The Sense of Aliveness and Feelings of Being Real.

This is an account of a young woman who grew up with feelings of depersonalization, derealization, and lack of agency, so that she often didn't feel real or completely alive. While the psychological basis for these feelings seemed clear in her early developmental history, it was discovered that she also had major visual and psychomotor disabilities that exacerbated her situation in complicated ways. This paper touches on some of the narcissistic problems that make it difficult for the analyst to accurately view and to work holistically with issues of psyche-soma.

The empty self and the perils of attachment.

This article describes clinical work with patients who come to treatment looking for help with chronic experiences of emptiness as well as concomitant fears of relational impingement. We relate these difficulties to distortions in the integration of basic developmental functions, and we suggest a point of view including tangible yet unobtrusive interventions that we have found helpful. We discuss countertransference issues raised by these patients as well as possible etiology.