Guillaumin attempts to provide the metapsychological justification for Gillibert's clinical phenomena. The personality type described by a quality of "likeness" shows an identification with that from which it is separated. But this identification is with the form of an object relationship rather than with the object itself. The object is held at a certain distance from any behavior which is directed toward it. This distancing of the object explains a certain mechanical and automatic character in these individuals, whose behavior may be empty or impoverished but is nevertheless well adapted. The personality structure of "likeness" has been set up in the effort to master abandonment. The individual has never attained a clear state of autonomy which would have permitted a real