Didier Anzieu on boundaries and boundlessness

What is it about?

Didier Anzieu’s notion of the skin-ego builds upon a long psychoanalytic tradition, which began with Freud’s idea that the ego is first and foremost a body ego, a projection in the psyche of the surface of the body, or in other words, that psychical phenomena are always embodied. An interface, a container for the ego, but also its origin – Didier Anzieu thought in this way of the psychical function of the skin. The baby’s fantasy of having a common skin with the mother constitutes the concrete starting point for a development that, through the prohibition on touching, leads to the experience of being a separate and individual person. Psychoanalytical work with severe mental disorders makes it necessary to investigate deficiencies in the skin-ego’s containing function before we can investigate the psychical contents. In the psychoanalytical situation, the analyst’s words replace tactile contact and thereby contribute to healing injuries to the skin-ego. The clinical implications of Anzieu’s theoretical model are illustrated by examples from psychoanalyses of children and adults. The close connection between touch, psychical envelopes, and thinking opens a wider perspective on the necessity of setting limits to the violence against nature and against human beings.

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