ABSTRACT
This commentary concerns the interplay of boundaries between a finite body self and infinite mind self. Differentiation regarding the origins of self and other are addressed. For Freud, the ego is originally a body-ego. Paul Federn challenges this by positing a boundless mental I-feeling that precedes body awareness. Eigen extends this view, proposing that our boundless mental I-feeling must contract to fit into our smaller body I-feeling. In psychosis the double sense of boundlessness and limits, immateriality and materiality, become confused and distorted rather than mutually nourishing through seamless psychic flow. Eigen challenges the common idea in psychoanalytic thought that development begins from a state of undifferentiation. All theories that start from such a position have logical problems. Eigen posits some form of differentiation—that is, awareness of self and other from the beginning—and offers a paradoxical conjunction he calls distinction-union as mutually constituting our being. The psychotic individual tries to separate union and distinction, resulting in deformations of self.
