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Soavi notes that psychoanalytic research is devoting increasing attention to how the self is structured, in particular to its deficiencies and how they may be repaired through analysis. He makes the theme of rigid expectations the principal object of scrutiny and considers that some patients have a very limited capacity for extracting gratifying elements from the situations in which they find themselves. If reality does not correspond exactly to their expectations, fits of rage and feelings of bitter disillusionment ensue, with involvement of body organs and the sensation of falling apart or going underground.
The author gives some clinical examples and observes that all the cases described were victims of early deprivation to a varying degree. All the patients came from united, functioning families, were comfortably well-off, and had had a good education. The deprivation can be seen as resulting from a fantasy organization present in one or both parents. The author notes that the patients all had partners; it is as if this type of expectation can find full expression only in the presence of the fantasy that one's partner, or the world, has clear obligations toward us.
According to Soavi's clinical experience, the crisis is triggered by an apparently trivial event, but what is reactivated is the experience of being used to satisfy needs