Wellness Calendar: Tuesday 11 March

True self vs false self
Donald Winnicott (a 20th-century psychoanalyst and paediatrician) saw being true as being alive and free and spontaneous, while being false was part of complying with other people’s demands or expectations. He saw falsehood as an important defence for a child to take against poor parenting. The false self protects the true self against being damaged by the craziness of parents.
Another angle to take on falseness is that sometimes it can be the only way to reach out and connect with another person. So we either have a choice to not connect with people (and stay true – but possibly also stay lonely and unloved) or connect with people (and be untrue).
There are probably a million and one good reasons for not being your true self. However, one of the troubles of being false, especially for long periods of time, is that you can lose your way. Your false self can become a larger and larger part of your life, and you stop knowing which bits are real and which are not real.
Sometimes people pretend that their false self is their real, true self. Sometimes being false for long periods of time can cause a personality crisis (“I don’t know who I am anymore”). Sometimes the burden of falsehood can create exhaustion and distress (“I don’t have the energy to live like this anymore”).
The following questions may be of interest to you: When am I most true (to myself)? When am I most false? Who do I most trust with my true self? Who do I least trust with my true self? Where can I be most true? Where do I need to be most false?
“In order to live in this world, we have to suppress so much of ourselves.” This is a quote from Sigmund Freud. What do you think of this statement? Do you agree or disagree with it?