This is an attempt to understand the character of Dorian Gray as representing a point midway between perversion and psychopathy. The theme is developed around the components of symbolic parents (Lord Henry being the father and Basil, the mother) fighting over the possession of the son, Dorian. There are implications about an idealized narcissistic ego image held by Dorian. The different aspects of denial, depersonalization, and depression are substantiated with the material of the story. Using the ideas of Aberastury, Rascovsky, and Greenberg, Salas considers superego elements occurring in three different intrapsychic conflicts: 1, fertility type of identifications with both father and mother as internalized objects; 2, symbolic imitative (gesture, mannerisms, etc.) type of identification; and 3, metabolic/digestive type of identification which leads to very primitive attempts at identification, but is actually an introjection.