ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the possibility that the breakdown has already happened, near the beginning of the individual's life. Fear of breakdown is a feature of significance in some of our patients, but not in others. At the same time there must be expected a common denominator of the same fear, indicating the existence of universal phenomena; these indeed make it possible for everyone to know empathetically what it feels like when one of our patients shows this fear in a big way. At length dependence becomes a main feature, and then the analyst's mistakes and failures become direct causes of localised phobias and so of the outbreak of fear of breakdown. The ego organises defences against breakdown of the ego-organisation, and it is the ego-organisation that is threatened. The search for personal non-existence can be examined in the same way. It will be found that non-existence is part of a defence.
