Compensatory structures, by definition, make up for primary deficits in the self by revitalizing just one of its sectors—mirrored ambitions, idealized goals, or twinship/alterego feelings with others like ourselves.1 For their formation, compensatory structures, like primary structures, require self—selfobject bonds, for example, our mutual attachments with “important others” whose responsiveness makes us feel confirmed, strengthened, and expanded. Our subjective experience of these bonds, particularly after primary structures have been injured by faulty responsiveness (as I discuss later), goes a long way toward repairing the injuries and reestablishing a functional self.

Restorative experiences that are consistent enough are preserved as “inside” structures, for example, in the form of capacities for increased