• home > site overview > site map or directory > Q&A, Project-1 links, Solutions article, or prior page > here

The Web address of this article is http://sfhelp.org/01/false-self.htm 

        Clicking links below will open an informational pop-up or a new browser window, so turn please off your browser's popup blocker or allow popups from this nonprofit site.

        This is one of a series of Web pages on co-parent Project 1: partners...

• assess themselves and important others for symptoms of  false-self dominance and five related wounds (below), and...

• evolve and work a personal healing plan as needed.

        This vital work counters one of four or five hazards that combine to stress most U.S. families and cause most committed relationships to fail psychologically or legally. The work also helps prevent or break the pervasive [wounds + unawareness] cycle that underlies these hazards.

        This introduction describes the Web site's purpose and the best ways to use its resources. Each article is part of a mosaic of ideas, so the more you read, the more sense they'll all make. These articles augment, vs. replace, other qualified professional help. "Co-parents" means all family adults regularly nurturing kids and other dependents.

         Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this - what do you need?  

Premises

       These Project-1 articles propose that survivors of low childhood nurturance (i.e. most adults) develop two to six specific psychological "wounds." Living with them (usually) does not mean you or another are crazy, "mental," weird, sick, or bad. It means you adapted naturally to not getting some key childhood needs met to survive. It also means your caregivers were probably wounded survivors, doing the best they could being unaware of these psychological injuries:

          Being dominated by (having your personality controlled by) a false self is the master wound, because it promotes all five other conditions.

        In this non-profit Web site, survivors of too little childhood nurturance are called Grown Wounded Children, or GWCs. Typical troubled, divorcing, and stepfamily co-parents are GWCs in denial of significant wounds (above) and what they mean. Their wounds combine with three or four other hazards to promote picking the wrong people to commit to, for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time.

        This inexorably promotes a low-nurturance family environment and eventual psychological or legal divorce. That promotes false-self development and dominance in co-parents and their descendents. Without awareness and true (vs. pseudo) wound-recovery, the unseen ancestral cycle of [unawareness > wounding > low nurturance > wounding] continues and spreads.

        More premises:

Your personality is composed of a group of semi-independent parts or subselves who are quiet or active depending on local circumstances. They each have different talents, limitations, perceptions, beliefs, and goals; and interact like the members of an orchestra, sports team, or family.

The composition and dynamics of your team of subselves depends on how well your core psychological, spiritual, and physical needs got met in your first four to six years of life. Kids and adults from a low-nurturance childhood seem to automatically develop a protective false self  to survive, vs. thrive (grow).

Partners who are ruled by false selves often (a) pick each other repeatedly, (b) lack core relationship skills and knowledge, and (c) are highly prone to low-nurturance relationships and (re)divorce. This promotes their kids' automatically developing false selves and related psychological wounds too.

Any self-motivated person can intentionally learn the composition and dynamics of their inner family of subselves, and reorganize it over time (recover) to work more harmoniously and effectively.

"False self" means two or more subselves that activate from some life event, and "take over"  leadership from the part of our brain/body called (here) our true Self (capital "S"). When that happens, your thoughts, perceptions, and feelings are what those excited subselves feel, not what your Self perceives or feels.

        If you're currently controlled by a false self, your naturally-talented Self is disabled - i.e. s/he is blocked from making instinctively wise, wholistically-healthy decisions. The short-sighted, comfort-seeking subselves who have taken over (the false self) usually make less wise and healthy decisions, like rookies trying to run a professional team.

        Our personality seems to be comprised of four kinds of normal subselves:

• Regulars or Managers, led by our Self when other parts are calm and trust him or her;

• Vulnerables, (inner kids) who tend to be very young, emotional, unaware, and reactive (volatile);

• Guardians or Protectors, whose sole job is to soothe and protect scared, lonely, shamed, overwhelmed, sad, and guilty Vulnerable subselves; and (probably)...

• One or more Spiritual subselves - the "still small Voice within," which is often drowned out by the others except during meditation or praying.

        A typical false self will cause the composite feelings, beliefs, perceptions, and thoughts of one or more Vulnerable parts ("My shamed and terrified inner kids are acting out") plus any Guardian subselves  that are devoted to each of them ("My Critic, my Food-addict, my Perfectionist, and my Catastrophizer are all trying to control me now - Help!") Before personal wound-recovery, some or most Inner Kids and Protectors don't know the Self is available to lead; or they do know, but don't trust the Self's judgment and competence. That's often because against all logic, they're living in the (traumatic) past.

Doing effective inner-family therapy can re/grow missing awareness and trust over time, and harmonize all subselves to (usually) follow the Self's wise lead. As this happens, people increasingly describe local situations and/or their lives as:

        Say these words out loud slowly, and notice what you feel and think. Do they generally describe your life? Can you recall a time when you felt many of these things for minutes, hours, or days? Do you know someone who seems to feel many of these "most of the time," like your partner, a child, or an ex mate? Note that reality distortions and emotional numbness ("I don't know what I feel or need.") are common false-self wounds...

        After seven decades on Earth, my experience is that most adults would not describe their lives with words like these. Reflect on the past several weeks or months of your life. What words would best describe them? How about stressed, rushed, distracted, hassled, unfocused, anxious, guilty, confused, superficial, frustrated, angry, numb, depressed, apathetic, empty, insecure... The more of these that fit, the more likely that your thoughts, perceptions, and actions have often been controlled by your well-meaning false self\ - perhaps for most of your life.

        To help prepare and motivate you and important others to do co-parent Project 1 (inner-wound assessment and reduction), here's some perspective on "living from a false self." I write this after over a decade of doing inner-family therapy with scores of men and women trying to improve their lives and relationships by harmonizing their inner family of subselves. I also write from personal experience as a recovering Grown Wounded Child. Prior to breaking lifelong denials in 1986, my life was entirely controlled by my false self - and I was completely unaware of that and what it meant.

The Master Wound: Living From a "False-self"

        Women and men who survive a low-nurturance childhood and live from a protective false self often know no other way of life. To most of us, false-self dominance is normal. To imagine life feeling like the true-Self words above seems like science fiction, unattainable in real life. (Do you agree?)

        Living from a false self probably does not mean you have a "multiple personality." A common nervous reaction when "your inner family of subselves" is discussed or proposed is to associate it with the dramatic stories of "Sibyl," "The Three Faces of Eve," or "When Rabbit Howls." Social psychologists estimate that about 5% of our population are extremely dis-integrated people with what is now called "Dissociative Identity Disorder" (DID). Such people have very distinct symptoms. The great majority of us have moderately-split personalities, and fall far short of having DID.

        Can kids be controlled by a pseudo self? Absolutely. If a young child's main caregivers, role models, mentors, and companions are not consistently directed by their true Selves, then the child is probably governed by other protective subselves much or all the time. This is likely because the child's Self (capital "S") has not had much life experience to strengthen her or his wisdom. From this perspective, "growing up" really  means "gradually shifting your subselves' trust from adults' ruling subselves to your own true Self."

        To begin to assess whether you are often controlled by a tireless, protective false self, explore and reflect on these...

False-self Symptoms

        These symptoms are so widespread in America that they're accepted as normal. True-Self symptoms are uncommon. The pseudo-self symptoms below are typical and in random order. Note that if a false self controls you now, s/he will probably distort your self-evaluation of these clues. Are you feeling like your Self is guiding your personality (other subselves) now?

The more of the traits below that someone has, the more likely their Self (capital "S") is often disabled, and personal wound-recovery is merited. Option: use this as a checklist.

1)  Having frequent marked “mood swings,” and/or regularly taking "mood control" (e.g. anti-depression or anti-anxiety) medication.

2)  Feeling little, and/or acting childish or immature at times, or often.

3)  Having one or more active addictions to substances (including sugar and fat), relationships (codependence), activities (like work, gambling, spending, Web surfing, or working out), and/or mood states (like excitement, rage, or sexual arousal and release).

4)  Having periodic rage, manic, depression, panic, and/or crying “attacks” (emotional surges)

5)  Often acting impulsively, even if results are painful or hurtful to yourself and/or others.

6)  Often being “hard on myself" - over-demanding, overcritical, and discounting merited praise.

7)  Having unusual episodes of amnesia and/or “forgetfulness” (“absent-mindedness”); and/or having "little memory of my childhood."

8)  Having an unusual reliance on lists to "stay organized" and "be productive." Variation: being very uncomfortable without plans, schedules, rules, and "clear responsibilities."

9)  Chronically tense or “achey” shoulder, neck, jaw, back, and/or stomach muscles.

10)  Seldom feeling clear, grounded, serene, decisive, strong, centered, light, and energized.

        More common symptoms of false-self dominance...

11)  Mind-racing or "churning": having “many voices (thought streams) in my head all the time”; “arguing with myself”; frequent “inner chaos.” Variation: often experiencing "fuzzy thinking."

12)  Unusual risk-taking and/or self-neglect; frequently doing personally-unsafe or unhealthy things “anyway.” Related theme: compulsively choosing immediate gratification (like high-fat, high-sugar "comfort" foods) despite unhealthy results, and rationalizing this ("I deserve it,") and/or feeling significant guilt and anxiety.

13)  Having “a short attention span” - i.e. trouble getting and staying focused alone and/or with others

14)  Feeling chronically aimless and vague about your life, or constantly "driven" ("Type A")

15)  Often feeling anxious, distracted, and/or “spacey” (ungrounded, unfocused) without knowing why

16)  Having significant “obsessions” (e.g. uncontrollable thoughts, like “perfectionism”) and/or “compulsions” (uncontrollable actions)

17)  Often feeling uncomfortably ambivalent, "torn," and indecisive; changing your mind often; and/or frequently "second-guessing" (doubting) your decisions.

18)  Having significant nightmares and/or unusual or unpleasant fantasies.

19)  Habitually sending “double messages” to others (words and actions don’t match), and denying, defending, joking about, or minimizing this.

20)  Habitually breaking appointments, commitments, and/or promises, and then feeling remorseful, guilty, and “I don’t know why!” Variations: excessive procrastination and/or "lateness."

21)  Having significant "time lapse" episodes where you have no memory of recent events or periods of time. See 7) above. This can be a symptom of Dissociative Identity Disorder.

22)  Often feeling vaguely or clearly odd, confused, uneasy, irritable, intimidated, envious, and/or distracted in the prolonged presence of high-nurturance (confident, able) people, families, and/or groups.

23)  Many (most?) non-organic sexual dysfunctions - e.g. impotence, frigidity, low desire, sexual or pornographic addicition, promiscuity, excessive fantasizing, sexualizing all relationships, and/or compulsive masturbation.

24)  Being secretly or openly unable to identify or empathize with many of the traits of high-nurturance families.

25)  Feeling “irrational” or unusual pain, sadness, "discomfort," or anger with real or media-portrayed scenes of parent-child love, comforting, tenderness, bonding, and shared enjoyment and closeness. 

26)  Being situationally or chronically numb, emotionally - i.e. being unable to feel or identify any significant feelings. A variation is feeling some emotions but not certain others, like anger, lust, regret, sadness, or empathy. When present, this inhibits healthy grieving and intimacy. A coping response is to semi-consciously guess what others would feel, and pretend to feel them.

27)  I now believe most (all?) significant paranoias, hallucinations, and delusions are symptoms of living from a false self. So are most (or all?) "mood" (e.g. "bi-polar" manic depression) and "dissociative" disorders. "Schizophrenia" seems to have biological and environmental causes, probably promoted or triggered by being raise by caregivers ruled by false selves.

28)  A history of (a) social isolation, (b) approach-avoid relationships, and/or (c) codependence.

29)  A history of "unsuccessful" therapy, and/or a strong mistrust of and aversion to "therapy" or "counseling."

30)  Having significant symptoms of some or all of the five common false-self