ABSTRACT
In Lover’s Infiniteness, Ethel Person states “passionate love tends to overcome the pain of separation, separateness and the felt inadequacies of the solitary self, through merger with the other”. The true feelings of authenticity and genuineness are buried under the gestures, behaviour, and defences of the false self. Donald Winnicott, the British paediatrician and psychoanalyst, introduced the concept of the “false self”. The infant develops a false self that reacts in compliance to the mother’s demands. The true self is hidden and suppressed and cannot be given spontaneous expression because of the hostile environment. The true feelings of authenticity and genuineness are buried under the gestures, behaviour, and defences of the false self. Edward Tronick proposes in his article, “Dyadically Expanded States of Consciousness and the Process of Therapeutic Change”, that the mutual regulation of affect that occurs between infant and mother leads to an expanded state of consciousness.
