others are those forms which pass by in the street, those magic objects which are capable of acting at a distance and upon which i can act by means of determined conduct. i scarcely notice them; i act as if i were alone in the world. i brush against “people” as i brush against a wall; i avoid them as i avoid obstacles.
September 20, 2010
2 notes
1. Engulfment
a person whose threshold of basic security is so low that practically any relationship with another person, however tenuous or however apparently ‘harmless’, threatens to overwhelm him.
Engulfment is felt as a risk in being understood, being loved, or simply even in being seen. To be hated is often less disturbing than to be destroyed as it is felt, through being engulfed by love. The main manoeuvre used to preserve identity under pressure from the dread of engulfment is isolation. complete loss of being by absorption into another person (engulfment) complete aloneness (isolation) the others love is feared more than his hatred, or rather all love is sensed as a version of hatred.
If she is not in the actual presence of another person who knows her, or if she cannot succeed in evoking this person’s presence in his absence, her sense of her own identity drains away from her. Her panic is at the fading away of her being. In order to exist she needs someone else to believe in her existence. For her, esse is percipi; to be seen, that is, not as a passer-by or casual acquaintance. If there was no one to see her at the moment she had to conjure up someone to whom she felt she mattered, for whom this person on whom her being depended went away or died, it was not a matter of grief, it was a matter of panic.
