ABSTRACT
A graduate of the prestigious Ecole Normaie Superieure and a highly qualified professor of philosophy with a PhD in psychology, Didier Anzieu was a member of the French Psychoanalytical Association. He was strongly supportive of research with an epistemological approach to both psychic containers and their contents, developing and applying Freudian concepts and techniques. The author's article of 1974 on the Skin Ego, he assigned three functions: as a containing, unifying envelope for the Self; as a protective barrier for the psyche; and as a filter of exchanges and a surface of inscription for the first traces, a function which makes representation possible. This chapter also explains the case study of Monsieur M. The skin's function as a surface receiving permanent stimulation of the sensorimotor tonus from external excitations has its counterpart in the Skin Ego's function of libidinal recharging of the psychical functioning, the maintenance of internal energetic tension and its unequal distribution among the psychical subsystems.
