Self-Object Misuse in the Production of the False Self, with Comments on Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs

Abstract

This essay presents the case of a depressed, suicidal, but smiling “False-Self” character seen over four and one-half years of twice-weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Countertransference reverie took the author to Victor Hugo’s phantastic novel, The Man Who Laughs , justly considered an arraignment of royalty, and the power, privilege, and capricious misuse of others. The analysis of that novel, about a child abused, narcissistically mortified, and surgically made to smile by order of a vengeful king is read as a case study on the production of False Self. Both “cases” demonstrate negatively tinged Self-esteem, impaired vitality and cohesion, and multiple discontinuities of the Self. Both follow Winnicott’s observation that coercion, mystification, and compliance across a malignant power differential are the breeding grounds of the False Self. The powerful—whether king or mother—misuse the powerless for purposes of mood regulation, producing a temporary lift in mood for the former and a more permanent character pathology in the latter.