Once a defective drive endowment and constellation is assumed, imbalance and dysfunction of the drives may also be assumed. If, for instance, the equilibrium is shaken by an overactive aggressive drive, the process of neutralization will not succeed, and consequently too much of the unchanged id aggression will enter the ego and interfere with its manifold functions.

In many cases it appears as though instead of being first externalized and later internalized, the aggressive drive had discovered a short cut: the direct invasion of the ego. So disturbed an ego cannot carry out the tasks demanded of it; moreover, with its imperfect synthesis it cannot integrate the total Gestalt of the self. In that case the superego too, it is clear, will be faulty in its structure. One more agency for controlling the personality's functioning becomes impotent; and instead of a synthesized self we have a fragmented self.