True self and false self are concepts introduced into psychoanalysis in 1960 by D. W. Winnicott. Winnicott used “True Self” to describe a sense of self based on spontaneous authentic experience, and a feeling of being alive, having a “real self”. “False Self” by contrast Winnicott saw as a defensive facade — one which in extreme cases could leave its holders lacking spontaneity and feeling dead and empty, behind a mere appearance of being real.
