sense, there is a baby self within each of us that fears for its life. This is the starting point of personality development. The baby self, having no sense of time, lives on as if it were living in the first and most vulnerable days of life.
I hope you find this metaphor as helpful as I do. I think it is a good alternative to the old metaphor of the psyche being like a wild horse (the id) that needs to be tamed and bridled (the super-ego) by a strong rider (the ego). I can relate better to the contemporary depiction of the psyche being more like an internal family in which internal parents work to help comfort, feed, discipline, and raise an internal baby, because it feels so much closer to my experience. I know I have a baby part of my personality that can get cranky, confused, irrational, and impulsive and needs the help of my more grown-up self. I also know I have a baby part that is curious, playful, and creative, and wants to learn more about this fascinating world of ours and wants to become more capable of handling it. So many of the psychological forces of life come from this baby part of the personality. I have found that getting to know and having a good relationship with her is key to being well and living well.
But if you find it hard to picture yourself having an inner world that is populated with internal babies of all ages, as well as internal parents trying to have relationships with them, try to start thinking about it in another way. Picture the psyche as a tree trunk. All the layers of the self, through all the times and seasons of our lives, are preserved inside—alive—like rings in the trunk of a tree. The core of that tree trunk holds a lot of power, both in the beginning and throughout our lives. Being the oldest part of self, it also has a lot of influence because we have been relying on it for so long.
The core of the tree trunk is the baby part of the self, the center of the personality. I like to call it the baby-core of the personality. Put simply, we are often unknowingly responding more to the baby-core’s needs and demands than to the needs and demands of the outer layers, or “adult” part of our personalities.
So, if you can allow yourself to engage with this vivid metaphor about the baby-core of the personality, you might ask, “What is such an infant to do if she wants to survive?” As you can guess from what I’ve been sharing so far, one approach is that she can give in to the death instinct and try to flee from danger. That is, she can use the approach of avoidance. Kleinian analysts call it “getting unborn” or “becoming an unborn baby.” You can try to stay in the womb (metaphorically speaking) forever. Avoid risk at all costs, underachieve, hide out. This approach is something that we are all prone to using, at least from time to time, and I see it more and more in young people today. I call it “failure to launch,” borrowing the term from a romantic comedy. These are the twenty-eight-year-olds still living with overprotective moms and dads, sheltered from the dangers of life and falsely convinced that they can have all of the goodies in life without getting born into the world and growing up.
The problem with the approach of avoidance is expressed in the simple truth of the adage that if you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward. To further develop the gym analogy, we all know that muscle, if not exercised, will atrophy. If you sit on the couch long enough (for example, playing video games or surfing the Internet), you’re going to have some problems—with your body and your mind. This is the place where a vicious circle can get set in motion. Our confidence deteriorates the more we avoid facing life’s difficulties. The less we face life, the less capable we feel. And the less capable we feel, the less we try. We can’t get up off the couch. If we’re not moving forward, we’re moving backward.
While the couch potato analogy is a good one to understand the cost of avoidance, it doesn’t really capture the severity of the problems that tend to arise. I try to highlight this with my patients, as vividly as possible, by describing avoidance as leading to the Mold Effect. They usually cringe when they hear it described in this way—as they should. Living things, left alone in the darkness, tend to grow bad stuff. If you are so afraid of the dangerous world out there that you hide from it, you will be left alone with your fears—and fears, like mold, multiply when unattended. The only real way to diminish your fears is to face them.
The other popular approach used to cope with fears of dying in the face of life’s dangers is denial. We can pretend that we are not afraid at all. Melanie Klein put a finer point on this approach by calling it manic denial. The manic part of manic denial is an illusion that we can cleverly conjure about ourselves (unconsciously, of course). In our minds, we can puff ourselves up, imagining that we are as invulnerable, invincible, and masterful as Superman himself. You can see the magic in this way of thinking, as needs, fears, and limitations disappear in the blink of an eye. Manic denial is such a common approach to coping with life that I am going to devote a whole chapter to it, but for now, let me give you a preview of coming attractions.
In our culture, we find a well-known and accessible depiction of the use of manic denial in the story of Peter Pan. The psychology of the story is so classic that psychologists have even coined a term to describe it: the Peter Pan Syndrome. It is the story of a little boy who never grew up because he didn’t want to. Instead, he created an imaginary world run by children without any parents. He tried to deny his need for parents by living out the fantasy that he could have all of the benefits of being a grown-up without the hard work that growing up involves.
I offer the story of Peter Pan as an example of how we often use manic denial to cope with the anxiety of being babies: We masquerade as grown-ups. The details of the story say it all. First, Peter denies his smallness—he is arrogant, boastful, grandiose, and as full of himself as any little egomaniac could be. Then he denies his need for his parents—as one version of the story goes, when Peter was an infant, he abandoned his parents for the crime of having another baby. If that’s not enough, he denies reality—simply by thinking “happy, wonderful thoughts,” he can fly! And, above all, he denies his fear of dying—he is always putting himself in harm’s way, appearing fearless and cocky, even to the point of saying, “To die would be an awfully big adventure!”
Peter Pan is an archetype, a kind of character who speaks to us about ourselves. He does not want to face his vulnerability, his need, and even his desire to grow up, so he pretends he can rise above it all. He lives out the fantasy that Neverland is so wonderful that he could not imagine ever leaving.
Despite the exciting tone of J. M. Barrie’s incredible tale, beneath the surface there are rumblings of a more vulnerable, tender reality that cannot be denied. If we pay close attention to the story, we see Peter, at least now and then, revealing that he feels uncomfortable, lonely, and afraid. Beneath his bravado, he is constantly anxious and worried about being haunted by crocodiles and Captain Hook. When offered a chance for a real childhood back in London, for a brief instant, he considers going back with the Darling children to a real mother and father. Though he tries to cover it up, we know that he has no real peace of mind.
Because of Peter’s denial, we can only see glimpses and make assumptions about what is going on in his inner world; we see through the cracks for only a moment. But the other characters in the story are more in contact with the breadth of feelings in their lives, both wonderful and dreadful. In other words, they are more whole. If you know the story, you might remember the eldest child, Wendy, with her strong maternal instinct, concern, and fierce judgment. Or her brothers, John and Michael, with their fears of flying and fighting, along with their desire to go home. And who could forget Tinkerbell, with her jealousy and protectiveness?
For me, one of the most touching images in the story is that of the Lost Boys—Peter Pan’s “gang”—a group of boys who lost their parents, were snatched from their baby carriages, never to be found again. The Lost Boys seem to represent a good, wholesome relationship between children and their parents, offering an alternative to the relationship that is so twisted and turned around in Peter’s character. According to Peter, children have no need for parents, so he is not a lost boy at all. And while he tries to peddle this propaganda to the Lost Boys, they do not believe it for too long. Deep down, the Lost Boys are able to stay in touch with the painful
