True self and false self 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
Campbell's Soup Cans they were freshly produced cans without flaws. Occasionally, he chose to depict cans with torn labels, peeling labels, crushed bodies, or opened lids (images right). Sometimes he added related items like a bowl of soup or a can opener (in the image on the right below). Sometimes he produced images of related items without any soup cans such as the box sculpture "Campbell's Tomato Juice Box" (above left), which are not strictly a part of the series although a part of the theme. Many of these works were now being produced at the already acclaimed studio, "The Factory." Irving Blum