Abstract
States of depersonalization are linked by the author to a premature development of anal functions, under the stress of early frustrations.
Reactivations of the primary trauma in later conflicts mobilize the poorly integrated anal components of the adult personality, which regresses to a pre-anal stage of undifferentiation of the ego. The persistent and unfulfilled need for a pre-ambivalent and conflictless relationship characterized by fusion with the object is thus revealed in the symptoms presented by the patient.
Clinical material is reported, with emphasis on the technical implications of these psychogenetic factors and theoretical concepts in the psychoanalytic-treatment of such cases.