True Self, False Self, I and Me (Winicott and Mead), Kohlberg's Moral Stage

Disciplines > Psychoanalysis > Concepts > True Self, False Self
Description | Discussion | See also

Description
True self
There is true self that has a sense of integrity, of connected wholeness that harks to the early stage.
False self
When the person has to comply with external rules, such as being polite or otherwise following social
codes, then a false self is used. The false self constantly seeks to anticipate demands of others in order to
maintain the relationship.
In early development, the false self is split off as an adaptation to a mother or carer who reflects her own
defenses onto the infant rather than reflecting the infant's actual moods.
Healthy false self
When the false self is functional both for the person and for society then it is considered healthy. The
healthy false self feels that that it is still being true to the true self. It can be compliant but without feeling
that it has betrayed its true self.
When the situation becomes difficult, the true self can still override the true self and so acts as an effective
conscience or super-ego.
Unhealthy false self
A self that fits in but through a feeling of forced compliance rather than loving adaptation is unhealthy.
When the false self wins debates against the true self, the person finds that they are unable to be guided
by their true self and so has to adapt to the social situation rather than assert its self.

Discussion
The true and false selves were identified by Winnicott. An unhealthy and pathological false self never gains
independence from the mother, and so never gets to transition to independence.
These principles help explain how people seem at ease or are constantly in tension and so act in
dysfunctional ways. It also indicates how treatment is not about exposing the fragile true self, which most
of us naturally fear, but helping the individual move on, both letting go of the unhealthy portions of the
false self and building a healthy replacement.

See also
Winnicott, Values

'I' and the 'me'

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 'I' and the 'me' are terms central to the social philosophy of George Herbert Mead, one of the key influences on the
development of the branch of sociology called symbolic-interactionism. The terms refer to the psychology of the individual, where
in Mead's understanding, the "me" is the socialized aspect of the person, the "I"is the active aspect of the person.
One might usefully 'compare Mead's "I" and "me", respectively, with Sartre's "choice" and "the situation". But Mead himself
matched up the "me" with Freud's "censor", and the "I" with his "ego"; and this is psychologically apt'.[1]

Characteristics
The "Me" is what is learned in interaction with others and (more generally) with the environment: other people's attitudes, once
internalized in the self, constitute the Me.[2] This includes both knowledge about that environment (including society),
but also about who the person is: their sense of self. "What the individual is for himself is not something that he invented. It is
what his significant others have come to ...treat him as being."[3] This is because people learn to see who they are (man or
woman, old or young, etc.) by observing the responses of others themselves or their actions. If others respond to a person as (for
instance) a woman, the person develops a sense of herself indeed as a woman.
At the same time, 'the "Me" disciplines the "I" by holding it back from breaking the law of the community'. [4] It is thus very close to
the way in a man Freud's 'ego-censor, the conscience...arose from the critical influence of his parents (conveyed to him by the
medium of the voice), to whom were added, as time went on, those who trained and taught him and the innumerable and
indefinable host of all the other people in his environment - his fellow-men - and public opinion'. [5] It is 'the attitude of the other in
one's own organism, as controlling the thing that he is going to do'. [6]
By contrast, 'the "I" is the response of the individual to the attitude of the community'. [7] The "I" acts creatively, though within the
context of the me. Mead notes that "It is only after we have acted that we know what we have done...what we have
said."[7] People, he argues, are not automations. They do not blindly follow rules. They construct a response on the basis of what
they have learned, the "me". Mead highlighted accordingly those values that attach particularly to the "I" rather than to the me,
"...which cannot be calculated and which involve a reconstruction of the society, and so of the 'me' which belongs to that
society."[8] Taken together, the "I" and the "me" form the person or the self in Mead's social philosophy.

Fusion
Mead explored what he called 'the fusion of the "I" and the "me" in the attitudes of religion, patriotism, and team work', noting
what he called the "peculiar sense of exaltation" that belongs [9] to them. He also considered that 'the idea of the fusion of the "I"
and the "me" gives a very adequate explanation of this exaltation...in the aesthetic experience'. [10]
In everyday life, however, 'a complete fusion of the "I" and the "me" may not be a good thing...it is a dynamic sort of balance
between the "I" and the "me" that is required'.[11]

[edit]Conventionality
When there is a predominance of the "me" in the personality, 'we speak of a person as a conventional individual; his ideas are
exactly the same as those of his neighbours; he is hardly more than a "me" under the circumstances' [12] - "...the shallow, brittle,
conformist kind of personality..." that is "all persona, with its excessive concern for what people think."[13] The alternativeand in
many ways Mead's idealwas the person who has a definite personality, who replies to the organized attitude in a way that
makes a significant difference. With such a person, the I is the most important phase of the experience. [14]

[edit]Dissociation
Mead recognised that it is normal for an individual to have 'all sorts of selves answering to all sorts of different social reactions',
but also that it was possible for 'a tendency to break up the personality' to appear: 'Two separate "me's" and "I's", two different
selves, result...the phenomenon of dissociation of personality'.[15]

[edit]Literary

examples

Walt Whitman 'marks off the impulsive "I", the natural, existential aspect of the self, from critical sanction. It is the cultured self,
the "me", in Mead's terms, that needs re-mediation'.[16]

[edit]See

also

Conformist stage
Generalized other
Socialization
True self and false self

[edit]References

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.

^ Victorino Tejera, Semiotics from Pierce to Barthes (2001) p. 59

^ Paolo Inghilleri, From Subjective Experience to Cultural Change (1999) p. 26
^ Erving Goffman, Relations in Public (Penguin 1972) p. 327
^ Greg Marc Nielson, The Norms of Answerability (2002) p. 135
^ Sigmund Freud, On Metapsychology (PFL 11) p. 92 and p. 90
^ Charles W. Morris ed., George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self and Society, (Chicago 1967) p. 196
^ a b Mead, p. 196
^ Mead, p. 214
^ Mead, p. 273
^ Mead, p. 280
^ Tejera, p. 62
^ Mead, p. 200
^ Anthony Stevens, On Jung (London 1990) p. 43
^ Mead, p. 200
^ Mead, p. 143-4
^ Stephen John Mark, The Pragmatic Whitman (2002) p.144

The "I" and the "Me"

Mead tried to clarify his views of the social foundation of the self and hisconcomitant belief that "the self does not consist
simply in the bare organiza-tion of social attitudes," by introducing the distinction between the "I" andthe "me." Both "I"
and "me" necessarily relate to social experience. But the"I" is "the response of the organism to the attitudes of the others;
the "me" isthe organized set of attitudes of others which one assumes. The attitudes ofthe others constitute the organized
'me,' and then one reacts toward that asan 'I'." As a "me" the person is aware of himself as an object. He reacts orresponds
to himself in terms of the attitudes others have toward him. His self-appraisal is the result of what he assumes to be the
appraisal by others. The"me" is the self as conceived and apprehended in terms of the point of viewof significant others and
of the community at large. It reflects the laws andthe mores, the organized codes and expectations of the community. The
"I,"in contradistinction, is "the answer which the individual makes to the attitudewhich others take toward him when he
assumes an attitude toward them . . .it gives the sense of freedom, of initiative." What appears in consciousness isalways
the self as an object, as a "me," but the "me" is not conceivable withoutan "I" as a unique subject for which the "me" can be
an object. The "I" andthe "me" are not identical, for the "I" "is something that is never entirelycalculable . . . it is always
something different from what the situation itselfcalls for."
"We are," Mead writes, "individuals born into a certain nationality,located at a certain spot geographically, with such and
such family relations,and such and such political relations. All of these represent a certain situationwhich constitutes the
'me'; but this necessarily involves a continued action ofthe organism toward the 'me.' Men are born into social structures
they didnot create, they live in an institutional and social order they never made, andthey are constrained by the limitations
of languages, codes, customs. and laws.All of these enter into the "me" as constituent elements, yet the "I" always re-acts to
preformed situations in a unique manner, "just as every monad in theLeibnizian universe mirrors that universe from a
different point of view, andthus mirrors a different aspect or perspective of that universe." To Mead,mind is "the individual
importation of the social process," but, at the sametime, "the individual . . . is continually reacting back against . . .
society.''The self as a whole, as it appears in social experience, is a compound of thestabilized reflections of the generalized
other in the "me" and the incalculablespontaneity of the "I." This is why the self as a whole is an open self. "If itdid not
have these two phases there could not be conscious responsibility, andthere would be nothing novel in experience." Mead
valued personal auton-omy, but he saw it emerging from feedback rather than from attempts at in-sulation from others.
Human actors are inevitably enmeshed in a socialworld, but the mature self transforms this world even as it responds to it.
Mead was somewhat ambiguous in his definition of social acts. Sometimeshe makes it appear as if these acts necessarily
involve cooperation between theactors. Elsewhere he talks about social acts when referring to competitive andconflictful
interaction. At one point he says specifically: "I wish . . . to re-strict the social act to the class of acts which involve the
cooperation of morethan one individual." But in other places he speaks, for example, of fightsamong animals as social acts.
It would seem, on balance, that what he had inmind was not that social acts are restricted to cooperation but only that
socialaction is always based on "an object of common interest to all the individualsinvolved." In this formulation, conflict
and competition, as well as coopera-tive behavior, may equally be seen as social action as long as they all involvea mutual
orientation of actors to one another. It is only in this way that Mead'sinterpretation of the nature of social acts can be

articulated with his oftenrepeated insistence on the crucial functions of social conflicts. To Mead, justas to Simmel, conflict
and cooperation are correlative to each other and nosociety can exist without both.
A highly developed and organized human society is one in which theindividual members are interrelated in a multiplicity
of different intricate andcomplicated ways whereby they all share a number of common interests . . .and yet, on the other
hand, are more or less in conflict relative to numerousother interests which they possess only individually, or else share
with oneanother only in small and limited groups.
From Coser, 1977:338-339.
George Herbert Mead
First published Sun Apr 13, 2008; substantive revision Thu May 31, 2012
George Herbert Mead (18631931), American philosopher and social theorist, is often classed with William James, Charles
Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey as one of the most significant figures in classical American pragmatism. Dewey referred
to Mead as a seminal mind of the very first order (Dewey, 1932, xl). Yet by the middle of the twentieth-century, Mead's
prestige was greatest outside of professional philosophical circles. He is considered by many to be the father of the school
of Symbolic Interactionism in sociology and social psychology, although he did not use this nomenclature. Perhaps Mead's
principal influence in philosophical circles occurred as a result of his friendship with John Dewey. There is little question
that Mead and Dewey had an enduring influence on each other, with Mead contributing an original theory of the
development of the self through communication. This theory has in recent years played a central role in the work of Jrgen
Habermas. While Mead is best known for his work on the nature of the self and intersubjectivity, he also developed a
theory of action, and a metaphysics or philosophy of nature that emphasizes emergence and temporality, in which the past
and future are viewed through the lens of the present. Although the extent of Mead's reach is considerable, he never
published a monograph. His most famous work, Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, was
published after his death and is a compilation of student notes and selections from unpublished manuscripts.

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1. Life and Influences

2. Language and Mind
3. Roles, the Self, and the Generalized Other
4. The I and the Me
5. Sociality, Emergence, and The Philosophy of the Present
6. Concluding Comments on Determinism and Freedom
Bibliography
Primary Sources
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1. Life and Influences
George Herbert Mead was born on February 27, 1863, in South Hadley, Massachusetts. His father, Hiram Mead, a minister
in the Congregational Church, moved his family from Massachusetts to Ohio in 1869 in order to join the faculty of The
Oberlin Theological Seminary. At Oberlin he taught homiletics and held the chair in Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral
Theology. Mead would attend Oberlin College from 18791883, and matriculate at Harvard from 18871888. At Harvard
he studied with Josiah Royce, a philosopher deeply indebted to G.W.F. Hegel, who also left a lasting impression on Mead.
(Mead met William James at Harvard, although he did not study with him. Almost immediately after graduation, Mead
resided in William James's summer home tutoring his son Harry.) Mead's mother, Elizabeth Storrs Billings, was a devoutly
religious woman, who taught at Oberlin for two years after the death of her husband in 1881, and served as president of

Mount Holyoke College from 18901900. After his college years, Mead became a committed naturalist and non-believer,
but he had struggled for years with the religious convictions that he had inherited from his family and community. For a
period of time after college he even considered Christian Social Work as a career, but 1884 he explained in a letter to his
friend Henry Castle why this career path would be problematic.
I shall have to let persons understand that I have some belief in Christianity and my praying be interpreted as a belief in
God, whereas I have no doubt that now the most reasonable system of the universe can be formed to myself without a God.
But notwithstanding all this I cannot go out with the world and not work for men. The spirit of a minister is strong with me
and I come fairly by it (Shalin 1988, 920921).
Mead did indeed move away from his earlier religious roots, but the activist spirit remained with him. Mead marched in
support of women's suffrage, served as a treasurer for the Settlement House movement, immersed himself in civic matters
in Chicago, and generally supported progressive causes. Jane Addams was a close friend. In terms of his transformation
into a naturalist, no doubt Darwin played a significant role. As a matter of fact, one can understand much of Mead's work
as an attempt to synthesize Darwin, Hegel, Dewey's functionalist turn in psychology, and insights gleaned from James.
Mead taught with Dewey at the University of Michigan from 18911894, and when Dewey was made chair at the
University of Chicago in 1894, he requested that Mead receive an appointment. Mead spent the rest of his career at
Chicago. But before he began teaching at Michigan, Mead was directly exposed to major currents of European thought
when he studied in Germany from 18881891, taking a course from Wilhelm Dilthey and immersing himself in Wilhelm
Wundt's research.
2. Language and Mind
Dewey and Mead were not only very close friends, they shared similar intellectual trajectories. Both went through a period
in which Hegel was the most significant philosophical figure for them, and both democratized and de-essentialized
Hegelian ideas about the self and community. Nevertheless, neo-hegelian organic metaphors and notions of negation and
conflict, reinterpreted as the problematic situation, remain central to their positions. The teleological also remains
important in their thought, but it is reduced in scale from the world historical and localized in terms of anticipatory
experiences and goal oriented activities.
For Mead, the development of the self is intimately tied to the development of language. To demonstrate this connection,
Mead begins by articulating what he learned about the gesture from Wundt. Gestures are to be understood in terms of the
behavioral responses of animals to stimuli from other organisms. For example, a dog barks, and a second dog either barks
back or runs away. The meaning of the barking gesture is found in the response of the second organism to the first. But
dogs do not understand the meaning of their gestures. They simply respond, that is, they use symbols without what Mead
refers to as significance. For a gesture to have significance, it must call out in a second organism a response that is
functionally identical to the response that the first organism anticipates. In other words, for a gesture to be significant it
must mean the same thing to both organisms, and meaning involves the capacity to consciously anticipate how other
organisms will respond to symbols or gestures. How does this capacity arise? It does so through the vocal gesture.
A vocal gesture can be thought of as a word or phrase. When a vocal gesture is used the individual making the gesture
responds (implicitly) in the same manner as the individual hearing it. If you are about to walk across a busy street during
rush hour, I might shout out, Don't walk! As I shout, I hear my gesture the way in which you hear it, that is, I hear the
same words, and I might feel myself pulling back, stopping in my tracks because I hear these words. But, of course, I don't
hear them exactly as you do, because I am aware of directing them to you. According to Mead, Gestures become
significant symbols when they implicitly arouse in the individual making them the same responses which the explicitly
arouse, or are supposed to arouse, in other individuals (MSS, 47). He also tells us that, the critical importance of
language in the development of human experience lies in this fact that the stimulus is one that can react upon the speaking
individual as it reacts upon the other (MSS, 69).

As noted, Mead was indebted to Hegel's work, and the notion of reflexivity plays a fundamental role in Mead's theory of
mind. Vocal gestureswhich depend on sufficiently sophisticated nervous systems to process themallow individuals to
hear their own gestures in the way that others hear them. If I shout Boo at you, I might not only scare you, I might scare
myself. Or, to put this in other terms, vocal gestures allow one to speak to oneself when others are not present. I make
certain vocal gestures and anticipate how they would be responded to by others, even when they are not present. The
responses of others have been internalized and have become part of an accessible repertoire. (Mead would agree with
Ludwig Wittgenstein that there are no private languages. Language is social all the way down.) According to Mead,
through the use of vocal gestures one can turn experience back on itself through the loop of speaking and hearing at
relatively the same instant. And when one is part of a complex network of language users, Mead argues that this reflexivity,
the turning back of experience on itself, allows mind to develop.
Mentality on our approach simply comes in when the organism is able to point out meanings to others and to himself. This
is the point at which mind appears, or if you like, emerges. It is absurd to look at the mind simply from the standpoint of
the individual human organism; for, although it has its focus there, it is essentially a social phenomenon; even its biological
functions are primarily social (MSS, 132133).
It is by means of reflexivenessthe turning back of the experience of the individual upon himselfthat the whole social
process is thus brought into the experience of the individuals involved in it; it is by such means, which enable the
individual to take the attitude of the other toward himself, that the individual is able consciously to adjust himself to that
process, and to modify the resultant of that process in any given social act in terms of his adjustment to it. Reflexiveness,
then, is the essential condition, within the social process, for the development of mind (MSS, 134).
Mind is developed not only through the use of vocal gestures, but through the taking of roles, which will be addressed
below. Here it is worth noting that although we often employ our capacity for reflexivity to engage in reflection or
deliberation, both Dewey and Mead argue that habitual, non-deliberative, experience constitutes the most common way
that we engage the world. The habitual involves a host of background beliefs and assumptions that are not raised to the
level of (self) conscious reflection unless problems occur that warrant addressing. For Dewey, this background is described
as funded experience. For Mead, it is the world that this there and the biologic individual.
The immediate experience which is reality, and which is the final test of the reality of scientific hypotheses as well as the
test of the truth of all our ideas and suppositions, is the experience of what I have called the biologic individual.[This]
term lays emphasis on the living reality which may be distinguished from reflection. Actual experience did not take
place in this form but in the form of unsophisticated reality (MSS, 352353).
3. Roles, the Self, and the Generalized Other
One of the most noteworthy features of Mead's account of the significant symbol is that it assumes that anticipatory
experiences are fundamental to the development of language. We have the ability place ourselves in the positions of others
that is, to anticipate their responseswith regard to our linguistic gestures. This ability is also crucial for the
development of the self and self-consciousness. For Mead, as for Hegel, the self is fundamentally social and cognitive. It is
to be distinguished from the personality, which has non-cognitive dimensions. The self, then, is not identical to the
individual and is linked to self-consciousness. It begins to develop when individuals interact with others and play roles.
What are roles? They are constellations of behaviors that are responses to sets of behaviors of other human beings. The
notions of role-taking and role playing are familiar from sociological and social-psychological literature. For example, the
child plays at being a doctor by having another child play at being a patient. To play at being a doctor, however, requires
being able to anticipate what a patient might say, and vice versa. Role playing involves taking the attitudes or perspectives
of others. It is worth noting in this context that while Mead studied physiological psychology, his work on role-taking can
be viewed as combining features of the work of the Scottish sympathy theorists (which James appealed to
in The Principles of Psychology), with Hegel's dialectic of self and other. As we will discover shortly, perspective-taking is
associated not only with roles, but with far more complex behaviors.
For Mead, if we were simply to take the roles of others, we would never develop selves or self-consciousness. We would
have a nascent form of self-consciousness that parallels the sort of reflexive awareness that is required for the use of

significant symbols. A role-taking (self) consciousness of this sort makes possible what might be called a proto-self, but not
a self, because it doesn't have the complexity necessary to give rise to a self. How then does a self arise? Here Mead
introduces his well-known neologism, the generalized other. When children or adults take roles, they can be said to be
playing these roles in dyads. However, this sort of exchange is quite different from the more complex sets of behaviors that
are required to participate in games. In the latter, we are required to learn not only the responses of specific others, but
behaviors associated with every position on the field. These can be internalized, and when we succeed in doing so we come
to view our own behaviors from the perspective of the game as a whole, which is a system of organized actions.
The organized community or social group which gives to the individual his unity of self may be called the generalized
other. The attitude of the generalized other is the attitude of the whole community. Thus, for example, in the case of such a
social group as a ball team, the team is the generalized other in so far as it entersas an organized process or social
activityinto the experience of any one of the individual members of it (MSS, 154).
For Mead, although these communities can take different forms, they should be thought of as systems; for example, a
family can be thought of systemically and can therefore give rise to a generalized other and a self that corresponds to it.
Generalized others can also be found in
concrete social classes or subgroups, such as political parties, clubs, corporations, which are all actually functional social
units, in terms of which their individual members are directly related to one another. The others are abstract social classes
or subgroups, such as the class of debtors and the class of creditors, in terms of which their individual members are related
to one another only more or less indirectly (MSS, 157).
In his Principles of Psychology, a book Mead knew well, William James discusses various types of empirical selves,
namely, the material, the social, and the spiritual. In addressing the social self, James notes how it is possible to have
multiple selves.
Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and carry an image of him
in their mind. To wound any one of these his images is to wound him. But as the individuals who carry the images fall
naturally into classes, we may practically say that he has as many different social selves as there are distinct groups of
persons about whose opinion he cares. He generally shows a different side of himself to each of these different groups
(James 1890, 294).
From Mead's vantage point, James was on the right track. However, the notion of audience is left undeveloped in James, as
is the manner in which language is utilized in the genesis of the self and self-consciousness. For Mead, James's audiences
should be thought of in terms of systemically organized groups, such as we find in certain games, which give rise to
generalized others. Further, we need an account of how we come to view ourselves from the perspective of these groups
that goes beyond the concept of sympathetic attachments. Such an account involves reflexivity, which originates with the
vocal gesture and is essential to taking roles and the perspective of the generalized other. In addition, reflexivity helps
make possible the capacity to see ourselves from ever wider or more universal communities. Mead relates the latter
capacity to cosmopolitan political and cultural orientations. It's worth noting that for Mead a full account of the self should
address the phylogenetic as well as the ontogenetic.
4. The I and the Me
One of Mead's most significant contributions to social psychology is his distinction between the I and the Me. It's
worth emphasizing that while this distinction is utilized in sociological circles, it is grounded philosophically for Mead. His
target, in part, is no less than the idea of the transcendental ego, especially in its Kantian incarnation. It is also important to
note that the I and Me are functional distinctions for Mead, not metaphysical ones.
The self that arises in relationship to a specific generalized other is referred to as the Me. The Me is a cognitive object,
which is only known retrospectively, that is, on reflection. When we act in habitual ways we are not typically selfconscious. We are engaged in actions at a non-reflective level. However, when we take the perspective of the generalized

other, we are both watching and forming a self in relationship to the system of behaviors that constitute this generalized
other. So, for example, if I am playing second base, I may reflect on my position as a second baseman, but to do so I have
to be able to think of myself in relationship to the whole game, namely, the other actors and the rules of the game. We
might refer to this cognitive object as my (second baseman) baseball self or Me. Perhaps a better example might be to
think of the self in relationship to one's family of origin. In this situation, one views oneself from the perspective of the
various sets of behaviors that constitute the family system.
To return to the baseball example, one may have a self, a Me, that corresponds to a particular position that one plays,
which is nested within the game as an organized totality. This self, however, doesn't tell us how any particular play may be
made. When a ball is grounded to a second baseman, how he or she reacts is not predetermined. He reacts, and how he
reacts is always somewhat different from how he has reacted in the past. These reactions or actions of the individual,
whether in response to others or self-initiated, fall within the sphere of the I. Every response that the I makes is
somewhat novel. Its responses may differ only in small ways from previous responses, but they will never be absolutely the
same. No catch in a ball game is ever identical to a previous catch. Mead declares that, The I gives the sense of freedom,
of initiative. The situation is there for us to act in a self-conscious fashion. We are aware of ourselves, and of what the
situation is, but exactly how we will act never gets into experience until after the action takes place (MSS, 177178). The
I is a source of both spontaneity and creativity. For Mead, however, the I is not a noumenal ego. Nor is it a
substance. It is a way of designating a locus of activity.
The responses of the I are non-reflective. How the I reacts is known only on reflection, that is, after we retrospect.
If you ask, then, where directly in your own experience the I comes in, the answer is that it comes in as a historical
figure. It is what you were a second ago that is the I of the me. It is another me that has to take that rle. You cannot
get the immediate response of the I in the process (MSS, 174).
In other words, once the actions of the I have become objectified and known, by definition they have become a Me.
The status of the I is interesting in Mead. In trying to differentiate it from the empirical, knowable, Me, he states, The
I is the transcendental self of Kant, the soul that James conceived behind the scene holding on to the skirts of an idea to
give it an added increment of emphasis (MSC in SW, 141). However, this statement should not to be interpreted as
endorsing the notion of a transcendental ego. Mead is seeking to emphasize that the I is not available to us in our acts,
that is, it is only knowable in its objectified form as a Me. This point is clarified by a remark that directly follows the
statement just cited. The self-conscious, actual self in social intercourse is the objective me or me's with the process of
response continually going on and implying a fictitious I always out of sight of himself (MSC in SW, 141). A
transcendental ego is not fictitious. But for Mead, since we are dealing with a functional distinction here, it is quite
acceptable to refer to the I as fictitious in metaphysical sense.
Why, then, do we seem to experience what Mead refers to as a running current of awareness, that is, an ego that appears
to be aware of itself as it acts and thinks, if the I is not immediately aware of itself (SS in SW, 144)? William James
sought to explain this phenomenon in terms of proprioception and the relationship between parts of the stream of
consciousness. (James 1890, 296307; James 1904, 169183; James 1905, 184194). Mead developed a unique
explanation based on the relationship of the I to the Me. As we have seen, the I reacts and initiates action, but the
actions taken are comprehended, objectified, as a Me. However, the Me is not simply confined to the objectifications
of the immediate actions of the I. The Me carries with it internalized responses that serve as a commentary on the I's
actions. Mead states, The action with reference to the others calls out responses in the individual himselfthere is then
another me criticizing, approving, and suggesting, and consciously planning, i.e., the reflective self (SS in SW, 145). The
running current of awareness, then, is not due to the I being immediately aware of itself. It is due to the running
commentary of the Me on the actions of the I. The Me follows the I so closely in time that it appears as if the I
is the source of the running current of awareness.

Freud's super-ego could be conscious or unconscious. One might think of the Me as similar to the conscious super-ego in
the commentary that it provides, but one would have to be careful not to carry this analogy too far. For Mead, the Me
arises in relationship to systems of behaviors, generalized others, and, therefore, is by definition multiple, although the
behaviors of various Me's can overlap. Further, Freud's model assumes a determinism that is not inherent in the
relationship of the I to the Me. Not only does the I initiate novel responses, its new behaviors can become part of a
Me. In other words, Me's are not static. They are systems that often undergo transformation. This will become more
apparent in the next section when we discuss Mead's ideas regarding emergence. In this context it is enough to suggest the
following: when a ballplayer makes a catch in a manner that has never been made beforethat is, makes a play that is
significantly different from prior catchesthe new play may become part of the repertoire of the team's behaviors. In other
words, the play may alter the existing generalized other by modifying existing behavioral patterns. In so doing, it gives rise
to a modified or new self because the game as a whole has been changed. Once again, this may be easier to see in terms of
the transformations that take place in families when new reactions occur as children and adults interact over time. New
selves are generated as family systems are transformed.
5. Sociality, Emergence, and The Philosophy of the Present
We have seen that the I introduces novelty in actions and in the interactions between human beings. For Mead, novelty is
not a phenomenon that can be accounted for in terms of human ignorance, as it can for a determinist such as Spinoza. In
the Spinozistic framework, even though everything in nature is determined, as finite modes we must remain ignorant of the
totality of causes. In principle, however, an infinite Mind could predict every event. Mead, following in the footsteps of
Darwin, argues that novelty is in fact an aspect of the natural world, and that there are events that are not only
unpredictable due to ignorance, but are in principle impossible to predict. In the latter category, for example, we find
mutations that help to give rise to new species, as well as the creative responses of baseball players, musicians, composers,
dancers, scientists, etc.
In The Philosophy of the Presenta compilation based on the Carus Lectures delivered in late 1930 in BerkeleyMead
outlines his thoughts on nature and time. Mead did not have the opportunity to develop his ideas into a book. (He passed
away early in 1931.) In spite of the fact that these lectures were hurriedly written due to obligations that he had as chair of
the University of Chicago's philosophy department, they contain ideas that illuminate his earlier work and indicate the
direction of his thought. On the first page of the lectures we are told that reality exists in a present and that we do not live
in a Parmenidean cosmos (PP, 1). For a Parmenidean reality does not exist. Existence involves non-existence: it does take
place. The world is a world of events (PP, 1). Our world is one in which change is real and not merely a subjective,
perceptual, phenomenon.
It seems to me that the extreme mathematization of recent science in which the reality of motion is reduced to equations in
which change disappears in an identity, and in which space and time disappear in a four dimensional continuum of
indistinguishable events which is neither space nor time is a reflection of the treatment of time as passage without
becoming (PP, 19).
The universe doesn't just spin its wheels and offer motion without real novelty. Part of the impetus behind The Philosophy
of the Present was to argue against an interpretation of space-time, such as Hermann Minkowski's, which eliminates the
truly novel or the emergent. Emergence involves not only biological organisms, but matter and energy, for example, there
is a sense in which water can be spoken of as emerging from the combination of hydrogen and oxygen. [1] Nevertheless,
biological examples appear best suited to Mead's approach. It's worth noting at this juncture that Mead had always been
keenly interested in science and the scientific method. However, as a pragmatist, the test of a scientific hypothesis for him
is whether it can illuminate the world that is there. He certainly was never a positivist.
As mentioned, Mead is a systemic thinker who speaks of taking the perspectives of others and of generalized others. These
perspectives are not subjective for Mead. They are objective in the sense that they provide frames of reference and
shared patterns of behavior for members of communities. (This is not to say that every human community has an equally
viable account of the natural world. This is in part why we have science for Mead.) However, it is not only human

perspectives that are objective for Mead. While it is true that only human beings share perspectives in a manner that allows
them to be (self) conscious about the perspectives of others, there is an objective reality to non-human perspectives. How
can a non-human perspective be objective? In order to answer this question, a few general remarks about Mead's notion of
perspective are in order. First, it is important to note that perspectives are not primarily visual for Mead. They are ways
of speaking about how organisms act and interact in environments. In the words of David Miller,
According to Mead, every perspective is a consequence of an active, selecting organism, and no perspective can be built up
out of visual experiences alone or out of experiences of the so-called secondary qualities. A perspective arises out of a
relation of an active, selective, percipient event and its environment. It determines the order of things in the environment
that are selected, and it is in nature.We make distinctions among objects in our environment, finally, through, contact
(Miller 1973, 213).
Mead has been referred to as a tactile philosopher, as opposed to a visual one, because of the importance of contact
experience in his thought. Perspectives involve contact and interaction between organisms and their environments. For
example, a fish living in a certain pond can be thought of as inhabiting an ecosystem. The way in which it navigates the
pond, finds food to eat, captures its food, etc., can be spoken of as the fish's perspective on the pond, and it is objective,
that is, its interactions are not a matter of the subjective perceptions of the fish. Its interactions in its environment shape and
give form to its perspective, which is different from the snail's perspective, although it lives in the same waters. In other
words, organisms stratify environments in different ways as they seek to meet their needs (Miller 1973, 207217). The
pond, in fact, is not one system but many systems in the sense that its inhabitants engage in different, interlaced
interactions, and therefore have different objective perspectives. The fish, of course, does not comprehend its perspective
or localized environment as a system, but this doesn't make its perspective subjective. Human beings, given our capacity to
discuss systems in language, can describe the ecology of a pond (or better, the ecologies of a pond depending on what
organisms we are studying). We can describe, with varying degrees of accuracy, what it is like to be a fish living in a
particular pond, as opposed to a snail. Through study we learn about the perspectives of other creatures, although we
cannot share them as we can the perspectives of the language bearing members of our own species.
For Mead, as noted, systems are not static. This is especially evident in the biological world. New forms of life arise, and
some of them are due to the efforts of human beings, for example, the botanists who create hybrids. Mead argues that if a
new form of life emerges from another form, then there is a time when the new organism has not fully developed, and
therefore has not yet modified its environmental niche. In this situation the older order, the old environment, has not
disappeared but neither has the new one been born. Mead refers to this state of betwixt and between as sociality.
When the new form has established its citizenship the botanist can exhibit the mutual adjustments that have taken place.
The world has become a different world because of the advent, but to identify sociality with this result is to identify it with
system merely. It is rather the stage betwixt and between the old system and the new one that I am referring to. If
emergence is a feature of reality this phase of adjustment, which comes between the ordered universe before the emergent
has arisen and that after it has come to terms with the newcomer, must be a feature also of reality (PP, 47).
Sociality is a key idea for Mead and it has implications for his sociology and social psychology. If we think of the Me as
a system, then there are times when the I initiates new responses that may or may not be integrated into an existing
Me. But if they come to be integrated, then there is a time betwixt and between the old and new Me system. What
makes this all the more interesting is that at the level of human interactions we have a capacity for reflection. We can
become aware of changes that are taking place and even anticipate new Me's that may come into being. We can even set
up conditions to promote changes that we believe may transform us in certain ways. Or to put this in another light, new
problems are bound to arise in the world, and because of our capacity for sociality, we can get some purchase on the
courses of action available to us as we reflect on the novel problems confronting us. Of course, because the problems are
novel means that we do not have ready solutions. However, the capacity to at times stand betwixt and between old and
(possible) new orders, as we do between old and new social roles, provides us with some opportunity for anticipating
alternatives and integrating new responses. As a matter of fact, Mead links moral development with our capacity for

moving beyond old values, old selves, in order to integrate new values into our personalities when new situations call for
them.
To leave the field to the values represented by the old self is exactly what we term selfishness. The justification for the term
is found in the habitual character of conduct with reference to these values.Where, however, the problem is objectively
considered, although the conflict is a social one, it should not resolve itself into a struggle between selves, but into such
reconstruction of the situation that different and enlarged and more adequate personalities may emerge (SS in SW, 148)
(emphasis added).
It's worth noting here that Mead did not develop an ethics, at least not one that was systematically presented. But his
position bears a kinship to theorists of moral sentiment, if we understand the taking the perspectives of others as a more
sophisticated statement of sympathetic attachments. It is important to emphasize that for pragmatic reasons Mead does not
think that the idea of compassion is sufficient for grounding an ethics. He argues for a notion of obligation that is tied to
transforming social conditions that generate pain and suffering. [2]
Returning to Mead's notion of sociality, we can see that he is seeking to emphasize transitions and change between
systems. This emphasis on change has repercussions for his view of the present, which is not to be understood as a knifeedge present. In human experience, the present arises from a past and spreads into the future. In a manner reminiscent of
James's account of the stream of thought, Mead argues that the present entails duration (James 1890, 237283). It retains
the receding past and anticipates the imminent future. Yet because reality ultimately exists in the present, Mead argues that
the historical past, insofar as it is capable of being experienced, is transformed by novel events. History is not written on an
unchanging scroll. Novelty gives lie to this way of seeing the past. By virtue of its originality, the novel event can not be
explained or understood in terms of prior interpretations of the past. The past, which by definition can only exist in the
present, changes to conform to novel events.
It is idle, at least for the purposes of experience, to have recourse to a real past within which we are making constant
discoveries; for that past must be set over against a present within which the emergent appears, and the past, which must
then be looked at from the standpoint of the emergent, becomes a different past. The emergent when it appears is always
found to follow from the past, but before it appears it does not, by definition, follow from the past (PP, 2).
6. Concluding Comments on Determinism and Freedom
Mead's account of the Me and the generalized other has often led commentators to assume that he is a determinist. It is
certainly the case that if one were to emphasize Mead's concern with social systems and the social development of the self,
one might be led to conclude that Mead is a theorist of the processes of socialization. And the latter, nested as they are
within social systems, are beyond the control of individuals. However, when one considers the role of the I and novelty
in his thinking, it becomes more difficult to view him as a determinist. But his emphasis on novelty only seems to counter
determinism with spontaneity. This counter to determinism in itself doesn't supply a notion of autonomyself-governance
and self-determinationthat is often viewed as the essence of the modern Western notion of the subject. However, Mead
was a firm booster of the scientific method, which he viewed as an activity that was at its heart democratic. For him,
science is tied to the manner in which human beings have managed from pre-recorded times to solve problems and
transform their worlds. We have just learned to be more methodical about the ways in which we solve problems in modern
science. If one considers his discussions of science and problem solving behavior, which entail anticipatory experience, the
reflexivity of consciousness, the sharing of perspectives and their objective reality, and the creativity of the I, then one
begins to see how Mead thought that our biological endowments coupled with our social skills could assist us in shaping
our own futures, as well aid us in making moral decisions. He did not work out the details of this process, especially with
regard to moral autonomy and the I's role in it. [3] There is, however, little doubt that he thought autonomy possible, but
the condition for its possibility depends on the nature of the self's genesis and the type of society in which it develops.
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[ESP] Essays in Social Psychology, edited, with an Introduction, by Mary Jo Deegan, New Brunswick: Transaction
Publishers, 2001.

[PE] The Philosophy of Education, eds. Gert J.J. Biesta and Daniel Troehler, Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2011.
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Kohlberg's Moral Stage Theory

Explanations > Learning Theory > Kohlberg's Moral Stage Theory

Lawrence Kohlberg found that Piaget's stage theory was rather simplistic and discovered that individuals
mix their modes of thinking, particularly in moral development. He developed a six stage model, broken
down into three levels and with two stages at each level.

Level
Level 1

Name

Characteristics

Pre-conventional
Sticks to the rules.

Stage 1

Heteronomous morality

Stage 2

Individualism /
instrumentalism

Level 2

Conventional

Stage 3

Mutual interpersonal

Moral judgement as avoiding punishment.

Concrete individual interests. Is aware of
others' interests.
Moral judgement as what serves me.

Lives up to others' expectations in order to

be seen to be good and then has selfregard as being good.

Moral judgement as avoiding rejection by

others.
Fulfils social duties in order to keep the
social system going.
Stage 4

Social system and conscience

Level 3

Post-conventional

Moral judgement as avoiding criticism by

respected authority.

Upholds relative rules in the interest of

impartiality and welfare for all.
Stage 5

Social contract

Moral judgement as social respect.

Follows self-chosen ethical principles, even
when they conflict with the laws.

Stage 6

Universal ethical principles

Moral judgement as personal conscience.

So what?
When working with people's values and ethics, be aware of the stage that they are at. Work with their
values, not yours.
You may also consider displaying values that are similar to theirs, but beware of the traps of appearing
false and immoral that this can bring.

Self (psychanalyse)
Le terme self est la traduction anglaise du soi. Il est utilis en psychologie selon plusieurs acceptions, pas toutes compatibles.
En psychanalyse, il se rfre la notion de Donald Woods Winnicott qui a notamment distingu le "vrai self" du "faux":

Le vrai self dsigne l'image que le sujet se fait de lui mme et qui correspond effectivement ce qu'il est et peroit
travers une raction adapte.
Le faux self dsigne une instance qui s'est constitue pour s'adapter une situation plus ou moins anormale et
contraignante. L'image qui est alors en cause est dfensive et fonction de ractions inadaptes de l'environnement et est surtout
reprsentative d'un rle qu'on lui aurait impos.
Sommaire
[masquer]

1 Origine du vrai self et du faux self

2 Le vrai self
3 Le faux self
3.1 Dveloppement du faux self
3.2 Les cinq degrs d'organisation du faux self
3.3 Rle du potentiel intellectuel
3.4 Rle de l'environnement

3.5 Diffrents types de faux self

4 Les avis sur la distinction du vrai et du faux self
5 Notes

Origine du vrai self et du faux self[modifier]

Dans le dveloppement le plus courant (non pathologique), mesure que les capacits du trs jeune enfant progressent, la mre
initialement parfaite cesse de l'tre (pour celui-ci).
Des inadaptations adviennent, invitablement, mais qui sont en partie rattrapes, et progressivement compenses par les
capacits intellectuelles grandissantes de l'enfant.
L'enfant fait tout d'abord l'exprience illusoire de l'omnipotence. En effet, sa mre s'adapte parfaitement lui. Lorsque survient
une tension ou un besoin, la mre fournit au nourrisson de quoi le soulager.
Ce dernier a alors l'illusion d'avoir cr, prcisment au moment o il en avait besoin, ce qui allait le satisfaire. Il prend ainsi
confiance en une ralit extrieure dans laquelle se trouvent les moyens de rpondre ses besoins. Le monde vaut ainsi la
peine d'tre connu et la vie vaut la peine d'tre vcue puisque ( ce stade), ils rpondent ses besoins ordinaires. Ils participent
magiquement son bien-tre. C'est l'origine de la pense magique qui correspond un stade
archaque du dveloppement du nourrisson. Grossirement, il lui suffit de demander ce qu'il dsire pour l'obtenir.
On peut dire qu'aprs s'tre activement adapte afin d'assurer un environnement le plus parfait possible, la mre good
enough (suffisamment bonne) s'adapte activement assurer un environnement imparfait, mais pas trop, l'imperfection
progressant en fonction des capacits croissantes de l'enfant qui apprend inconsciemment que, dans le monde qui l'environne, il
existe quelque chose qui fait que la vie vaut le coup d'tre vcue. Et le bb fait l'exprience de la ralit : la vie vaut bien la
peine d'tre vcue, mais tout ne survient pas magiquement ds qu'on le dsire.
L'origine du faux self se situe pendant la priode o le bb ne diffrencie pas encore le moi et le non-moi , c'est--dire
que cette diffrence est la plupart du temps non intgre, et lorsqu'elle l'est, elle ne l'est jamais compltement. Il arrive alors
parfois que le bb esquisse un geste spontan (qui ...exprime une pulsion spontane1... , celui-ci manifeste qu'existe un vrai
self, potentiel. Selon la manire qu'a la mre de jouer son rle, elle favorisera l'tablissement du vrai self ou au contraire du faux
self.

Le vrai self[modifier]
Si la mre rpond ce qui se manifeste comme l'expression de l'omnipotence du nourrisson, chaque occasion, elle lui donne
une signification et participe l'tablissement du vrai self. On peut dire aussi, qu'ainsi elle permet son bb de faire
l'exprience de l'illusion de l'omnipotence. Cette exprience de l'illusion, qui n'est possible qu' la condition d'une adaptation
active de la mre, est le pralable l'exprience des phnomnes transitionnels, au sein desquels s'tablit la crativit.
Le vrai self est dfini comme : ...position thorique d'o proviennent le geste spontan et l'ide personnelle. Le geste spontan
est le vrai self en action. Seul le vrai self peut tre crateur et seul le vrai self peut tre ressenti comme rel 2. .
C'est celui-ci dont D.W. Winnicott se proccupe en sance, qu'il vise. Seul le vrai self est mme de faire l'exprience de
l'espace potentiel. C'est dans celui-ci qu'il est possible de jouer (playing), ce qui pour D.W. Winnicott correspond la sant et qui
se dveloppe jusqu' englober toute l'aire culturelle, toute activit cratrice.

Le faux self[modifier]

Dveloppement du faux self[modifier]

Si, au contraire, la mre est incapable de rpondre cette manifestation, elle substitue au geste spontan du bb le sien,
auquel ce dernier est alors contraint de se soumettre. Cette situation maintes fois rpte participe ce qu'un faux self se
dveloppe d'une manire prpondrante.
Il y a sduction du nourrisson qui en vient se soumettre et un faux self soumis ragit aux exigences de l'environnement
que le nourrisson semble accepter3.
L'enfant, au lieu de pouvoir faire l'exprience de l'action libre et spontane qui trouve un cho dans la ralit extrieure est
contraint la raction. L'environnement le dtermine. En grandissant, il s'adapte et peut ressembler la personne qui occupe
alors le premier plan.
On comprend que l'exprience des phnomnes transitionnels, puis de toute exprience crative, soient compromises. En effet,
ceux-ci s'originent d'un complexe d'activits [geste spontan - fragment de la ralit extrieure]. En s'adaptant, le nourrisson ne
peut alors pas faire l'exprience des phnomnes transitionnels, puisqu'il s'est constitu en s'adaptant son environnement. Ne
faisant pas, ou trop peu l'exprience illusoire de l'omnipotence, le bb ne pourra pas connatre l'aire intermdiaire, lieu de la
plus grande crativit.
Il convient de garder l'esprit que Le faux self a une fonction positive trs importante : dissimuler le vrai self , ce qu'il
fait en se soumettant aux exigences de l'environnement4 . En le dissimulant il est clair quil le protge dune certaine manire ce
vrai-self apparemment trop fragile. Le faux self a donc une fonction d'adaptation et de protection du vrai self. Ce qui compte c'est
le rapport entre les deux. Il ne s'agit pas de l'opposition normal / pathologique. Ce sont plutt le dsquilibre des rapports entre
les deux self qui peuvent induire et indiquer un tat pathologique. Donc, lorsqu'une scission trop importante pour tre rattrape
s'est instaure entre les deux self.

Les cinq degrs d'organisation du faux self[modifier]

D.W. Winnicott distingue cinq degrs d'organisation du faux self :
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

l'extrme, c'est le faux self que l'on prend pour la personne, le vrai self inapparent restant dissimul. Cependant, il
manque au faux self ...quelque chose d'essentiel. (Ibid., p. 121.). Socialement la personne est ressentie comme fausse.
Le faux self protge le vrai self qui reste virtuel. C'est ...l'exemple le plus clair d'une maladie clinique organise dans un
but positif : la prservation de l'individu en dpit des conditions anormales de l'environnement. (Ibid.).
Plus proche de la sant, le faux self prend en charge la recherche des conditions qui permettront au vrai self de
recouvrer son bien (Ibid.). Son bien: c..d. son identit propre.
Encore plus proche de la sant, le faux self ...s'tablit sur la base d'identifications... (Ibid.).
Chez une personne en bonne sant, le faux self est constitu de ce qui organise ...une attitude sociale polie, de
bonnes manires et une certaine rserve. (Ibid.). C'est cette politesse qui permet la vie en Socit.

Rle du potentiel intellectuel[modifier]

Dans le cas d'un faux self tabli chez une personne avec un potentiel intellectuel important, l'esprit tend devenir le
sige du faux self. On peut ainsi observer des russites scolaires brillantes qui sont l'uvre de faux selfs. La souffrance de
l'individu, pour tre difficile percevoir, n'en est pas moins relle. Il est possible mme qu'elle s'accroisse la mesure de la
russite acadmique et sociale, avec un sentiment de fausset apparente. Il arrive un moment, invitable, o
les tensions (entre le vrai et le faux) devenant trop fortes ces personnes rentrent alors, tt ou tard, dans
unprocessus d'autodestruction qui s'exprimera, de manire diverse, sur un mode mixte: somatique par des affections
psychosomatiques, auto-mutilations, etc... ou purement sur un mode psychiatrique.
Ce point, (la russite scolaire et/ ou sociale) que D.W. Winnicott rappelle plusieurs reprises est difficile comprendre puisque,
par ailleurs, il affirme qu'une caractristique du faux self est une capacit plus faible employer les symboles. Pourrait-il y avoir
des personnes avec un intellect brillant, russissant un parcours acadmique brillant, tout en ne pouvant que faiblement
employer des symboles et en ayant une vie culturelle pauvre ? Ou bien, peut-tre s'agit-il de plusieurs modalits d'organisations
possibles d'un faux self. Par ailleurs, une grande intelligence permettrait de compenser de beaucoup la faillite de l'environnement
et ainsi, mme dans un environnement assez peu convenable, d'assurer un dveloppement psychoaffectif relativement
satisfaisant. Une piste de rponse se trouve peut-tre dans La nature humaine o il crit :

 Le clinicien a affaire l'enfant dont l'intellect est m par l'angoisse et sursollicit, ce qui, l encore, est le rsultat d'un trouble
motionnel (menace de confusion), et dont le Q.I. lev chute lorsque - rsultat de la psychothrapie ou modification contrle et
russie de l'environnement - la peur du chaos qui tait imminente, recule5.

Rle de l'environnement[modifier]
Dans une confrence, il indique de plus que lorsque l'environnement n'est pas suffisamment adapt,
Le bb survit au moyen de l'esprit. La mre exploite le pouvoir du bb de penser des choses, de les corriger, et de les
comprendre. Si le bb possde un bon dispositif mental, cette pense devient un substitut pour les soins et l'adaptation de la
mre. Le bb se materne lui-mme au moyen de la comprhension, c'est--dire en comprenant trop. Il s'agit d'un cas
typique de Cogito, ergo dans mea potestate sum (je pense, donc je suis en possession de mon pouvoir). A l'extrme, l'esprit
et la pense ont permis au bb, qui maintenant grandit et suit le modle dveloppemental, de se passer de l'aspect le plus
important de soins maternels dont tous les bbs ont besoin, savoir la fiabilit et l'adaptation [de la mre] aux besoins
fondamentaux6.

Diffrents types de faux self[modifier]

Ainsi D. Winnicott envisage qu'une grande intelligence puisse rsulter de l'environnement. Il y aurait au moins deux types de faux
self, certains ne pouvant que faiblement employer des symboles et d'autres avec une grande intelligence, rsultat d'une
sursollicitation du cerveau afin de compenser les trop importants dfauts de l'environnement. Par suite, il y aurait au moins deux
types d'intelligence : saine ou bien pathologique.
Si une organisation de faux self se met en place trs tt dans la vie, il convient de garder l'esprit que sa relation d'avec le vrai
self est susceptible d'voluer, notamment en fonction de l'environnement de la personne considre et des soins adapts qu'elle
reoit ou non. Ainsi, le travail thrapeutique de D. Winnicott qui visait, en premier lieu, tablir un contact avec le vrai self de son
patient. Dans un autre cadre, celui d'un tablissement sanitaire, le psychiatre P. Charazac, s'appuyant sur les travaux de D.
Winnicott, montre que la vie en tablissement (dans son cas pour personnes ges) peut conduire au renforcement du faux self
des personnes accueillies. Ainsi, alors que leur tat de sant s'aggrave, ces personnes, du fait mme de leur bonne adaptation
(une des principales caractristiques d'un faux self), sont au contraire considres comme se portant bien (P. Charazac, Sur le
renforcement tardif du faux self chez certains vieillards , dans Psychanalyse l'universit, Paris, n 67, 1992). Quant D.
Winnicott : La crativit chez l'individu est dtruite par des facteurs de l'environnement intervenant tardivement dans la
croissance personnelle7.

Les avis sur la distinction du vrai et du faux self[modifier]

Les propositions de vrai self et de faux self de Winnicott ne sont pas acceptes sans rserves. Le premier obstacle, pour les
franais tout au moins, tiendrait la rfrence au self , au soi , qui est moins courant dans la thorie franaise. J.-B.
Pontalis explique que la difficult peut tre situe au niveau culturel lui-mme 8.
Pour Winnicott lui-mme, la diffrence entre moi et soi (self) n'tait pas assure, cependant il tenait cette distinction,
dclarant que l'utilisation du terme self concernait directement le fait de vivre.
Jean-Bertrand Pontalis et Maud Mannoni9 sont trs rservs quant la validit thorique de la distinction du vrai self et du faux
self tablie par D.W. Winnicott, mais ils reconnaissent la justesse et la ncessit d'un point de vue clinique.

Notes[modifier]
1.

D. Winnicott, Distorsion du moi en fonction du vrai et du faux self , dans Processus de maturation chez l'enfant, op. cit., p.
121.)

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Ibid., pp. 125-126.

Ibid., p. 123.
Ibid., p. 124.
D. Winnicott, La nature humaine, op. cit., p. 26.
Introductory Lecture for New Light on Children's Thinking confrence au Devon Center for Further Education), cit dans Winnicott,
Introduction son uvre, M. Davis & D. Wallbridge, op. cit., p. 96.

7.
8.
9.

dans Jeu et ralit, op. cit., p. 96.

J.-B. Pontalis, Naissance et reconnaissance du soi , dans Entre le rve et la douleur, op. cit.
M. Mannoni, La thorie comme fiction, op. cit., p. 63