You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Can we get close to another person without losing ourselves? This dilemma seems to trouble many patients. When we fall in love, there is a loss of ego boundaries, at times verging on ecstatic delight. We look into the beloved's eyes and believe that nothing separates us. Yet we know at the same time that this is illusory, that many sectors of our self are inviolate.
Those who cannot be sure of personal inviolacy may demonstrate paranoid rigidity and vigilance. What they feel inside is that if they were to let their guard down, they would fall under the total control of the Other. The effect of such defensiveness is a profound emptiness and loneliness. At times this becomes unbearable, and such individuals may seem to drop their guard and fall profoundly under the influence of another person. Eventually, however, such a relationship must be devalued and discredited so as to eject the foreign body which the presence of the Other inevitably becomes.
Ideally the personal boundary functions in the manner of a semipermeable membrane. In cell biology this is a selective interface, such that needed nutrients can be brought across the membrane through active transport, while toxic substances are kept out. In interpersonal relations we manage interfaces such that good experiences can enter, be appreciated, and be incorporated into the self, while bad experiences will either be kept out entirely or “detoxified” through a process of sorting self from non-self. Too porous a boundary would fail to protect against intrusion, overwhelming the self with potentially toxic introjects. A rigid personal boundary, more like a cell wall than a membrane, keeps out both good and bad experiences, and leads to a sense of emptiness within.