From: "Ja'far Railton" <railton-AT-dial.pipex.com>
Subject: Re: The Empty Square/skin/holey space
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 14:44:23 -0000


The following quote from Esther Bick's "The experience of the skin in early
object relations" which I just happened to be reading seems to resonate (at
least) with various segments of this thread. Hope it strikes some kind of
chord...Cordially, etc.

"The thesis is that in its most primitive form [i.e. in the infant] the
parts of the personality are felt to have no binding force among themselves
and must therefore be held together in a way that is experienced by them
passively, by the skin functioning as a boundary. But this internal function
of containing the parts of the self is dependent initially on the
introjection of an external object, experienced as capable of fulfilling
this function. Later, identification with this function of the object
supercedes the unintegrated state and gives rise to the phantasy of internal
and external spaces. Only then the stage is set for the operation of primal
splitting and idealization of self and object as described by Melanie Klein.
Until the containing functions have been introjected, the concept of a space
within the self cannot arise. Introjection, i.e. construction of an object
in an internal space is therefore impaired. In its absence, the function of
projective identification will necessarily continue unabated and all the
confusions of identity attending it will be manifest."

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Bryant <levi_bryant-AT-yahoo.com>
To: deleuze-guattari-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
<deleuze-guattari-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Date: 28 January 1999 0:49
Subject: re: The Empty Square