Giovacchini contends that sensation in the prementational ego is at first the undifferentiated manifestation of homeostatic balance and imbalance; only later will it differentiate into erotic feelings. Affects, erotic feelings in particular, have an organizing function that binds a primitive inner agitation that is characteristic of the prementational stage which precedes psychological processes. Patients with "characterological defects" use sexuality to attempt to clam an "inner chaos that stems from an amorphous, inchoate psychic state." In some instances, these patients are able to get their therapists to "absorb their inner chaos" and act out sexually with them.