True Self/False Self

Batya Yaniger

Ego is described by D. W. Winnicott as “that part of the growing human personality that
tends, under suitable conditions, to become integrated into a unit.” i The phenomenon of
False Self and its companion concept, True Self contribute to our understanding of what
those suitable conditions are. First, what is the self? Although the individual self cannot be
described only as id or ego, and the mystery of it cannot truly be grasped, we can sense that it
exists. The self is expressed quite simply by Winnicott as "'the person who is me'" ii. It seems,
then, that the False Self is the person I pretend is me. We will consider the early childhood
origin and development of the False Self as it is formed in relation to the other, what the
False Self personality looks like and what the healthy and unhealthy aspects of the False Self
are. Finally, we will observe how the True Self appears in the aliveness of creativity and in
the connection of personal relationships.

The concepts surrounding the maternal relationship are of necessity grounded in object
relations theory, which looks at how people develop in the medium of past and present
personal relationships. Fairbairn and Winnicott advanced object relations theory by giving a
new meaning to security. The ego seeks security not just for physical support but for the sake
of self-discovery and the full realization of its potential. “Security” in this formulation means
full selfhood, what Fairbairn terms the quest of reality “as a person in one’s own right.” In a
nurturing environment, one has a sense of personal significance and is capable of interacting
in relationship to others in a meaningful way. When the environment is not conducive to
meaningful relationship, a strong ego is characterized by an inner strength to stand up to
assault and an insistence on being true to one’s self. This security can only be achieved by
adequate ego growth. If the infant has a genuinely facilitating environment for long enough
when first starting out in life, he will be able to handle any attack against his ego later on in
[Link]

Aetiology

Individual personality formation takes shape within the context of the first personal
relationship, particularly at the earliest stage of the relationship. Ego growth happens, says
Winnicott, where there is a good enough parent-child [Link] What are the key factors
that determine a “good-enough” or “not good-enough” relationship?

It needs to be a caring relationship. Holding is an important element of maternal care. v The

mother holds the infant physically as an expression of love. Besides this, the holding phase
also includes everything pertaining to the infant’s needs. The mother pays attention to the
minute day-to-day changes and empathically senses as exactly as possible what the baby
needs. In the holding environment, the baby is also protected from the “threat of
annihilation.” What Winnicott means by this is that external factors sometimes impinge on
his being, forcing him to react, as opposed to just being himself. The main function of the
“holding environment” is to keep these outside impingements down to a minimum. This kind
of maternal care makes the baby feel secure.

From the description of the holding phase we can understand that the maternal role is
critically important. During the object-relations stage of development, the infant is for the

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most part unintegrated and merged with the mother. He is dependent upon the mother to
provide what Winnicott calls the “facilitating environment.” How does she provide this?

Periodically, an impulse causes the infant to make a spontaneous gesture, the source of which
is the True Self. The mother’s behavior and attitude play an important part in what develops
next as a result of this gesture. Two possible lines of development ensue – the response of the
good-enough mother or the not good-enough mother,vi and there are consequences for each.
The good-enough mother repeatedly enables the infant to experience omnipotence by
meeting his needs. In this way, the mother strengthens the infant’s weak ego and brings the
True Self to life. The not good-enough mother is repeatedly unable to implement the infant’s
omnipotence and sense the infant’s needs, and so she repeatedly fails to meet the infant
gesture. Instead a reverse process is set up. The infant must meet the mother’s gesture, to
which the infant must comply and adapt. This compliance on the part of the infant is the
earliest stage of the False Self.

The essential word in both possibilities is the way in which the mother is repeatedly
successful or unsuccessful in meeting the infant’s spontaneous gesture. The consequence of
the good-enough mother’s success is the infant’s belief in external reality which appears and
behaves as if by magic, and which acts in a way that does not clash with the infant's
omnipotence. This enables the infant to gradually abrogate his omnipotence. Gradually, he
can come to recognize and enjoy the illusory element of playing and imagining. These are the
first seeds of spontaneity and creativity. The baby’s experience is filled with reaching out and
finding what is needed or imagined. If the baby “calls” and doesn’t get an “answer,” the baby
will fall back into a compliant state. Since he cannot change anything, he figures he might as
well take whatever comes.

This process lays the foundation for symbol-formation. In between the infant and the object
is some thing, or some activity or sensation. To the extent that the sensation joins the infant
to the object or maternal part-object, symbol formation will take place. Symbol formation is
made possible when there is a felt resonance between the form that represents and the inner
experience that is being represented. Symbols can take many forms, such as language, music
or poetry, and they serve to both reveal and support the deepest part of our selves. In the case
of the not good-enough mother, the mother’s adaptation to the infant’s spontaneous impulses
is deficient, or she may even impede and not allow for the child’s creativity. vii Symbol-
formation in this case becomes blocked. The infant fails to develop the ability to invest
emotional energy into any external objects. He lives falsely and builds up a false set of
relationships. Through introjections, in which he takes on the characteristic of his mother,
brother or some other figure, he can even appear to be real, but it is not his true self.

Classification

Winnicott classifies the False Self along a continuum, from its least to most healthy
manifestations:viii

1. At one extreme, the True Self is hidden. The False Self sets up as real and it is this that
observers tend to think is the real person. In living relationships, work relationships, and
friendships, however, the False Self begins to fail. Situations arise in which the real person is
what is expected, but instead something essential is lacking.

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2. In less extreme situations the False Self defends the True Self. Abnormal environmental
conditions make the True Self stay underground. Here is an example of the positive value of
symptoms to the sick person.
3. More towards health, the False Self has as its main concern a search for conditions which
will enable the True Self to come into its own. If conditions cannot be found then a new
defense against exploitation of the True Self must be found. If no defense can be found, the
result is suicide – the destruction of the total self in avoidance of annihilation of the True
Self.
4. Still further towards health, the False Self is built on identifications of the False Self with
benign real life figures.
5. In health, the False Self is represented by the organization of social manners.

False Self Personality

The example Winnicott uses with which to illustrate the False Self is a middle-aged woman
who came to see him for analysis over the course of many years. She had a very successful
False Self but had the feeling all her life that she had not started to exist, and that she had
always been looking for a means of getting to her True Self. ix

Compliance is the dominant feature of the False Self personality. In place of creativity and
imagination is an undiscriminating compliant acceptance of received forms, and a poor
capacity for the use of symbols. The personality becomes built on the basis of reactions to
environmental impingement instead of autonomous reaching out. To this end, the individual
will feel the need to look for intrusions from external reality for the purpose of reacting to
them. The person’s life is characterized by extreme restlessness and difficulty concentrating.
In the extreme, the True Self is so well hidden that spontaneity is gone. In a less extreme
case, there will be a certain degree of split. The child may be able to act a special role, that of
the True Self as it would be if it had had existence. Such an infant lives an isolated existence,
and will be irritable and have feeding and other functional disturbances. Although these
problems may disappear, they will reappear in serious forms later on in life.

Schizoid personalities reflect what happens when a basic security of personality is lacking.
They see themselves as empty and worthless. Their life feels meaningless and lonely. They
crave closeness in relationships because they are hoping to find security, yet they are
incapable of accepting it or doing something to effectively build a meaningful relationship. x
There are actors who can be themselves most of the time, and be not themselves when they
act, and then there are those who can only act. They are at a loss when they are not being
applauded, as it is an experience in which they feel that their existence is not being
acknowledged.

Winnicott points out that a False Self personality can sometimes be obscured. “A particular
danger arises out of the not infrequent tie-up between the intellectual approach and the False
Self. When a False Self becomes organized in an individual who has a high intellectual
potential there is a very strong tendency for the mind to become the location of the False
Self, and in this case there develops a dissociation between intellectual activity and
psychosomatic existence."xi To the outside world, the person can be a paradigm of success,
while unaware that the person feels more “phony” the more successful he or she is. The
Talmudic Rabbis expressed their disdain for supposed scholars of this kind whose “inner self
is unlike the external self.” Rabban Gamliel refused to allow these students entry into the
study [Link]

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Healthy Function of False Self

With all of this, as Winnicott discovered in the course of providing therapy to the middle-
aged patient mentioned above, the false self is a necessary defense and serves the positive
function of hiding and protecting the True Self. xiii The False Self effectively hides the infant’s
inner reality against the exploitation of the True Self, which would result in its annihilation.
This isolation of the self protects the infant's inner reality, and later functions as a means of
preserving the privacy of the self.

The mechanism by which it hides the true self is through compliance with environmental
demands, offering the false self socially as an alternative self. There is then no risk of
exposure, since it is not "real." A person needs to have the capacity to be alone, and there are
aspects of true self which remain forever private. The private self is a healthy aspect of being,
as long as it is serving the protective function of hiding the true self and not presenting the
false as if it is real.

True Self
The central or true self is “the inherited potential which is experiencing a continuity of being,
and acquiring in its own way and at its own speed a personal psychic reality and a personal
body-scheme.”xiv The True Self appears as soon as there is any mental organization of the
individual at all, and it means little more than the summation of sensory-motor aliveness. It is
closely linked with the idea of the Primary Process, and is, at the beginning, essentially not
reactive to external stimuli, but primary, including the working of body-functions, including
the heart's action and breathing. As the infant develops, he is able to react to the stimulus that
he encounters without trauma because the stimulus in the environment has a counterpart in
his inner psyche. The infant can now retain the sense of omnipotence even when reacting to
external stimulus.

While the True Self belongs to the transitional stage, the concept of an individual inner
reality of objects applies to a later stage. Every new stage strengthens the sense of being real.
As the infant becomes more independent of the mother, the defensive function of hiding the
True Self is more accurately hiding the infant’s inner reality. A strong True Self enables him
to tolerate occasional life experiences that are not consonant with the needs of the True Self.
In addition, he can tolerate False Self experiences, in which he relates to the environment on
the basis of compliance, such as being taught to say, “please” and “thank you.’ Social skills
are at times a compromise. In the healthy individual, these social norms represent a
compliant aspect of self, but at the same time there is creativity and spontaneity, and an
ability to use symbols. Such an individual has the capacity to live the “cultural life,” which is
an intermediate area between dream and reality. As long as the True Self has been adopted
first, adaptation and compliance have a healthy aspect to them. And when environmental
demands are threatening enough, the True Self will override the compliant self and refuse to
adapt.

Creativity

Winnicott defines creativity as “the approach of the individual to external reality.” xv It is how
he relates to the world. The creative impulse is what makes life meaningful, and what makes
the individual feel that life is worth living, because essentially, it is what makes him feel

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alive. Compliance, as experienced by the false self personality, brings a sense of futility.
Nothing matters. The world is nothing more than a place in which one has to adapt and fit
into.

Only the True Self can be creative and only the True Self can feel real. Winnicott explains:
“Feeling real is more than existing; it is finding a way to exist as oneself, and to relate to
objects as oneself, and to have a self into which to retreat for relaxation.” xvi At the earliest
stage, the True Self emerges from the spontaneous gesture, which is the infant’s first creative
act, and the precursor of the creation of private meanings. This capacity for spontaneity
continues throughout life.

The spontaneous gesture, as the first creative act, is not a part of mirroring, but an
expression that belongs to the infant alone, independent of the mother. As such, the
spontaneous gesture is a paradigm for the child's independent and unique
apperception of the world. If the development of the true self is not impaired, the
infant has an assured sense of being real, of being psychically alive. Winnicott
believed that this capacity for creative apperception is essential for mental health: "It
is creative apperception more than anything else that makes the individual feel that
life is worth living." 36 xvii

While the gesture comprises the infant’s own spontaneous expression, it is at the same time
an interaction. The baby reaches out in need and discovers "out there" an object that matches
or resonates to his inner need. The gesture is the Self’s utterance which serves as a kind of
question from the Self to the Other; it searches for, and hopes to find, a confirming answer.

“Some process exists by which we can reach out from ourselves towards what is
outside ourselves, and that if we are lucky, or if we are blessed, this may lead us to
find a form answering to our own subjectivity. It is the idea of something “out there”
resonating or responding to a something “in here” which is the key issue.” xviii

Winnicott suggests that the experience of being hungry, imagining the breast, and then being
offered it allows the baby a measure of omnipotence in relation to the world. The experience
of reaching out and finding what is needed or imagined gives him confidence that he can
create objects, and this becomes the source of creativity. If the infant seeks and doesn’t find,
he settles back into a compliant state. The infant starts out depending on the mother for this
responsiveness. Throughout life, our physical and emotional survival continues to depend on
it. We continually ask from the world the basic question, "Is there anybody there?” and wait
for an answer.
In the use of the transitional object we can again see the baby's creativity in action, but now
as an attempt to cope with the mother's diminishing adaptiveness. The mother no longer
provides what the baby is searching for, and the baby responds by finding the softness and
warmth in the blanket instead. "The ego initiates object-relating. It is not so much the
satisfaction that the baby finds in the object as the experience of letting the baby find and
come to terms with it." xix "The baby is not so different from the poet who reaches out to the
natural world and finds forms that resonate with his experience. In each case, the external
form and the inner subjective state somehow recognize each other. The subject feels
answered, comforted, soothed, supported, and responded to, and the sense of Self feels
strengthened. It is as though, to misquote Descartes just a little, the subject might say:
'Someone/something out there is responding to me--therefore I am.'" xx Once we have
learned that forms exist “out there” that resonate and sing to our deepest feelings, we are

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involved in what Winnicott calls "creative commerce with the world". This is the path of
creative symbol-formation, which is quite different from the compliant accepting of received
forms xxi

The Self needs to evaluate what is of value for the True Self, and what is not. From the
moment that the individual is independent from the maternal facilitating environment, the
individual needs to develop “feelers” with which to explore the more expanded
environment. Which person or situation is dangerous, and in which can I flourish and
come to life? The Self knows what it needs but has to search it out in the real world and
maybe even create it if it cannot be found.

When the self finds vital nourishment that corresponds to its need, it could be said that the
Self has experienced a resonance of itself in the Other, or has felt recognized in some
important way by the Other. In this kind of experience, there has been an interaction with the
outside world which enhances the developing sense of Self. The self is not enhanced when
told that salvation lies in accepting the Truth of the Other. The Truth of the Other is always
more or less imposed and endangers creativity. This brings us back to Fairbairn’s assertion
mentioned earlier, that a strong ego is characterized by an inner strength to stand up to
assault and an insistence on being true to one’s self. Wright terms the one who imposes the
Truth of the Other the “in-doctrinator.” Instead of being an educator or facilitator, who is
“drawing something out,” the other is busy “shoving something in.” The True Self would, in
this situation, have to protect itself from the Truth of the Other.

Wright adds to Winnicott an emphasis on the specificity of the experience--the need for the
answering form to fit very exactly with the inner need. The baby intuitively knows and
recognizes what it needs in the object. At first, the infant recognizes the breast as the object
that he needs. Later, there is recognition of face and voice. Each specific experience creates a
specific pattern of what is familiar and what is strange. The search for a form that fits the
need has implications for the field of education. Even barring any intent to indoctrinate, the
educator can fail to evaluate the material being taught relative to the particular needs of the
student, and as a result fill students with meanings that fail to resonate, and leave them
malnourished. The ability of the educator to respond to the student’s need is deemed vital, as
expressed in the following passage:

“Learned educators, by focusing on the externals, distract attention from the ‘I’ and
add straw to the fire by giving the thirsty vinegar to drink. They stuff their minds and
hearts with all that is extraneous to them, so that the ‘I’ is gradually forgotten, and
since there is no ‘I,’ neither is there a “He,” and there is certainly no ‘you.’”xxii

Personal Relationships

To return to the subject of the baby finding resonance, Wright adds an additional component:
“The baby recognizes what it needs in the object--that much is clear. But the experience may
also include the sense of being recognized by that which one recognizes. Prototypically, the
breast (mother) recognizes the baby's need. What I have in mind is the following: when we
discover something 'out there' which seems to be just what we needed, the experience is
often, if not inevitably, tinged with the experience of being looked after. It is as though we
feel that someone has put this thing in our way, made sure we will stumble across it. This is
often quite explicitly stated by those of a religious bent, and it may be quite literally believed
and acted upon by those who are psychotic and paranoid (I am thinking of the person who

6
sees signs and messages in neutral events). So there has to be room in the feeling for a sense
of someone 'out there' who knows who we are and what we are about."xxiii

The mother acts as a mirror, and in this way provides the baby with the experience of being
seen in a way that makes him feel he exists. “The mother is looking at the baby and what she
looks like is related to what she sees there.” xxiv The mother thus gives the baby back to
himself. The therapist as well, acts as a mirror. The self, “if reflected back, but only if
reflected back, becomes part of the organized individual personality, and eventually this in
summation makes the individual to be, to be found; and eventually enables himself or herself
to postulate the existence of the self.” xxv

Wright asks how the baby knows that the mother recognizes him, since this is basic to every
personal relationship and crucial to the sense of identity, and sense of security and self-
awareness. To answer the question, he adds two more concepts. There is something about the
interactions between mother and baby that make it a very personal form of relatedness.
Brazelton and Cramer (The First Relationship, 1991) xxvi found that early dialogues become
structured in ways that are highly specific to each mother-infant couple. In entrainment, the
mother and baby are involved in a “dance” in which infant and mother initiate and respond to
one another in a kind of musical rhythm all their own. They anticipate each other’s responses
in long sequences, in which each partner “entrains” the behavior of the [Link]

Attunement, a concept of Daniel Stern (The Interpersonal World of the Infant, 1985) refers to
the social engagement that goes on between mother and infant in the period between 9 and 15
months. In attunement, the mother almost continuously tracks the baby’s affective state. It is
a precursor to empathy (but distinct from it because it is non-verbal). Attunement “involves
the mother giving a message to her baby, in some non-verbal form, which conveys to the
baby the mother's participation and sharing in what the baby is feeling at that moment. " xxviii

Stern cites an example of a nine month old boy banging his hand on a soft toy. He does this
with anger at first and then gradually with pleasure, exuberance and humor. He sets up a
steady rhythm, which his mother picks up by saying, "Kaaaa-bam! Kaaaa-bam!" as he lifts
his hand and then as he strikes it down. The mother's action echoes the pattern of the baby's
excitement. The mother is not copying the baby’s behavior, but “transposing some essential
quality of the baby's action into another form. The mother intuitively senses what it feels like
to be the baby, and offers back to the baby an external (sensory) representation of his feeling.
By her response, she restates his subjective [Link]

The important affects that she offers are not so much the categorical affects such as anger,
sadness, fear or disgust, but the momentary and continuously changing feeling states, which
Stern calls the vitality affects. As opposed to the categorical affects which come and go,
vitality affects make up the background of everything we do and are a function of the
person’s state of arousal and involvement in what he is doing. Often they are revealed by
seeing how we do what we do. Our approach to life can be with exuberance, interest,
reluctance, heaviness, apathy, tranquility and so forth. The mother intuitively keeps track of
these affects. This is what we commonly refer to as being in [Link]

The concept of attunement helps us to understand how the baby comes to apprehend his own
feeling states, or his own subjectivity. He apprehends his own feeling state as it is presented
to him by the mother in the form of her intuitive response. In this manner the baby forms an
image of himself. He becomes aware of himself and he also feels recognized and accepted.

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Thus, the baby knows that the mother recognizes him by the way they anticipate each other’s
response and by the way his own feelings are presented to him by the mother.

The transitional object can take the place of the mother only up to a point. The baby may be
reminded of the mother’s smell or feel, but the time-structured sequences, in which mother
and baby carry on their “dance” are absent. Who will “answer” the baby if the mother is not
there? If the transitional object is to carry on from where mother left off, there must be some
quality that the baby takes with him from the original interactive experience.

If we consider that the mother in her attunement has reflected to the baby a portrayal of his
own vital emotions and aliveness, then he will be able to relate to the world and find those
forms that will give him nourishment even when his mother is no longer there and
responding to him. Once we know what is within us, there will always be forms “out there”
that resonate and speak to our deepest feelings. In the experience of attunement the baby also
knows that he is not alone but there is someone different and other than himself sharing the
experience with him.

To sum up, Winnicott emphasized the importance of the facilitating maternal environment
for the evolvement of the True Self, meaning that, paradoxically, one needs the other in order
to become autonomous. The individual creates itself through the presence of another. He
learns that something “out there” in the world not only resonates with his inner need, but
recognizes him. His existence has been confirmed. In the process of his own vital emotions
being reflected back to him, he becomes aware of his own subjective state, thus building self-
awareness. The False Self is compliant, seeking to protect the True Self from being rejected
and exploited. There is a healthy and necessary element of this protection, except when the
False Self takes over and the True Self is not known even to oneself. The True Self is the
source of authenticity and self-awareness, together with psychic aliveness, creativity and
spontaneity.

The facilitating environment is important in another way. The facilitating environment meets
physiological needs and is “reliable in a way that implies the mother’s empathy.” xxxi With the
absence of empathy early on in life, the person is fragmented. He feels forever separate and
dead to the world. His existence in doubt, he forcefully tries to assert his self-importance on
others. Once the individual has experienced empathy, in which the self been recognized and
has found security in the presence of the other, he can give empathy. He can be a part of the
other, no longer because he is merged, but because the true self can simply be in relationship
to the other. Buber has expressed this in his discussion of humility in Hasidism:

Humility for Hasidism means a denial of self, but not a self-negation. Man is to
overcome the pride which grows out of his feeling of separateness from others and his
desire to compare himself with others. But man is at the same time not to forget that
he is the son of a king, that he is a part of the godly. Thus Hasidic humility is a putting
off of man's false self in order that he may affirm his true self--the self which finds its
meaning in being a part and only a part of the whole. xxxii

Citations

8
 i

Winnicott, W.D. The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment (Connecticut: International Universities
Press, 1996) p. 56.
ii
Wilce, Gillian The Person Who Is Me: Contemporary Perspectives on the True and False Self , ed. Val Richards (London:
Karnac Books, 1996) 2.
iii
ibid 832
iv
Guntrip, H. (1974). “Psychoanalytic Object Relations Theory: The Fairbairn-Guntrip Approach.” In: S. Arieti (ed.)
American Handbook of Psychiatry, vol 1. (New York: Basic, 1974) p. 836
v
Winnicott, W.D. The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment (Connecticut: International Universities
Press, 1996) p. 44
vi
ibid p. 145.
vii
ibid p. 146; see also Modell, Arnold H. The Private Self (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993) 56.
viii
Winnicott, W.D. The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment (Connecticut: International Universities
Press, 1996) p. 142.
ix
Winnicott, W.D. The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment (Connecticut: International Universities
Press, 1996) p. 142.
x
Guntrip, H. (1974). “Psychoanalytic Object Relations Theory: The Fairbairn-Guntrip Approach.” In: S. Arieti (ed.)
American Handbook of Psychiatry, vol 1. (New York: Basic, 1974) 838
xi
Winnicott, W.D. The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment (Connecticut: International Universities
Press, 1996) p. 144.
xii
Babylonian Talmud Berachot 28a
xiii
Wilce, Gillian "Chapter One Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self," The Person Who Is Me: Contemporary
Perspectives on the True and False Self, ed. Val Richards (London: Karnac Books, 1996) 10.
xiv
Winnicott, W.D. The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment (Connecticut: International Universities
Press, 1996) p. 46.
xv
Winnicott, W. D. Playing and Reality, (Penguin Books, London, 1971) p. 79
xvi
ibid p. 138
xvii
Modell, Arnold H. The Private Self (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993) 55.
xviii
Wright, Ken "Chapter Five Looking After the Self," The Person Who Is Me: Contemporary Perspectives on the True
and False Self, ed. Val Richards (London: Karnac Books, 1996) 72.
xix
Winnicott, W.D. The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment (Connecticut: International Universities
Press, 1996) p. 59.
xx
Wright, Ken "Chapter Five Looking After the Self," The Person Who Is Me: Contemporary Perspectives on the True and
False Self, ed. Val Richards (London: Karnac Books, 1996) 72. p.74.
xxi
ibid p. 80.
xxii
Kook, Rabbi Isaac Hacohen Orot Hakodesh, Vol. 3 (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1964) p. 140 par. 97. See also Orot
Hakodesh Vol 3 p. 221 par. 19
xxiii
Wright, Ken "Chapter Five Looking After the Self," The Person Who Is Me: Contemporary Perspectives on the True
and False Self, ed. Val Richards (London: Karnac Books, 1996) 75. Regarding Wright’s reference to those of a religious bent
believing someone “out there” is looking after us and knows what we are about, we find this stated prototypically by the verse, “G-d
is your shadow…” (Psalms 121:5)
xxiv
Winnicott, W. D. Playing and Reality, (Penguin Books, London, 1971) p. 131
xxv
ibid p. 75
xxvi
Wright, Ken "Chapter Five Looking After the Self," The Person Who Is Me: Contemporary Perspectives on the True
and False Self, ed. Val Richards (London: Karnac Books, 1996) 76.
xxvii
Brazelton and Cramer’s conclusions are based on extensive empirical infant research and direct observation of non-
instinctual behaviors in mother-infant interaction, additionally with an eye to Winnicott’s work on play
xxviii
Wright, Ken "Chapter Five Looking After the Self," The Person Who Is Me: Contemporary Perspectives on the True
and False Self, ed. Val Richards (London: Karnac Books, 1996) 77.
xxix
ibid p. 161
xxx
ibid p. 156
xxxi
Winnicott, W.D. The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment (Connecticut: International Universities Press,
1996) p. 48.
xxxii
Friedman, Maurice S. Martin Buber: the Life of Dialogue (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1955) 22.
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