ABSTRACT
External reality, experienced as being beyond the realm of infantile grandiosity, serves the function of setting limits, and it was the guiding principle for the analytic setting: provide a strictly limited environment in which patients can explore their inner world without consequences. Ultimately, the psychic function of the external world consists in limiting the impact of unconscious omnipotence, with its fantasies of immortality and unlimited power to shape destiny. In perversion, the denial of the limitations of anatomy, prompted by the need for omnipotence, is even more apparent because it tends to be less confined to a discreet form of sexual gratification and is apparent in character traits. There is, therefore, a danger inherent in the overemphasis on psychic reality because of its limitless quality. Despite the unified approach to all manifestations of human existence, there is the ultimate confrontation with the limit of mind and body: physical death.
