ABSTRACT
One of the farthest reaching mysteries of the human self is that its sense of boundaries shifts in radical ways. Psychotics are riddled with profound boundary problems, which raise basic issues concerning the nature of our relationships to ourselves, others, and the cosmos. In psychosis, a misfit between the invisibility and intangibility of mind, as such, and everyday reality becomes paramount. D. W. Winnicott investigated a number of aspects of what may happen before a well-bounded unit self is constituted vis-a-vis a spatially delimited, realistic other. Winnicott associates a kind of benign and creative omnipotence with what he calls the infant's "vital spark," "continuity," "going on being," "psychosomatic unity," and "true self." P. Federn, an early psychoanalyst who focused on psychosis, tried to chart the vicissitudes of I-feeling in structural, dynamic terms. Nevertheless, Federn's theory also suggests that it may be possible again to contact our sense of boundlessness and use it creatively as well.
