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Details from a brief psychoanalytic treatment with a disturbed and desperate patient in acute emotional crisis are used to consider the internal dread some patients have regarding separation from the object and their phantasy of eternal damnation as a result of self-differentiation. One patient's loyalty to her object as the only way to prevent abandonment is examined in depth, but also considered as a severe psychic struggle found in other disturbed patients. The nature of this pathological loyalty has to do with the internalized and projected demand for perfection as the only currency for love and acceptance. Theoretical considerations are offered from a Kleinian perspective.