Disorders of Continuity

This article begins by delineating the concept of the self as a psychic structure: one which has the property of continuity through time and space. The use of the concept of psychic structure and representation is explicated and defended. Disorders of continuity are characterized as reflecting certain forms of structural pathology and as being manifested in problems of initiating, interrupting, and terminating all manner of behavior. These phenomena become reenacted in the transference phenomena emergent in the analyses of these disorders of continuity. Interpretations are more effectively directed toward the formal components of the structure rather than toward the unconscious contents. Perversion is considered as one form of these disorders, and clinical illustrations are used to demonstrate this problem. The developmental perspective is linked to the activity of interpretation by way of two issues related to continuity: planning ahead and looking backward. These capabilities are part and parcel of normal development. Their absence reflects disorders of continuity, and their place in the interpretive work of analysis allows a structural change that re-establishes this property.