ABSTRACT
There are three ways in which we can examine the self in action, and these will be taken in turn although they all operate together and are simply different ways of looking at the whole.
The first aspect is the essential nature of the self, and it is here that the distinction between true self and false self operates. Being true to oneself is a possibility that is generally accepted, although it is difficult to define precisely what is meant by the phrase, while at the same time knowing well in one’s heart what it means (such is the reality of subjectivity). It can be said that it is being true to one’s essential being, to authentic inner directedness, and it is implicit in the theory of the self that the neonate is born with certain potentials that are part of its biological heritage, one of which is the emergence of a sense of selfhood. This sense of selfhood carries its own emerging directedness and it is this that determines authenticity. It is to this inner directedness that one can be true or false.
