Talk:True self and false self/Archive 1

Comment
Borrowed a bit from fr wiki Jacobisq (talk) 10:48, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Meshing with other pages
Awesome work on a difficult subject. If you can spare the time i think there needs to be relevant summaries of this subject in the related articles, not just see alsos to here. For example i have done one for Sam Vaknin: Sam_Vaknin. I think there needs to be a summary in Psychology of self and Heinz Kohut explaining how TS/FS relates to grandiose self for example and other material on those pages. Similar on Donald Winnicott, the unreferenced text Donald_Winnicott needs to be replaced with a summary from a Winnicott perspective derived from here (as per for example the french version http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Winnicott#Vrai_self.2C_faux_self). I notice that Religious views on the self is actually at least half about psychology not religion and concerns a different psychological perspective of TS/FS including the ideas of psychologists Albert Bandura and Carl Rogers.--Penbat (talk) 18:57, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

French version
I can see from the Google translation of the french version that there is still quite a lot of material that can go in here


 * http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_%28psychanalyse%29


 * http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_%28psychanalyse%29&ei=IngSTfXvL4W5hAfTlY23Dg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB0Q7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_%252528psychanalyse%252529%26num%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DOjX%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26prmd%3Divns

--Penbat (talk) 22:18, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

James F. Masterson
i noticed some relevant material in James F. Masterson--Penbat (talk) 12:53, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Vaknin

 * As part of what has been described as 'a personal mission by self-confessed narcissist and author Sam Vaknin to raise the profile of the condition', Vaknin has highlighted the role of the false self in narcissism. 'The False Self replaces the narcissist's True Self and is intended to shield him from hurt and narcissistic injury by self-imputing omnipotence....The narcissist pretends that his False Self is real and demands that others affirm this confabulation', meanwhile keeping his real imperfect true self under wraps. For Vaknin, 'the False Self is by far more important to the narcissist than his dilapidated, dysfunctional True Self'; and in contrast to the psychoanalysts he 'do[es] not believe in the ability to "resuscitate it [TS]" through therapy'. 

The Crompton book looks reliable, though I don't know what relevant content it includes. However the Vaknin sources are self-published and so shouldn't be used outside of his own article.  Will Beback   talk    02:34, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I've removed this section. He's definitely not one of the key thinkers, comparable to Kohut, Lowen, etc. Do we have any scholarly sources arguing that he is?  SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 13:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Vaknin's material is frequently cited by academics in the field of narcissism etc. see: )) I also happen to know that the following books all reference or cite Vaknin:
 * Lisa E. Scott, He's So Vain He Can't See You (2008) p. 8
 * Frank H. Columbus/Serge P. Shohow, Advances in Psychology Research, Vol 31 (2004) p. 5
 * Simon Crompton, All About Me: Loving a Narcissist (London 2007) p. 31
 * David Thomas Narcissism: Behind The Mask (2010) p. 28
 * Ronningstam, Elsa F. Identifying and Understanding the Narcissistic Personality (2005) (can't remember the page number)

Vaknin's views on narcissism are considered to be high profile enough to be featured in various articles in the quality press such as "Adrian Tempany When narcissism becomes pathological Financial Times September 4 2010" and in "Yvonne Roberts The monster in the mirror The Sunday Times September 16, 2007" where his opinions are included together with those of other luminaries. See also Megalomaniacs abound in politics/medicine/finance Business Day 2011/01/07 which refers to Vaknin as an "expert" and the first "expert" mentioned by name.

It defies any sort of common sense that there are countless academic books that cite or reference Vaknin yet it is considered inappropriate that Wikipedia can do so.--Penbat (talk) 13:17, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Two points, Penbat. First, if he really is regularly used by academics, then of course we can cite secondary sources to that effect. But that's a separate issue from having a whole section devoted to him, and one that didn't cite any such source material.


 * To help us discuss this, can you give some examples of scholarly sources in this field who cite his research? SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 13:36, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I found the Shohov reference you mentioned, above, p 5. But Shohow isn't citing Vaknin's work; he mentions him as an example, and links in the footnote (p. 26) to a bulletin board post. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 13:43, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

What a ridiculous idea. It is hardly likely that every paragraph of Vaknin's work has been cited via a third party. But even so i believe User:Jacobisq has cited Vaknin via "Simon Crompton, All About Me: Loving a Narcissist (London 2007)" several times on Wikipedia. If you looked properly at Megalomaniacs abound in politics/medicine/finance Business Day 2011/01/07 you will see that "Dr Jose Romero-Urcelay is a UK forensic psychiatrist and director of therapies at the unit for dangerous and severe personality disorders at Broadmoor Hospital.... confirms Vaknin’s theory that pathological narcissists are drawn to careers in finance, law and politics."

I have already cited academic links (such as Ronningstam). Most of the recent books i have bought on narcissism have Vaknin references. Vaknin also has the best selling book on the subject. --Penbat (talk) 15:58, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * What we need are citations, here on talk, to scholarly books or papers that reference Vaknin's research. Not material that refers to him as an example of the issues they're discussing, but that actually cites his work. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 16:08, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * If Crompton cites Vaknin, then there's no problem with using Crompton. But the fact that Vaknin is cited by Crompton does not make all of Vaknin's self-published writings reliable. The standard at WP:SPS is: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." So if Vaknin has had articles written by himself published in psychology journals or the like, and is regarded as an established expert, then he may be considered an expert in that topic and his self-published writings on that topic may be used. However, since Vaknin has no formal training in psychology it's hard to see him as an established expert.   Will Beback    talk    22:11, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that some evidence of Vaknin's reliability as a source would be good to see. I see another issue here, too, which is whether Vaknin belongs in a list with Masterson, Symington et al. He clearly does not, because Masterson, Symington et al. are recognized leading thinkers in contemporary psychoanalysis. Their work is taught in universities and published by psychoanalytic presses and journals. And they are all (or were) mental health professionals whose work is meant for an audience of mental health practitioners. Vaknin is a different kind of writer for a different audience, and his work is not recognized as part of the psychoanalytic literature on narcissism, or true and false self. He may be an expert, but he is not a recognized seminal thinker in contemporary psychoanalysis, so the section on him in this article seems misplaced. Grebe39 (talk) 23:36, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Difficult one. Article is about "TS & FS", not necessarily PSA views; and Vaknin is a voice on the subject who seems to me to raise interesting points. Simon Crompton calls him "one of the most influential voices in modern perceptions of narcissism" (2007, p. 27). Whether this is right or wrong, regrettable or not, shouldn't WP reflect that voice (at least to a proportionate extent?) Jacobisq (talk) 04:01, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Absolutely, what you say makes sense to me. But I think some kind of different organization would help. The current effect is a bit jarring, like seeing Nathaniel Philbrick's face added to Mount Rushmore. Philbrick's a historian, a very good one I think and so this is not to take anything away from him, but he's not an ex-president, let alone one of the four ex-presidents carved on that monument. How about we condense the list of other writers into two different sections, instead of giving each writer a section. The two sections could be: Psychoanalytic developments of True and False Self and could include very brief, say a sentence a piece references to not only Kohut, Symington, Masterson and Jung, but one or two others I could add who are widely recognized as leading thinkers and developers of those concepts *for a professional audience*. The other section could be, True and False Self in popular psychology, and could include brief (one-sentence or so) references to Vaknin along with other names, such as Alice Miller for one. What do you think?Grebe39 (talk) 16:34, 15 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Penbat, your links don't seem to lead to citations that would establish Vaknin as an expert or reliable source. Some of them just lead to lists of Vaknin's writing, others appear to lead to advertisements for popular books. If you have clearer citations they would help. And what is the best-selling book of his you're referring to? Grebe39 (talk) 23:49, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Vaknin (continued)
Why make things unnecessarily complicated. Vaknin is a respected figure for his views on narcissism. His views are quite often sought in the quality media together with other heavyweights. See for example:
 * Megalomaniacs abound in politics/medicine/finance - Business Day, January 7, 2011.
 * "The monster in the mirror", The Sunday Times, September 16, 2007
 * "When narcissism becomes pathological", Financial Times, September 4, 2010
 * Reality bites after the lights go out - CNN 2011

His best selling book is Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited. I have seen quite a few books on narcissism published over the last few years and i would say that more than half either cite Vaknin or list his book as recommended reading.--Penbat (talk) 17:05, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Be that as it may, those credentials do not qualify him as an expert according to Wikipedia's definition, and thus we may not use his self-published books or articles as sources. See WP:SPS for details.   Will Beback    talk    22:28, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Mary Farrell, Acts of Trust (2010) p. 191, refers to 'Sam Vaknik, an expert on this personality type'; Alma H. Bond, in her biography of Margaret Mahler also cites Vaknin as a source (p.ix and p. 47). If the psychology literature is citing Vaknin, why is he taboo for WP? Jacobisq (talk) 04:13, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is based on a handful of core policies, the two most relevant ones here being WP:Verifiability and WP:No original research. We depend on those to determine what type of content to include. Scholars can make subtle distinctions which we cannot make. Scholars might cite the 1933 Cincinnati Yellow Pages, court documents, unpublished correspondence, and personal interviews. We can't cite any of those. We can cite Mary Farrell or Alma Bonds when they cite Vaknik. We can even cite them when they cite unpublished correspondence. But we can't cite those sources directly. It has nothing to do with Vaknik personally. Excluding self-published sources is one of the ways that Wikipedia ensures a minimum quality level.   Will Beback    talk    05:23, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
 * This flies in the face of common sense. Excluding SPS may make sense in many cases but in this case the SPS is not relevant. His material is widely cited by others in the narcissism field and i cant imagine that they took much notice that he was SPS - they just judged it on its own merits, looking upon the SPS as incidental. It causes severe restrictions only referencing Vaknin through third party citations as obviously only small amounts of text will be accessible this way. Some authors have Vaknin's book as a whole listed as recommended reading. So why should WP act differently to what other published literature in the narcissism field does ? --Penbat (talk) 08:26, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not just about the field of narcissism (though it's appropriately narcissistic to think so!). This policy also applies to literary criticism, political science, physics, and (too rarely) cartoon characters, and to all of the millions of other articles on Wikipedia. I get the feeling you haven't actually read WP:V. Please do so. It's rather dense so it might be worth two or more readings to get it all. I've often wanted to advocate for the use of some well-respected self-published source, but I can't. It's a bright-line boundary on Wikipedia, one of the clearest we have.
 * But that doesn't mean we can't make extensive use of published writers on the topic who cite Vaknin. We can say (if supported by published sources) that he is an expert and that his book X is widely cited. And we can say (if sourced) that his basic thesis is "x, y, z". We can talk about him-- we just can't cite his self-published books and articles.    Will Beback    talk    08:41, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:IGNORE WP:COMMON--Penbat (talk) 09:04, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
 * If you want other input I suggest you take this to the Reliable sources/Noticeboard.   Will Beback    talk    20:05, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Quotation of Winnicott unclear
Several places in the article Winnicott's article from 1960 is quoted. However the reference list only shows am article from 1965. Has "true self and false self" first been defined in 1960 or 1965? Which is the earliest relevant reference? Maybe a specialist could clarify this:-) 84.238.62.139 (talk) 21:43, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The article in question dates from 1960 but was reprinted in his collection of 1965 (cf D.J. Cohen, Developmental Psychology p. 800) Jacobisq (talk) 10:35, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Karen Horney
Karen Horney could do with some coverage here. See Karen Horney where she refers to "real self", "ideal self" and self actualization. Not sure if she could go into true self and false self or her own exclusive section.--Penbat (talk) 18:17, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Done. Myname is not dave (talk/contribs) 18:49, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Sam Vaknin (again)
Moved from Lova Falk's talk page into the article's talk page.

Re:. I have to admit that I'm very sceptical with regard to Vaknin. He appears to be a shameless self-promoter. Not saying that Vaknin is entirely non-notable, but many of the sources in his article are primary sources. Heck, the article about him was even started from an IP address based in Macedonia, Vaknin's country of residence. Could have been someone else, but considering e.g. his output on youtube, I absolutely wouldn't put it past Vaknin to create an article about himself. So, consequently I can't help but wonder what makes his views notable in the question of True self and false self. Quoting him and describing his views on a par with some of the most-respected and -discussed pioneers of psychoanalysis seems grossly undue, to say the least. I don't think Vaknin merits so much as a passing mention in that article, or much anywhere. --89.0.225.163 (talk) 09:59, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, I'm approaching you since you appeared primarily concerned about the removal of sourced content. Half of the content is not specific to Vaknin and could probably be incorporated elsewhere. The bits about Vaknin are based on publications by Vaknin himself, so imho that could be axed without any loss to the article. --89.0.245.204 (talk) 23:53, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Good thinking and I have now removed the subsection on him. I moved this from my Talk page into the talk page of this article, in case other editors wonder about the deletion and/or would like to add their comments.  Lova Falk     talk   08:00, 5 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with the deletion. Vaknin does not have any academical qualification in psychology, and his works are self-published; including his opinions warrants the inclusion of any-one's opinion on narcissism.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   08:21, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I must have been sleeping. First now I notice the looong Vaknin section above. But, to my defence, please refer to the Talk page in the edit summary when deleting sourced content...  Lova Falk     talk   10:43, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * When I first removed the material, I considered it a bit of a nobrainer and thought my edit summary would suffice as an explanation. Not every removal, even of sourced content, needs to be discussed at length. That way we wouldn't get anywhere. That's why we're encouraged to be bold. (That, and I was admittedly too lazy to check the talk page or article history.) --85.197.2.91 (talk) 16:08, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Please, be bold! However, any bold edit can be reverted and discussed. Face-smile.svg  Lova Falk     talk   10:02, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure, although in this case the revert happened in error and the discussion immediately yielded a consensus. --89.0.245.209 (talk) 17:38, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't edit Wikipedia so I'm not changing anything, but want to say it was amusing to me to read all this about Sam Vaknin (who seems to me to have done a really good job of publicising the issues surrounding narcissism and all credit for that and his self-insight).... and to see that he is STILL in the article up there with the people whose work he read and writes about. Does he really belong in an article about the development of Humanity's understanding of this topic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.51.166.159 (talk) 16:00, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

It's certainly strange to see Vaknin, a layperson, quoted and assigned his own section along with eminent academic and clinical psychologists. It lowers the tone of the whole article. The fact that he is mentioned in the popular press and by real (ie qualified) psychologists who have heard of him does not mean that he has any academic standing at all. Feydun (talk) 03:05, 6 January 2018 (UTC)