The body in the “False self” organization

Abstract

Winnicott developed Freud's view that the Ego is first and foremost a body Ego. He not only points out the continuity of body–mind but also the fact that the psyche takes form in the imaginative elaboration of psychic functioning. He holds that the sense of existing is offered from the aliveness of the body tissues and the working of the body functions. According to Winnicott the fortunate outcome of these processes will lead to the consolidation of the True self. In cases of great disharmony between the True self and the Object we have the development of a split-off compliant Self, which corresponds to the False self and is equivalent to psychic life resigning from the animating role of the drives, in other words, the relationship with the body. The analysand was exposed during her childhood to excessive sensory stimulation, which inhibited the establishment of the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Her primal fantasies maintained a concrete, close to the body, character and were deprived of their tentative and intergrating functions. The unconscious wish and imminent threat of the analysand that her primal fantasies will break through and dominate the reality of her life emerged as a crucial factor in the course of this psychoanalysis. A False self was constructed based on the massive use of magical and obsessive thinking. The analysand's body was stripped of its genuine expression and its wishes. In the course of this analysis the body provided the stage, on which the psychic conflicts were played out and worked through.