There are understandable doubts that conclusions drawn about early development from phenomena of later life are correct, and that normal development can be deduced from pathological manifestations. Nevertheless, numerous authors have made plausible suggestions about early development based on observations of phenomena seen in analytic patients in later life. Certain patients

respond to the loss of real or internal objects with a regressive dedifferentiation characterized by the loss of a clear sense of self. They feel controlled by others and have self experiences in which mind-body distinctions are weakened, and in which affects and physical elements are crudely and not separately experienced. At the same time, their regressive response involves an attempt to regain the object on a more primitive level and to maintain the separated self. This new balance is unstable, containing the threat of further regression to a still more dedifferentiated state in which self-object distinctions may be lost.