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When fantasies of the catastrophic and irreparable [[destruction]] of the object predominate, given that the [[subject]] has very little confidence in his libidinal capacities, [[feelings]] of [[guilt]] become intolerable and feelings of sadness are massively denied. The ego can only resort to archaic mechanisms of [[defense]]: [[splitting]], [[denial]], projective [[identification]], [[idealization]], etc.—the mechanisms proper to schizo-[[paranoid]] functioning or to the dynamics of extreme melancholia, with confusion between the ego and the object attacked (the "parapsychotic" depressive conflict proper to borderline or [[psychotic]] [[structures]]).
When fantasies of severe and barely reparable damage or [[death]] of the objects take the upper hand, the ego will be confronted with intense feelings of guilt and sadness. The significant [[repression]] of the [[aggressive]] drives towards the object (an [[aggressiveness]] that reinforces the severity of the [[SuperEgo|superego]]) will make it possible for the [[negative]] affects to be partially denied. The ego will succeed in keeping the conflict interiorized but at the cost of diverse inhibitions in the functions of the ego. Thus, the [[symbolic]] possibilities of the [[individual]] are limited, but are not qualitatively affected. This very narrow form of repression is often insufficient, and the ego also has to resort to maniacal defenses or to defenses of a melancholic type, which then determine the clinical manifestations of mood disturbances.
When feelings of abandonment and [[rejection]] prevail—i.e., when the experiences of loss are above all fantasies such as the loss of the object's love—depressive conflict will take a "paraneurotic form." The feelings of sadness are often [[conscious]], for guilt is less intense and can equally easily become conscious. The ego's greater confidence in its libidinal capacities gives these [[subjects]] a profusion of fantasies of reparation that will counteract the damage done to the object, damage that is fantasized as resulting from their own aggressiveness. These fantasies underlie many of the [[neurotic]] mechanisms of defense, especially those of an [[obsessional]] kind, for example [[retroactive]] cancelling, reaction [[formation]], etc. Under their influence, repression authorizes a greater possibility of symbolic expression, which distinguishes neurotic repression from the massive repression of the depressive type. Such a libidinal predominance changes the [[nature]] of what is [[repressed]], for the counter-cathexis does not operate on aggressiveness alone, but also on the libidinal fantasies of an incestuous nature. This contributes to the [[sexual]] differentiation of parental objects, bringing into operation the conflict occasioned by triangulation and the [[Oedipus]] [[complex]].
FRANCISCO PALACIO ESPASA
See also: Abandonment; Acute [[psychoses]]; Adolescent crisis; [[Anaclisis]]/anaclitic; Anxiety; [[Dead]] [[mother]] complex; Depressive position; Essential depression; Guilt, [[unconscious]] [[sense]] of; Identification; Internal object; [[Lost Object|Lost object]]; Manic defenses; Mania; Melancholia; Mourning; "[[Mourning and Melancholia]]"; Psychoanalytical nosography; [[Self]]-[[punishment]]; [[Suicide]]; Superego; [[Transference]] depression.
