ABSTRACT
The psychic apparatus thus has at its disposal in its internal organization agencies or systems specifically allotted to the work of the intermediary processes: the system preconscious and the agency of the ego, which Freud describes as a frontier-creature. The central psychic process is the identification with intermediary persons: they can share a common trait with the object without destroying it and without being destroyed by it. Belonging to a group—a couple, a family, an institution—requires a certain division of psychic work: a distribution of the psychic tasks is necessary for the maintenance and continuity of the ensemble. The unconscious psychic organizers which govern the formation of the group psychic apparatus determine the distribution of the places and the tasks. This chapter draws attention to a remarkable trait that only concerns some phoric functions: they can turn into their contrary for intrapsychic and intersubjective reasons.
