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True Self and The Artist
Winnicott describes babies as ‘spontaneous’, meaning they don’t think about the way they act, they just do whatever they need to — which, if you’ve ever been around a baby, tends to be a lot of needing help and reassurance. Needing help and reassurance, Winnicott argues, is the essential stuff of our True Selves, which our good-enough mom does her best to make sense of and gratify. Nothing’s perfect, but as long as our parents are trying and are successful most of the time, that response strengthens our belief that if we cry out, then someone will hear us, understand us, and do their best to help us. This strengthens our trust that our most basic and honest needs and desires are okay — that we are relatable and our feelings are manageable. A person with this kind of reassurance grows up feeling confident enough to put their True Self out there in the real world, living openly, according to their heart.
But in some cases, children start out having spontaneous desires and needs, but their parent can’t respond sufficiently (maybe due to illness, or depression, or the demand of others’ needs)…In a case like this, the child will become what Winnicott calls compliant… This conformity to their environment is the child’s attempt to protect themselves from further inadequacy or disappointment — but it is a covering up of the original, true desire. This is the birth of the False Self.
