Although the underlying condition for emptiness is a sense of absence, the nature of the emptiness differs according to the degree of character pathology. The less severe the disturbance of character structure, the greater the tendency for the emptiness to be partial, symbolic, and related to oedipal fantasies,

especially castration anxiety. The more severe the character pathology, the greater the tendency for the emptiness to be total, somatic, concrete (structuralized) and related to schizoid fantasies. As the degree of emptiness increases, the tendency towards part-object relations also increases. Clinically, this becomes manifest in derangements of coherent ego feeling and the elaboration of stratified ego structure.