Pathogenic interactions with parents during early infancy often bring about the internalization of tension-laden introjects which permanently overtax the integrative and control functions of the ego. A detailed case history illustrates how traumatic stimulation by the mother produces an archaic subsystem of the ego which preserves early, primitive ego states. The internal introject, strongly cathected, cannot be integrated, but remains isolated. Furthermore, an entire sequence of interactions, affects and situations is linked into an unintegrated 'programme'. In certain situations (love relations, transference events in analysis), which trigger off this isolated system, the enfeebled ego reacts with intensified defences and regressions, so that the boundary between self and object may become blurred.