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Although there are finer creations of the spirit than perversion and psychosis, in the long run it is better to be mad than dead.
In observing the ways in which the process of differentiation between self and not-self can be thwarted on the level of the mind, Freud identified the disease of pathological narcissism. Parallel scientific research on the level of the body revealed that the equivalent somatic dysfunction led to the disease of cancer. Each of these two conditions reflects a state of dedifferentiation where the normally distinct boundaries between self and not-self are blurred.
Freud's psychosexual phases of development formulate a normal progression towards psychosexual maturity. If early stages of development are not mastered, the personality remains stuck—fixated—at an early level of functioning. When fixation occurs before self and not-self separate and become distinct from one another, the consequences are quite severe. While physical maturity may proceed, the narcissistic adult remains an emotional child housed in an adult body (alongside an adult intellect, often enough). Primary narcissism, a normal developmental phase in early infancy, is now pathological narcissism—a self/object fusion that is no longer appropriate.
Alternatively, differentiation may have occurred, but the original self/not-self fusion reappears regressively in dedifferentiation.