True Self vs False Self: Are you being authentic or faking your way through life?

Are you being true to yourself and others? Who is the real you? How do you know when you’re being authentic and when you’re not?

The idea of us having a True Self and a False Self was made popular in the 1960s by psychologist D.W. Winnicott but the subject has a far longer history.

In this post we’ll explore the differences between the True and False Selves. We’ll look into how they develop in our lives and, more importantly, we’ll cover 7 steps you can take to be more genuine in life, letting your True Self take centre stage once more.

What is the difference between the True Self and the False Self?

How do we know when we’re being genuine or fake? Is it through the words we speak? The actions we take? Is it a felt-sense of being true to ourselves, like a warm feeling we might notice inside, as if our heart was affirming, “Yes, that’s right…you spoke your truth”?

Whatever the case, psychologists and philosophers have been working on this True Self and False Self theory for over a century. D.W. Winnicott was the first renowned psychologist to explore it at length in his book, The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment (1).

Much of Winnicott’s work focuses on the importance of the mother-baby attachment, and it is the quality of this attachment that creates the True Self/False Self dichotomy.

According to Winnicott, as the child develops they have impulses to naturally express themselves. This natural expression, or “spontaneous gesture” is the beginning of the baby’s individuality. How the mother meets her infant’s natural expression determines the degree to which the “True Self” develops.

This is where Winnicott developed his concept of the “good enough mother”. It is up to the “good enough mother” to meet this spontaneous expression with positive encouragement or “mirroring”, to allow the infant’s True Self to grow.

Basically, the baby learns that they can express themselves naturally – be it tears, temper tantrums, moodiness, laughter, whatever – and still be met and held. They can be ‘true’ and still be loved.

How does the False Self develop?

But the trouble is that if a mother is not able to ‘meet’ and ‘hold’ these natural expressions the child will sense a break in the attachment. And this is extremely frightening to the child who is, of course, totally dependent at this stage.

In other words, if the mother can’t or won’t ‘meet’ the child, the child’s core emotional needs won’t be met: the needs for physical touch and warmth, affection, attention, and love.

Without ‘meeting’ her child, the mother – in Winnicott’s terms – becomes a “not good enough mother’. Rather than meeting the baby’s natural expressions and emotional needs, she will substitute her own expressions and needs. For example, she will shut down the infant’s spontaneity with her own gestures, such as harshness or lack of engagement.

The “not good enough mother” either cannot, for whatever reason, sense her infant’s needs, and/or allows her own needs to predominate (perhaps in a narcissistic way), rather than the needs of her child. If this way of relating becomes habitual the message the child receives is this…

Being natural, spontaneous and genuine doesn’t meet your needs. Or, perhaps even worse, you must pretend everything’s okay and suffer in silence. This is where the False Self begins to develop.

Ego vs authenticity

It’s as if at this point in a young child’s life, a Loyal Soldier comes to the rescue, stepping in to save us with new tactics and strategies to meet our needs for security, attention, and love. Indeed, attention is such a fundamental emotional need that a child will do almost anything to receive it.

Tantrums can become common place. Sulking, meltdowns, shouting fits, anger outbursts, bouts of crying, perhaps all driven by some unmet need, attention or otherwise.

Or maybe the infant learns that it’s best to stay quiet. They become the ‘quiet one’ or the ‘shy child’. They might develop the role of Peacekeeper, always trying to keep the family unit together or put a smile on mummy and daddy’s faces by being good and obedient.

Again, authenticity and spontaneity is ruled out. In time, these new ‘tactics’ and identities develop into what we might call the ego; that conglomeration of conditioned responses just to help us get by in life.

Not a bad thing, of course. But it leaves you living a life of falsehood. This is where the False Self has control of your psychology (your beliefs, thoughts, and feelings) and largely determines how you act in the world.

The mask you wear feels so normal over time that you don’t even know it’s there.

Typical signs of the False Self

So, at this point we can say that the False Self develops through the experiences of childhood such as trauma, shame, rejection, abandonment, insecurity, fear, and other primary care provider attachment issues.

A ‘survival mentally’ takes over to help protect you, defend you, hide away/avoid people and/or situations, or you try to be perfect at what you do or slip into roles like the ‘Peacemaker’.

In other words, we receive early woundedness and through this a False Self emerges to help us get by the best we can. This is no bad thing, of course; we all need survival strategies when the going gets tough. But you live on the edge, looking for threat and danger, insecure in relationships, needy, one of life’s worriers, constantly re-active to the circumstances you find yourself in.

We can summarise this in one sentence: The False Self is a collection of thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and stories that you have over-identified with.

But the False Self is just that – false. It is not the Real You. It is not ALL of who you are but a limited perception of your self.

So, how do you reveal your authenticity? How do you get back to being genuine and true to yourself and others?

Nietzsche’s rally cry: “Become who you are!”

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s cryptic phrase, “Become who you are,” can be interpreted as an invocation to sculpt our True Self out of the hard rock of our psyches. In other words, the self we would like to be is not found but created or revealed.

And one of the ways toward self-becoming, according to Nietzsche, is through the advocation of a ‘standard of values’. It is in living these values that we move ever closer toward our ideal self. He asks, ‘How do we feel when we take certain types of behaviours? Are we energised and enlivened? Or do we feel weak and deadened?’ In other words, do those behaviours align with our true values?

Nietzsche encourages us to, “Clarify what you love, on where your true power lies, and focus all your energies on shaping it into something beautiful, reaching upward and beyond where you currently reside.”

From his 1874 essay, Untimely Meditations, Nietzsche advises us to…

Set up these things that you have honoured before yourself, and, maybe, they will show you, in their being and their order, a law which is the fundamental law of your own self. Compare these objects, consider how…they form a ladder on which you have all the time been climbing to yourself: for your true being lies not deeply hidden within you, but an infinite height above you, or at least above that which you commonly take to be yourself.

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Hearing the ‘Still Small Voice’

If we’re not brave enough to live our values and climb Nietzsche’s ladder toward our true being, we will continue to operate from the ‘software’ of the False Self. This can last for years, indeed, even a whole lifetime until we hear or sense something emerging from deeper within (or, in Nietzsche’s case, from above, higher up the ladder).

The Still Small Voice of your soul begins to stir at some point. You start to listen more closely, as if hearing your name mentioned across the room. Your attention is awakened to a new language.

As you give it your attention, it is as if you are giving the baby/infant/child within yourself the attentive love that ‘not good enough mother’ wasn’t able or willing to give you all those years ago. You start meeting yourself.

Nurturing that stirring in your soul, you become a new parent to yourself, the kind of parent you always wanted but never had.

And as you cultivate this ‘relationship’ with your authentic self, this love becomes stronger and the voice of your True Self grows louder and louder.

Like a lily flower breaking through the water’s surface to finally bask in the sunlight, you can’t hold back any longer. You know that you must speak and act your truth, whatever the consequences.

The danger of authenticity

When we become real things will change – for better or worse. I know this from personal experience…

I once dated a girl for 12 years and knew pretty early on that the relationship wasn’t quite right for me. But I ignored my intuition and my true feelings. I stayed, hoping things would change in time.

It was only when I started training in hypnotherapy and doing some intense inner work that my True Self began to emerge from the shadows. Eventually I could ignore it no longer. I spoke my truth and ended the relationship. There were tears from us both. Many tears. Twelve years is a long time. But I knew I had to free myself – and free her – to live a more authentic existence.

This is the danger of reclaiming your True Self. Things inevitably change when you speak and act your truth. This is something you have to be prepared to face. People will get hurt. You will also suffer in some way (or, at least your ego/False Self will suffer when it suddenly realises it’s no longer in control of your life).

But perhaps the biggest danger is to deny your True Self. Reflect on this…

Your deathbed scene…And you’re lying there full of regret because you were never true to yourself. You never lived as your True Self. This is, indeed, one of the biggest regrets of the dying. (2)

That’s one of the reasons I was able to prise myself away after 12 years. I didn’t want that sort of death.

Typical signs of the True Self

So, what are the signs that indicate you’re being honest and real? What lets you know your True Self is in charge?

Let’s look at a list of typical qualities of the True Self…

• Inner calm – no matter the situation, you can remain calm enough to handle it
• Grounded and secure – in touch with your body and senses, connected to ‘mother earth’, stable and more secure in yourself
• Present – living life in the here and now, rather than time travelling through the past or into the future
• Confident – a belief in yourself that you can do it, even when stepping way out of your comfort zone
• Non-reactive – instead of ‘monkey mind’ reactions, you can pause and gather yourself before responding to situations
• Curious – about life and possibilities; the attitude of ‘life long learning’
• Open minded – connected to curiosity, an open, receptive attitude. To remain ‘teachable’ (one of the key aspects I look for when treating addiction)
• Humility – a ‘spiritual’ attitude of being humble – the ability to acknowledge oneself truthfully, warts and all (3)
• Authenticity – speaking and acting your truth, however difficult this might be
• Compassion – to be kind, caring, and nurturing to others – and yourself (4)

It is these typical qualities that indicate you’re operating from a more, shall we say, mature psychology, free from the wounding of early life. When traumas of the past are healed enough to allow us to move on, we are able to meet our emotional needs better (in the here and now) and use our inherent resources more skilfully.

Indeed, one of those resources could serve as a definition of the True Self, according to one of my therapy tutors…

Joe Griffin, of Human Givens College, says that each and everyone of us is, fundamentally, a ‘centre of awareness’. (5) We are not our thoughts, not our feelings, not our memories, not even our bodies, but an ‘Observing Self’ that can step back and witness all of that. Our True Self is that of the observer.

RELATED CONTENT: The Observing Self – how to step out of the trances that run your life

The Bridge to the Real You – 7 Steps from False Self to True Self

The journey from falsehood to authenticity is never easy. It may well require a leap of faith – a hero’s journey undertaking into what feels like alien territory to begin with but which eventually feels like coming home to yourself.

Here are 7 steps across the bridge to a more authentic way of being in the world…

Step 1 — Notice when you’ve been triggered

You’ll often notice the body tightening or tensing when the False Self takes over. There might be a constriction in the throat, almost as if the False Self won’t let you speak your truth. Your stomach muscles tighten, you hold yourself stiff, ready to fight, flight, freeze, or ‘fawn’. (6)

Step 2 — Name the emotion

“This is fear.” “This is shame.” “This is insecurity.” State it outload or silently to yourself. Maybe even write it down. This helps you acknowledge the emotion and objectify it, enabling you to psychologically step back and see it from a distance. (We can’t be the object we are observing; more on this in Step 5, below).

Step 3 — Identify the story

Ask yourself, “What is the ego trying to do here?” “What is my False Self trying to achieve?” Remember what I said about the Loyal Soldier (that part of you that steps in to save you in the face of danger?) Try to identify the back story behind the emotion. What is the False Self’s story and motivations?

Step 4 — Pause instead of reacting

Stillness weakens the False Self, so instead of ‘monkey mind – survival brain’ reactions, try to buy yourself time. Take yourself away from the situation if necessary, not in a reactive way but to simply be with yourself and reflect. It is in the stillness and silence that you can start to see through the False Self story.

Step 5 — Observe from awareness

Shift your attention away from the emotion to the observer of the emotion. Indeed, mastering your attention mechanism is key here. You either fall into the trap of False Self reactivity (which is a type of trance identity) or you widen your perception, stepping back and seeing a larger vista. Remember, you’re not the emotion or the story the False Self is telling you.

Step 6 — Ask: “Is this really true?”

Tapping into the work of Byron Katie (7), we need to gently question the False Self’s story by asking, “It it true?” and, “Can I absolutely know that it’s true?” Challenge the story, not as if fighting it, but from a place of curiosity and compassion. That old story has served you well. It’s got you to this point in your life. Honour it but question it.

Step 7 — Act and speak with authenticity

It’s when you question the story with curiosity and compassion that you start to see through the illusion. A space is then created within your psyche for another, different story to emerge. Indeed, Byron Katie also asks, “Who would you be without this thought (or story)?” In other words, who do you become when the False Self steps aside? How do you speak and act then? What new story and identity do you give birth to?

True Self vs False Self – summary

Working through these 7 steps takes time, practise, commitment, determination, discipline, and courage. It’s all too easy to stay with what we know, to be bounderied (yet again) by the limiting story of the False Self.

There’s a world out there waiting for the real you to show up. The great tapestry of life isn’t complete until you take ownership of your True Self.

Thus, in summary to this post I would say it’s not so much a case of True Self versus False Self, but more about how you can work with both sides of your psyche.

When you can unearth the reasons and motivations of the False Self identity (e.g. to protect you or feel loved) you have a powerful resource on your hands – but a resource that can be used differently now that you’re older. You’re not that little kid anymore with an ‘absent’ mother or father.

When you question the False Self’s story (with curiosity and compassion) you’re already beginning to use True Self qualities. Consistently add calmness, confidence, courage, groundedness, and humility and you begin to rewire your identity.

You become who you truly are.

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I’d love to read your thoughts on this piece so please leave a comment/question (after the notes section, below).

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Notes

(1) D. W. Winnicott, (1965) Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Selves, (Chapter 12 of The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment). Read more here

(2) Bronnie Ware, (2011) The Top Five Regrets of the Dying

(3) For more on humility check out the excellent article at Positive Psychology

(4) For more about self-compassion check out the ground breaking work of Kristin Neff

(5) Joe Griffin, co-founder of the Human Givens Institute, quoted from the CD Evolution and the Human Givens: Hope for the future

(6) The ‘fawn’ response is now a recognised reaction to fear and trauma; It is where we become compliant to others, the people-pleaser, the peace-maker, just to stay safe. Download this free PDF handout about the fawn response

(7) Byron Katie, (2002) Loving What Is: how four questions can change your life

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