ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the psychopathological constructions of more complex patients, differentiating them from defences that are present in less serious cases. Psychic withdrawal is the commonest pathological organisation and the one most fraught with consequences. Conceptualising this mental state allows people to distinguish the transitional area—of play and daydreaming—from the area that impedes psychic and emotional development and confines the child to a claustrophiliac space. Operating to protect the patient from paranoid–schizoid and depressive anxiety, the retreat can take on a variety of aspects that range from full immersion in a romantic fairy-tale world in which everything is idealised, up to masturbatory withdrawal under the dictates of pornographic excitation. Psychic withdrawal manifests a variety of configurations, but its overriding characteristic is that of presenting itself as an “other reality” in which the patient lives.
