false ego may be highly efficient, and even successful in many fields of life, but it bars the access to the true or real self which thus remains immature, out of touch with reality. The result is a lifelong feeling of futility, emptiness and unhappiness.

This school, as I have just mentioned, lays the chief emphasis on a proper ‘fit’ — between the individual, who feels weak, and his environment, which he feels to be over-powerful. The true ego is usually so immature, so unaccustomed to dealing with problems of real life, that means must for some time be found both for protecting it from the onslaught of the demands of the world and for mediating between these demands and the individual's actual possibilities. Any lack of ‘fit’ in this respect may reinstate the efficiently functioning false ego in its ‘caretaker’ function, to the detriment of the true self. This very delicate piece of work, consisting of nursing, protecting, mediating, looking after, etc., is usually called ‘management’, which is an additional, or perhaps even more fundamental, task of analytical