ABSTRACT
This chapter describes work with an analytic patient presenting with severe anxiety who began to recognize that what had felt like true belonging with her family and friends was in fact false belonging based on the development of a false self. The pain of this knowledge was initially unbearable, leading to anxiety, confusion, and inability to think. It also led to self-blame regarding the development of anxiety, as she believed that “nothing bad happened.” Over time, reflection became possible, and the patient began to recognize that the care she had received had at times been misattuned to her unique needs and subjectivity. She began to make changes in her friendships and family relationships so that they might feel less false. She also began to try out aspects of true belonging in the therapeutic relationship, including sharing of her true self and actual emotions and experience, growing in her capacity for mutual recognition, risking whether she and I could survive each other’s destructiveness, and attempting to repair relationship ruptures. My attempting to meet the patient’s needs for mirroring, twinship, and healthy idealizing seems to have been a prerequisite for the development of true belonging.
