Understanding the old orphan: the false self as lacked life

Abstract

This article discusses Winnicott's ideas of true and false self in the Brazilian scenario. The objective is to present how the structuring of these types of selves related to a poetry called Old Orphan is composed, used as an illustration to discuss the feeling of someone constituted in a false self structure in a context of vulnerability, whose clinical implications of this issue are discussed. It is concluded that the process of rescuing the true self is laborious, but possible, if the therapist is engaged in this project with his patient, available to communicate with him in an existencial dimension, however there will always be the limit of this clinical work in terms of public health in Brazil.