ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the aspects of the analysis of a suicidally depressed borderline young man. From the start of the analysis, Robert linked his suicidal feelings to his experience of his body as a hateful, alien object, frighteningly out of his control. Analytic work revealed that his hatred of his body expressed his unconscious fear and hatred of his parents, whom he unconsciously experienced as engulfing and murderous. His suicidal impulses arose in the context of intense feelings of helplessness, anxiety and fear. These feeling states, and his suicidal state of mind, were predicated upon his inability to negotiate a secure sense of separateness within which he could develop a coherent sense of self. The suicide phantasy is a psychotic phantasy in that the individual believes that the attack on their body will not end in death, a part of the self will survive.
