ABSTRACT
Throughout the course of life the self is vulnerable to insufficiency or unfittingness of selfobject experience. When these deficiencies are great, and particularly when it is so during the early developmental years, then there may be lasting damage done to the self in its essential, functional or structural manifestations. No arbitrary definition can be made, however, of what is regarded as disorder of the self. All that can be said is that failure to achieve cohesion, vigour or harmony of the self may be regarded as a state of self-disorder if it significantly interferes with competence and enjoyment of living in a lasting way. A simple, descriptive account of some of the ways this can happen is all that will be attempted here.
