The False Self as a Means of Disidentification

Abstract

This article is the first to explore and integrate, within one clinical case, the previously identified four functions of the False Self, contributing to the literature by postulating a fifth function: the individual's disidentification from mother. The formulation of this False-Self function evolved as a result of my attempt to understand and work with the more intractable aspects of my patient's False Self. also discuss how the exploration of this additional False-Self function led me to hypothesize that aggression plays a significant role in the development and maintenance of the False-Self organization. In this case, the five False-Self functions were not all evident at the beginning of the analysis, and there is considerable overlapping in terms of the timing of their emergence in the analysis. Broadly speaking, however, the first two False-Self functions, protecting the patient's True Self from mother's impingements and neglect, and maintaining a connection with mother, were more prominent during the first half of the analysis. Awareness of the more intractable aspects of this woman's False-Self functions, protecting mother from her own destructiveness, warding off anxiety regarding oedipal issues, and creating a means of disidentification from her mother, emerged during the second half of the analysis. When Sharon entered treatment, she was a forty-four-year-old nurse, who was married and had two adolescent sons, adopted by her and her husband approximately six months after each birth. Severe depression and suicidality had plagued her since suffering a series of recent losses: the deaths of her mother, father, stepmother, and best friend to cancer, as well as her personal illness, which resulted in a mastectomy and hysterectomy. She initially stated, I feel like been taking money out of the bank all my life, none's ever been put back in by me or anybody else, and now discovered I'm bankrupt. She was the primary caretaker throughout her mother's lengthy illness, and her mother's death precipitated a crisis in which Sharon realized, I've tried as hard as could my whole life to be good, and now realize there's no reward. Following her mother's death, she became paralyzed with intense feelings of hopelessness, meaninglessness, and emotional depletion. Although potentially attractive, Sharon was seriously overweight, having gained sixty pounds during this crisis period, and