ABSTRACT
According to Otto Kernberg, the Self is derived from early object relations that have been interiorised. For Heinz Kohut, it results from the internal vicissitudes of narcissism, which follows a line of development somewhat separate from the object relation, passing through the particular structure of relations to “Self-objects”. Kernberg, by contrast, distinguishes a large range of borderline states, according to the seriousness of the character pathology involved. The topographical perspective into which concept of the Skin-ego fits could bring a further argument to bear on the difference between narcissistic personalities and borderline states. In narcissistic personalities, whose Skin-ego is organised as a double wall, the relationship of container to content is preserved and the psychical Ego remains integrated in the bodily Ego. Morel’s machine filmed Morel and his companions for a week and it will project episodes from that week over and over again. The narrator, who is Morel’s double, takes his invention and this delusion to its logical conclusion.
