Ego identity refers to a consistent sense of self and a shared set of essential character traits that others recognise. The concept of identity encompasses both self-objectification and the subjective experience of inner continuity amidst change. Identity diffusion manifests as an impairment in intimacy and mutuality, characterised by hostility towards roles that parents offer as desirable. Raised by intrusive, appearance-conscious mothers and painfully disillusioned and abandoned by their fathers. Developing early identity hunger. Seeking out the external world for personal definition and approval, combined with little or no internal identity. Clinical features :

  • Developmentally – separation and individuation process arrested at rapprochement phase, resulting in faulty fixated and regressive attachment to an “Anal” universe.
  • Dynamically -continued presence of magical identifications, unmetabolized introjects with a predominance of splitting over repression as a defence against object-related ambivalence or ego dystonic attributes.
  • Descriptively -characteristic signs and symptoms of identity disturbance and diffusion.

Incompatible personality attributes marked by tenderness towards others that co-exist with extreme animosity and hostility as well. Naivete and suspicion, shyness and exhibitionism, greed and self-denial, courage and timidity are good examples. They can’t integrate cognitively and affectively the observed behaviour of others into a dynamic, composite conception. They lack normal empathy and ned to focus on the excessive or immediate behaviour of others to read them. Shifts from one to the other are purposeful, pleasurable, and do not disrupt the person’s basic self-image. Some disjointed attributes have undergone fantasy elaboration and personification. Suppose object identification becomes too numerous and splinters, unduly influential, and incompatible. In that case, a pathological outcome will materialise, with each identification cut off from the others by resistances, where each identification takes hold of consciousness in turn.

Continuity of Self

The past, present, and future aren’t integrated within a smooth continuum of remembered, felt, and expected existence. They experience themself as very young and beyond rejuvenation, with intense nostalgia alternating with frantic planning for the future. All real experience becomes uncannily contemporary with time, taking on a fragmented quality. They can’t project themselves into the future and set consistent goals amid dramatic changes in lifelong vocations, hobbies, and interpersonal affiliations. A midlife crisis, maybe the onset of one’s impending pathological narcissism, having to accept one’s psychosomatic limits, and mortality. An individual with identity diffusion exhibits feelings, beliefs, and actions that are caricature-like, lacking authenticity and a sense of relatedness. They lack originality and readily adopt gestures, phrases, ideologies, and lifestyles from others, often living vicariously through them. A real loss of object cathexis, an “as if” appearance and behaviour, a mimicry with a good adaptation without any object cathexis. People with a well-established identity tend to have a realistic body image and a comfortable somatic functioning in their overall self-experience. Relationships are markedly disturbed where the capacity to tolerate ambivalence and frustrations is severely compromised.

Superego functions are archaic, contradictory and experienced as coming from the external environment

Defensive operations to protect themself from despondency and emptiness vary greatly, such as a hungry and insistent preoccupation with aliveness, or a heightened manic defence. To be constantly active and not passive, avoiding aloneness and silent contemplation, as well as incessant compulsive taking and socialising. Bulimia, drinking, drug, and sex addictions fill one with rage to ward off feelings of emptiness. Their inner life is populated with fantasies and alive with emotions and longing to find an idle object to fill the inner void. Individuals with identity diffusion, having failed to accomplish development tasks, display weakness in gender identity. May manifest with difficulties in heterosexuality or displaying overt behaviours deemed more appropriate to the opposite sex. A successful resolution of the Oedipal complex facilitates the child’s entry into their father’s world, providing an understanding of boundaries, limitations, generational, and sexual differences. A well-consolidated sense of gender consists of three aspects :

  1. Core gender identity – awareness of belonging to one sex and not the other
  2. Gender role – one’s overt behaviour with others
  3. Sexual partner orientation – one’s preferred sex of the love object

They possess a polymorphous sense of ethnicity within a vague sense of history, generation affiliation, cultural norms, object choices and child-rearing practices, devoid of an ethnic anchor, identity acquires a false liberal attitude with potentially perverse implications. An inordinate moral relativism with an exaggerated latitude to what is right and wrong, acceptable and not acceptable, with a peculiar absence of genuine inner values at all. They may function from a sphincter morality, that is, governance of social behaviour with expectations of reward and punishment from external sources rather than inner standards that induce guilt and concern. Over-adherence to a particular moral principle can be easily replaced by a polar opposite, contradictory view without any inner transformation or insight. The absence of inner morality makes one vulnerable to charismatic and influential leaders and gurus for guidance.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

The primary interest is self-preservation and preoccupation with a grandiose image of oneself. Ego has a lot of aggression at its disposal and is ready for activity. Erotic life is predominantly chosen over the sense of being in love or intimate, taking up roles of the leader and influencer. Excessive admiration for and confidence in one’s powers, ability and knowledge.Both physical and mental omnipotence fantasies promise a shortcut to admiration and idealisation from others. An open contempt for others, unwillingness to participate in groups and an inability to abide by cultural norms and rules. Displays a condescending superiority, lacking understanding and regard for the opposing views and perceptions of others. Intercourse is a physical and performative pleasure, a means to sexual gratification, and a display of prowess. Infantile morality is governed by an ego ideal of lofty and noble proportions, which will humiliate them if not met and adhered to—a tendency to have sadistic perversions, sexual impotence, homosexuality, addictions and superego defects. A compulsion to rum from one achievement to the next, without any reward, space to reflect, or rest and recoup.

No inner satisfaction, as they lack compassion and inner tenderness

Oedipal anxieties underlie a desire not to know details in depth, to relate intimately, and a shallow, exhibitionistic lifestyle. Libido is concentrated on themself at the expense of object love, excessive unneutralised aggression pushing drivenness for approval. No authentic inner motivation, as all actions are influenced by what they think others want from them to be liked. Parental harsh criticism and high demands become internalised as the child becomes imprisoned by his aspirations, needs and harsh inner critic. Excessive self-absorption with intense ambition without concern for others. They feel empty and bored when external glitter vanishes or wears off, with no new supply to raise their self-esteem. A chronic, intense envy accompanied by defences against such envy, such as devaluation, omnipotent control, and withdrawal. They perceive others as dishonest and unreliable, emotionally shallow, with defective empathy, and with extreme contradiction in self-concepts—an incapacity to experience mournful longing and sadness when faced with the loss of an object of love. Three primary levels of social functioning :

  1. Highly talented with high intelligence and achievement, with outstanding social success and influence
  2. Those who seek treatment due to an impaired capacity to maintain long-term relationships and a nagging inner sense of aimlessness, despite reasonable success.
  3. Overt borderline level, ego weakness and fragility, deficeinces in anxiety and frustration tolerance, impulse control, delayed gratification and sublimation

The grandiose self remains alone and isolated, repeating cycles of narcissistic wants and desires, temporary idealisation and greed with disappearances of supply via spoiling, disappointing and devaluation. The ageing process is a painful one, as a gradual realisation that narcissistic gratification of youth and past triumphs are no longer available. Denial of limits posed by ageing may result in the adoption of a grotesque youthful lifestyle, with dramatic vocational shifts and inappropriate love affairs. The sexually inhibited youthful narc may become promiscuous or even perverse. They may have severe disturbances in several areas, sexually with perverse fantasies or lack of interest in sex, they may experience work inhibitions and difficulty in forming relationships. They may lack a sense of humour, lack zest and vitality, have little empathy, exhibit pathological lying or hypochondriacal preoccupations. Display overt grandiosity in unrealistic ventures, exaggerated self-regard, demand for attention and inappropriate idealisation of others. Narcissistic rage is a reaction to a perceived or real slight imposed upon the grandiose self, with an intense need for immediate revenge. A need to right the perceived wrong, to undo the hurt by whatever means, an intense compulsion in pursuit of all aims.

To avoid painful envy of his past, he is forced to devalue past accomplishments and achievements

Five narcissistic personality types

Adequacy of narcissistic libido manifests as healthy self-regard, depends upon soothing ministration by the mother during the symbiotic phase, as well as her emotional refuelling of the child’s suiring late differentiation and early practising subphase. It is during the rapprochement subphase that the growing child’s narcissism is most vulnerable. Maternal unavailability and misattunement to emphatically support the child’s contrasting strivings for autonomy and fusion may lead to a shattering collapse of child omnipotence. A fixation point is created through the persistent splitting of self and object representations, where the renunciation of infantile omnipotence becomes difficult. Alienation of self and object constancy suffer.

  • Ideal hungry – forever searching for others whom they can admire for their prestige, ability, and power to draw emotional sustenance from.
  • Mirror hungry – impelled to display themselves to evoke others’ admiration to counteract an inner sense of worthlessness.
  • Merger hungry – relentless desire to control others in an enactment of their need for inner structure
  • Alter ego – need for a relationship with someone who conforms to their values and their reality.
  • Contact shunning – the most frequent, where individuals avoid social contact to combat their powerful and frightening need for and fear of others.

A continuous search for perfection in oneself and others, intolerance of ambivalence, sensitivity to realistic setbacks, persistent contradictory self-image of omnipotence and angry inferiority. Constant oscillation between withdrawn and coercive attempts to subjugate and control others. The individual who has a feeling of weakness and vulnerability may secretly harbour a grandiose and dangerously split-off self; one who exhibits paranoid arrogance may also fear his timid, dependent child self. Self-integrated false reality is predominant, with a tendency towards excessive self-stimulation in the form of libidinous thinking, self-touching and masturbation. The narc uses language in an autocentric manner for regulating self-esteem rather than for communication or understanding. Creating a gap between words and percepts gives the impression that they are talking to themselves or that words endlessly cycle—a loss of flexibility in perspective results in overabstraction, concretisation, or fluctuations in extremes. Time loses its impersonal quality and is reckoned by its internal personal impact. Mood regulation is overly dependent on external circumstances, leading to rapid mood fluctuations. They see others but can’t be meaningfully touched by them. Transitional fantasies consist of imaginary and banal tales of personal glory when faced with a threat to their self-esteem or sense of ego control. In becoming identified with their omnipotent, destructive self, they kill off any sane, loving and dependent self. At times, they are wistfully aware of their imprisonment, where nobody can help them change the situation. Narcissism manifests in three realms :

  • Physical – undue preoccupation with appearance, exhibitionism and hypochondriacal concerns.
  • Intellectual – libidinal thinking and tendency to dominate others by intellectual prowess.
  • Moral – gives a yearning to be pure, above ordinary human needs and free from attachment. Suffers from shame over his saving ordinary needs, and guilt over the nature of his perverse desires.

Recognition of sexual differences and generational boundaries inevitably causes the growing child narcissistic injuries, usually compensated by their idealisation of their father. The child would typically seek to be like their father, and by forming the ego ideal (of the father), they accept their smallness, learns to wait, and develop plans for the future. However, the mother collusively conveys to the child that he is superior to his father; forward projection of infantile narcissism does not occur, and the father is not idealised, but despised, and the ego and ego ideal become fused. Narcissistic injury, realisation of one’s impotence and smallness, is not repaired by an imitation, a fake phallus, an attempt to free oneself completely from all filial linkages. Hence, they have a disregard for generational boundaries, lack comprehension of the incest taboo, are perverted and promiscuous, impotent, and have a pervasive intolerance of reality limitations. An inner hollowness, inauthentic, riddled with unconscious guilt, used for parental gratification. This serves as a substitute for the missing structure, lacking empathic acceptance, and contributes to feelings of loneliness and isolation. This reinforces the loss of affective aliveness and spontaneity that occurs when attending to parental needs. The primary narc develops chronic envy with periodic rage, with an inner feeling of emptiness and boredom. This is decompensated later in life as narc supplies diminish, leading to depression, isolation and pessimism.

Borderline Personality Disorder

The child experiences more frequent and demanding traumatic events during childhood ( divorces, death, violence, sexual abuse ). Usually characterised by a regressive fragmentation with a poorly integrated self, fluctuating between aggressive outbursts and sporadic withdrawal. They are threatened from within by the destructive potential of the death instinct, which is projected outward, resulting in persecutory anxiety with the external object split into all good, all bad representations. This protects the good object from aggression and preserves the core of the ego. The defensive idealisation of the good object leads to megalomanic aspirations, unique optimism and hypomania. Compartmentalisation of bad objects leads to paranoid contempt and sadistic devaluation of others. They have not moved from paranoia to the depressive position, with changes in their affective life. Governed by envy, greed and fear, movement to one regulated by sadness, guilt, gratitude and reparation. Their inner world is populated by distorted caricatures of themselves and others, where aggression is internalised against their authentic self.

Tendency to use projective identification, where unacceptable attributes of the self are deposited into others, and manipulated to live out these attributes, which are not their own. The primitive narcissist responds to frustration with denial and grandiosity, or loss of object relations. They remain untouched by affect-laden situations and relationships, a sense of deadness without authentic emotions. They may explode into sudden outbursts of rage due to a lack of control, a sense of being engulfed or disrespected. Can’t stick to routines, unable to refuel and soothe themself to continue when facing frustrations and obstacles, and lead chaotic lives: severe ego weakness and ego functioning, poorly integrated concept formation and unrealistic goal setting. Always defending against eruption into conscious thinking of id impulses and their fantasies’ elaborations. Interpersonal relationships are characterised by ;

  • States of transitional relatedness where objects are not perceived in their reality, but owe their lives to processes arising within the individual.
  • Tendency to endow particular objects with magical omnipotence
  • A divided self-image, a helpless infant or an omnipotent individual, giving or destructive.
  • Intense dependency on idealised others with illusion of self-sufficiency.
  • The harrowing dilemma of extreme dependence coupled with intense fear of closeness is a chronic struggle to achieve proper distance in relationships.

A predominance of shame, inferiority feelings and paranoia, with a deep-seated fear of exposure over genuine guilt feelings. The toddler asserts their autonomy and seeks to retain the illusion of exclusive union with the mother. Increased anxiety at being left alone, as a child uses the mother as an extension of self, their sense of safety and stability diminishes. The internalisation of the idealised mother protects the good image from aggression, as infantile omnipotence is not renounced, and there is a continuous search for an external replacement for the all-good mother. Alternating between coercive clinging and negative withdrawing impede boundaries and optimal distance. Object constancy is not achieved, nor is a continuous sense of self, as the individual depends on external objects to maintain emotional cohesion. Mood regulation suffers, and realistic setbacks are met with intense negative dialogue and mood swings. Interpersonal relationships have a “Basic Fault “, an overcathexis of objects or ego functions.

Descriptive feature os BPD

  • Chronic diffuse anxiety
  • Polysymptomatic neurosis with multiple phobias, OCD and hypochondria.
  • Polymorphous perverse sexuality.
  • Pre-psychotic personality (schizoid/paranoid).
  • Infantile narcissism, “as if,” and antisocial personality.
  • Impulse neuroses and addictions.

Structural Characteristics of BPD

  • Ego weakness, poor anxiety tolerance, lack of impulse control, and inadequate sublimation.
  • Primary process thinking in unstructured situations
  • Specific defensive operations, splitting, projective identification, etc.
  • Pathological internalised object relations.

Oral and Anal rage contaminated object images of the oedipal phase. The Oedipal complex seriously interfered, leading to a vulnerability to an orally derived promiscuity or a negative Oedipal outcome with overt homosexuality—constellations of preoedipal distorted oedipal conflicts in BPD. Splitting also leads to selective ego-syntonic impulsivity, intensification of affects, and extreme oscillation between self-images. Splitting is buttressed by primitive idealisation, projective identification, primitive denial, omnipotence and devaluation. The borderline individual is aware that their perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about themselves and others at a specific time are polar opposites to those they had before; their memory fails to have any emotional relevance to them. Devaluation is a corollary of omnipotence, whereby if an external object can provide no further gratification or protection, they are dropped and dismissed without hesitation or remorse. No real capacity to love themself or the object, hence the ease to move on without any mourning or regret. These primitive personalites also display ;

  • A lack of inner resources to be peaceful alone.
  • Misconceptions of a given experience
  • An inability to genuinely experience intrapsychic conflict, they experience conflicts as discrete components.
  • Inconsistent perception of themselves and others.
  • Despite excessive hostility, a peculiar inability to feel anger in appropriate situations.
  • Strangely unable to discriminate bodily sensations and emotions.
  • Unable to differentiate between dreams and reality, past and present, symbolic and concrete communications, self and non-self.
  • Rapidly lose internalised good images and can’t retrieve lost good object representations.

Dissociated ego segments, a part of the self-image and a part of the object image, with a separate affect disposition, populate their inner world. The capacity to comprehend a whole object is impaired, affects in relationships related to ambivalence, mourning, and genuine sadness, which are often missing or deficient. Negative internalised bad object images, a sadistic, highly judgmental kind, easily projected, creating frightening, persecutors. Over-idealised self and object images create fantastical, high and unachievable ideals, which fail to provide benevolent inner guidance. Primary inner emptiness due to the absence of positive introjects, seeking intense, quick attachments. Annihilating panic turns into narcissistic rage when faced with abandonment or relational loss.

    Logical characteristics

    • Excessive aggression originating from severe preoedipal trauma.
    • An aborted separation-individuation process and therefore a lack of self and object constancy.Intense vulnerability to separation anxiety, confusion and abandonment.
    • Failure to achieve the oedipal phase dominance, a tendency towards promiscuity and perversion.
    • Predominance of dyadic object relations conflicts over internalised structural conflicts.
    • Persistence of splitting of the self and object representations and the associated mechanisms of primitive denial and projective identification.
    • Syndrome of identity diffusion
    • Uneven and poorly integrated superego, resulting in instinctual life being restrained by shame and fear rather than inner guilt and concern for others.

    Dehumanisation of self to combat threats of dissolution, with depersonalised mechanical states, as human vulnerability was absent in childhood.unconscious motive for extreme self-centredness, with a chronic low level of anxiety, where masochistic states provide a continuous state and focus of alienation. Many seeking sex realignment surgery are borderline, established via early environment, with character impairment of ego functioning.

      • Single-parent relationships, where the child is exposed to intense frustrations due to maternal unavailability and can’t integrate contradictory self and object representations.
      • Multiple mothering, which evokes varied and often contradictory identifications, poses a challenge to integrating into a cohesive whole.
      • A situation where a child experiences themselves as someone else in their parents’ minds, deposited representations.

      Schizoid Personality Disorder

      Fluctuations in attachment to others, from extreme involvement to complete withdrawal. Discrepancy between inner and outer worlds, sense of a divided self caught in limbo between compromise and rebellion. A compromise between a wish for and against connection, where this defensive wall kept others at bay and evokes curiosity and attention from a distance. The schizoid individual often feels exhausted by social interaction and contact, and defends against their difficulty in emotional giving and people pleasing. They fear that the vigour of their needs can deplete others and therefore regard love as dangerous and draining; so, they hide their love and protect against others’ love. Since the joy of loving seems hopeless barred to them, they might as well deliver over to the pleasure of hating, which is satisfactory The moral motive says if loving is destructive, it is better to destroy with hate, which is overtly destructive and evil; than to destroy by love which is by rights creative and good.

      Substitute loving to hating and withdrawal /isolation

      Experience and characteristics

      • The mother did not love them ( recognition)
      • sense of deprivation and inferiority, profoundly fixated on the mother.
      • Extreme dependence. Highly persuasive self-preservation and narcissistic defence when the ego is under threat
      • Regression to the early oral phase
      • General overevaluation of the internal over the external world. Vivid internal fantasy world.


      Winnicott proposed notions of a true self and a false self, depending on the mother’s responses to the child’s spontaneous gestures, where the child is allowed to be alive or not. If the mother fails to decode the infant’s overtures and replaces them with her gestures, she forces the infant to comply and renounce their authentic self-assertion. The true self withdraws inwardly, and the child develops a compliant false self. A mind-body split occurs, as the mother becomes the locus of the child’s identity, and the body is disowned and hated to avoid going to pieces, falling forever, having no relationship to their body and having no orientation. When separated from the love object, they feel utterly insecure and lost; when reunited, they feel swallowed, smothered and absorbed. Either rushing into relationships for security or breaking away again for freedom and independence. A propensity to withdraw from external relationships emanates from;

      • Tantalising refusal by early caretakers that aroused hungry impulses so powerful as to be feared as devouring
      • Impingement by a hostile object that evoked direct fear of the outer world
      • Emotional desertion by caretakers necessitated seeking gratification within oneself.
      • The mother failed to provide a protective shield, cumulative trauma and behavioural betrayals.
      • Through indulgences and collusion, the mother maintained intense focus, often physical closeness with the child, and symbiotic omnipotence.

      This pseudo-compliance gives a sense of self-sufficiency with an intellectual defence or emotional withdrawal and autoerotic sexuality. An innate ability to mobilise hopefulness in others, magical thinking, secret optimism and an expectancy of oversensitive rapport with others. Superego integration is minimal ( no moral fibre ), severe ego impairment, where splitting in the central defence mechanism instead of repression. A general lack of restriction to the conflict-free ego, inner world populated by idealised and horrible aspects of others (devalued), where they can’t perceive the self or others in ambivalent totality. A subjective unreality, characterised by a sense of drifting aimlessly and identity diffusion, coupled with a defensive suppression of affect, which leads to chronic feelings of inner emptiness. A preconscious awareness of their narcissistic vulnerability, but also the danger that a narcissistic injury could initiate uncontrollable regression and fragmentation. vulnerable to rapid identification with idealised objects, with resulting anxiety over loss of identity. They lack a firm sexual identity and are susceptible to body image disturbances. Their communication is symbolic and takes place at the level of bartering merchandise, where things are done to them, things they have to accept and things are given to them.

      At an early stage, severe and sustained deprivation of maternal care resulted in an incomplete “hatching ” of the child from the autistic phase. The gratifying symbiotic phase did not follow as the child failed to establish a libidinal object for soothing and refuelling. This multifaceted developmental arrest manifests in interpersonal unrelatedness, cognitive lag, pathological narcissism, and high levels of destructive aggression. They prefer aloneness, displaying emotional coldness or aloofness, characterised by an absence of warmth and tender feelings for others, as well as an indifference to praise and criticism, or the feelings of others, a restricted range of emotional experience and expression, which presents in a variety of contexts.

      • Rarely experiences strong emotions such as anger or joy.
      • Neither desires nor enjoys close relationships.
      • Chooses solitary activities
      • Little or inhibited sexual desire.
      • No close friends or confidants.

      Salman, A. (1992). Broken Structures. Severe personality disorders and their treatment, Jason Aronson Publishing.

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