Performativeness is often thought of as the opposite of authenticity. Authenticity is thought to come from within, and performance as externally motivated.
These definitions mirror psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott’s concepts of the true and false self. The true self, according to Winnicott, is spontaneously generated, rooted in freedom and creativity. The false self, on the other hand, is the part of ourselves that responds to environmental demands and expectations. He uses these concepts in the context of child development, arguing that the “good enough mother” creates conditions for her child’s true self to emerge.
For Winnicott, psychological health is not about replacing the false self with the true self, but adapting a flexible relationship between the two that allows the former to protect the latter, and remembering which is which. Eradication of the false self would result in a person unable to be in the world with others, while eradication of the true self results in a person defined by nothing but their compliance to expectations, leaving them out of touch with what makes them feel alive.
It can be interesting to consider behavioral therapy within this framework. Behavioral therapy targets what is observable from the outside, beginning with the assumption that changing what we do can change what we experience. People might start by imitating a new way of being that is considered helpful by their therapist; communicating with their spouse differently, going for a run, challenging distorted thoughts.
But the therapist isn’t merely concerned with compliance. The therapist is probably offering these prescriptions in hopes of giving people new experiences that can be integrated into their selfhood. Just like the “good enough mother,” the therapist’s goal is to create conditions under which the person’s true self is safe to emerge. Behavioral intervention can provide safe scaffolding for new experiences, giving the person an opportunity to discover new capacities.
Part of a therapist’s job is to track their patients’ progress. They do this by attending to the information available to them, including changes in behavior, the patient’s own reports of their experience, and what happens within the therapeutic relationship itself. The third is the focus of an intersubjective approach.
Developed by psychoanalysts Robert Stolorow, George Atwood, and Donna Orange, intersubjective systems theory views the therapeutic relationship as a co-created field in which both patient and therapist participate. The therapeutic relationship is not just the context in which change occurs, but also a direct source of information about how change is occurring.
The relational field can reveal aspects of a person’s psychological organization that may not be captured through behavioral observation or self-report alone, providing insight into the relationship between adaptation and spontaneity within the person.
How does it feel to be in the room with them? How much anxiety comes up when there’s a sense of breaking the mold?
A person’s false self may take on the appearance of someone well-integrated, as that is the social expectation of therapy. Looking past that appearance and feeling into the therapeutic relationship might reveal a pressure that’s driving them to appear that way.
In contrast, authentic integration may create a greater capacity to tolerate discomfort. Without being organized primarily around appearances, a person may become more willing to express riskier feelings, like anger and uncertainty. A person who is engaging more fully may have less shame associated with their mistakes and more acceptance of inevitable friction. This is not to say that impulsivity is the goal, but rather a greater capacity to remain connected to one’s own experience at the same time as reality with others.
Winnicott associates the true self with something he calls the spontaneous gesture, actions characterized by creativity rather than reactivity to external demands.
An intersubjectively oriented therapist would pay special attention to unexpected emotional responses, yet-to-be organized thoughts, and expressions that don’t fit neatly into the person’s narrative of themselves; they would see these as opportunities to expand the person’s comfort with bringing more of their true selves to interpersonal interactions.
These moments are not easily captured in standard measures of therapeutic progress. They require therapists to pay attention to the singularity of the therapeutic relationship and have a tolerance for forms of change that are nonlinear and hard to predict.
A therapist’s overreliance on standardized measures might point to an overreliance on a professional false self: an identity organized around certainty, expertise, and externally validated competence. To practice intersubjectively, then, is not merely to adopt a theoretical orientation or ideology; it is to embody the same capacities we hope to nurture in our patients. It requires tolerating uncertainty, remaining open to what cannot be predicted, and allowing the relationship itself to become a source of information. In this way, the therapeutic stance becomes a form of behavioral scaffolding, because the therapist is modeling a way of relating that the patient can begin to experience and eventually make their own.
Whether patient, therapist, or a person who’s neither, performance is a necessary part of existing in the world; it is a mediator between our true selves and others. The goal is not to eliminate performance, but to stay aware of when, how, and why we are performing, using it in service of a way of being that remains connected to spontaneous expression and available for relationship.
