Two Faces of Selflessness

Abstract

Selflessness can be seen as a developmental deficit resulting from a flaw in the early mirroring experience in childhood. It is reflected in the physical appearance of vacuity, a drab lack of vitality; it is experienced as not feeling, a lack of object constancy, a not knowing who one is or what one wants. Two case studies are presented: one of Lorretta, who, because of emotionally and physically absent parents, has no sense of entitlement or of self. She can't image what she looks like and is completely puzzled as to how people think or manage their lives. The second case is of Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, poet, social critic, and hermit. Greatly admired by his parents, he felt from earliest childhood that he was special, with a special destiny awaiting him. His life of silence and poverty presents a special kind of selflessness: a loss of self that is freely chosen in order to more deeply experience himself and God. Healthy and unhealthy understandings of Christianity are examined as aspects of selflessness.