The self is in part in projective identification with a hostile internal object, the cruel superego and in part in identification with the screaming damaged object. The wound is always double: the wounded self and the wounded object; but always double in tone of feeling too: a raging grievance, full of hatred for the object, and an unbearable sorrow, for being unloved and unloving. The shadow of the object fell upon the ego, and the latter could henceforth be judged by a special agency, as though it were an object, the forsaken object. The ego wants to incorporate this object into itself, and, in accordance with the oral or cannibalistic phase of libidinal development in which it is, it wants to do so by devouring it. It is a matter of general observation that people never willingly abandon a libidinal position, not even indeed, when a substitute is already beckoning to them.