“The Skin is the Cradle of the Soul”: Didier Anzieu on the Skin-Ego, Boundaries, and Boundlessness

Abstract

Didier Anzieu’s notion of the skin-ego builds on a long psychoanalytic tradition that 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, the idea that psychic phenomena are always embodied. An interface, a container for the ego, but also its origin: thus did Anzieu conceptualize the skin’s psychic function. The baby’s fantasy of having a common skin with the mother is the concrete starting point for a development that, through the prohibition on touching, leads to the experience of being a separate and individual person. Psychoanalytic work with severe mental disorders makes it necessary to investigate deficiencies in the skin-ego’s containing function before the patient’s psychic contents can be explored. In the psychoanalytic 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, psychic envelopes, and thinking opens a wider perspective on the necessity of setting limits to violence, against both nature and human beings.