caregiver. These two means of protection may be regarded as the prototypes of creativity and engagement with the world (both animate and inanimate), which are the content of beneficial solitude throughout life.
Essential Aloneness, Noncommunicating Self, and Going‐On‐Being
More than Freudian theory, it is the work of D.W. Winnicott that constitutes a hallmark in the understanding of the roots and the developmental significance of solitude, and especially its beneficial aspects. This theory is still influencing contemporary thought and research on this issue, both inside and outside of the psychoanalytic field. Winnicott (1988) argued for the existence of essential aloneness in the beginning of life, during a pre‐primitive stage of development. It constitutes a paradox because it is an aloneness of predependence; that is to say, the infant is not aware of his/her absolute dependence by the caregiver. This notion also implies primary narcissism, the illusion of omnipotence, and mother–infant undifferentiatedness. Aloneness is regarded as a primary state, not as the primary state, which means that other possible primary states are not excluded (Eigen, 2008), such as companionship and sharing.
The noncommunicating self makes its appearance during the first year of life. Then a change occurs in the perception of love objects, from the subjective object to the objectively perceived object, in other words, from merging with mother to separateness (Winnicott, 1965). With the use of symbols, the mode of communication changes from implicit and ambiguous to explicit and concrete. The infant leaves the area of omnipotence and enjoys communication. But at that time exactly, there exists an absolutely private core, which does not communicate and always remains isolated, because it has to remain isolated. Winnicott (1965) wrote: “Although healthy persons communicate and enjoy communicating, the other fact is equally true, that each individual is an isolate, permanently non‐communicating, permanently unknown, in fact, unfound” (Winnicott’s emphasis, p. 187).
It is the game of hide‐and‐seek, in which “it is joy to be hidden but disaster not to be found” (Winnicott, 1965, p. 186). This mode of communication is not nonverbal but it is forever silent, personal, an indication of aliveness. This view may be regarded to reflect the first signs of existential aloneness.
Winnicott (1965) also stated that health means (i) being able to use noncommunication in the sense of silent or secret communication with the subjectively perceived objects and (ii) the ability to lose contact with the commonly shared reality with the aim of feeling real and of preserving and enhancing the true self. Indeed, the more this incommunicado element (Winnicott, 1965) is under the threat of being revealed and altered, the more primitive are the defenses we employ to deal with this threat, because the protection of the innermost being facilitates the establishment of the true self. In this regard, Winnicott may be viewed as a predecessor of researchers who investigate the beneficial aspects of solitude today (e.g., mindfulness; see Leavitt, Butzer, Clarke, & Dvorakova, Chapter 24).
Every human infant has a true self, expressed through spontaneous gesture and recognized by the good enough mother. Mother mirrors the infant, that is, responds with sensitivity and reliability to his/her needs, thus facilitating the development of the true self in the infant (Winnicott, 1971). The infant feels alive, a psychosomatic entity, with continuity of being (Winnicott, 1958, 1965). This fortunate state is reflected in the infant’s capacity to be creative and use symbols (e.g., language, symbolic play, dreaming), which form the content of his/her time spent alone.1
In the beginning of life, the good enough environment responds to the infant’s needs, and therefore the infant experiences a state of undisturbed isolation, a state of going‐on‐being. The infant leaves this isolation to express his/her spontaneous gesture and explore the environment, without losing his/her sense of self. But if the environment impinges on the infant’s existence (e.g., by intruding or demanding compliance or by inconsistent responding), the experience of being without having to react continually to external stimulation is broken. The infant returns to his/her isolated state, but this isolation is now comprised of primitive defenses. A split occurs between the true self, which needs to be protected from being violently altered by the environment, and a false or compliant self. The individual is incapable both of being with himself/herself due to the terror of isolation and of developing genuine object ties because the true self, not enriched by lived experience, must remain hidden (Winnicott, 1958).
Winnicott (1965) later became more explicit in distinguishing the modes of not‐communicating. Apart from simple not‐communicating (a kind of resting), there exists a mode of active or reactive not‐communicating. Active not‐communicating is a form of voluntary, potentially beneficial aloneness, whereas reactive not‐communicating is a pathological state, the result of environmental impingement. Therefore, it is one thing to be isolated, that is, acknowledging and preserving this core of self, and another thing to be insulated, that is, falsely living in a world devoid of real objects. And Winnicott (1965) beautifully portrays this private universe:
[…] we have to recognize that aspect of health: the non‐communicating central self, for ever immune from the reality principle, and for ever silent. Here communication is not non‐verbal; it is, like the music of the spheres, absolutely personal. It belongs to being alive. And in health, it is out of this that communication naturally arises. (p. 192)
Winnicott’s views reflect a developmental and clinical conceptualization of the origins and first manifestations of aloneness and solitude as well as their vicissitudes. In this conceptualization, the mother plays a crucial role in the quality and destiny of her child’s solitary experiences. Manifestations of voluntary, beneficial aloneness are evident from the first months of life. Aloneness is regarded as a fundamental way of being and is in a dialectical tension with connectedness, which means that both are needed for normal development and enrich each other. However, Winnicott goes as far as identifying a core of the infant’s self (probably a facet of the unconscious) which is – and will always remain – absolutely “solo,” idiosyncratic and isolated, and, thus, has to be respected by caregivers as such.
Schema‐of‐Being‐With‐the‐Self
Another view on the solitary self in infancy is provided by the work of Daniel Stern (1985/2000, 1994, 1995), who, although inspired by psychoanalytic thinking, was one of the main proponents of intersubjectivity – a theory highly relevant to the study of solitude. He introduced a layered model of development that was later revised (Stern, 1985/2000) to include three preverbal senses of self – emergent, core, and subjective (or intersubjective) – all emerging together and in interaction with each other (rather than occurring successively). Under the influence of infant research (e.g., Beebe & Stern, 1977; Trevarthen, 1979), Stern supports the view of the initial dualism, which means that intersubjectivity is present from the beginning of life or that the self is with a differentiated other from the start and gradually develops new forms of relatedness.
Of relevance to beneficial solitude is the self‐in‐the‐presence‐of‐the‐other (Stern, 1985/2000), which reminds us of Winnicott’s notion of the capacity to be alone in the presence of the mother (discussed in the following section). It is a variation of the self‐being‐with‐a‐self‐regulating‐other and refers to the infant’s experience of being alone, with his/her perceptions, feelings, thoughts, and actions, in the physical proximity of the caregiver. Even more relevant to the study of solitude is the schema‐of‐being‐with‐the‐self. This concept is inspired by Winnicott’s (1965) notion of going‐on‐being (see previous section) and Tustin’s (1990) work with high‐functioning autistic children. It represents the way of being with one’s own, without other people around, “a state of mentally floating, alone” (Stern, 1995, p. 108), during which mental activities take place, but the individual does not pay attention to them. Stern (1995) wrote