 I took you on a tour of several approaches to the concept of self, well into the, well into the thirties or the forties, we had this image similar to the atomic theory. We have this image of there was an indivisible self. Every individual has had an indivisible self. And so that's why we call it indivisible. And then gradually with Melanie Klein and others, we begin to understand that the self can fracture and break and can contain a variety of objects. It's like the development in physics transition from the atomic model to elementary particles. And then we realize that even these particles can be broken further. Some atomic particles can be broken even further to quarks like in physics. And so we had a multiplicity of egos, for example, in object relations theories, ego states in ego state theory, some personalities in psychodynamic theories, self states in dissociation and trauma related theories, never mind the name you give them. The self is not unitary. It's a dynamic process. It's a dynamic process that is critically influenced by input from the environment, from other people, external objects, and increasingly input provided by internal objects. The relationships between these internal objects are very critical. If these internal objects are perceived as painful, hurtful, life threatening, if they are perceived as persecutory, if they are perceived as good, well-intentioned and positive, it makes all the difference in the world. Is there a coordinating, organizing principle at work? Is there a guidance? Is there a use in internalized user manual, which we call the self? We don't know. I personally don't think so actually. I think we don't have a self. I reject Freud's model. I don't think we have this core central identity that is unchangeable, that is permanent, that is with us forever. I do think that healthy people have much more of a core than a narcissist. I do think that they have, let's say, 40% cores, 80% core. In other words, I do think they have their act together. They have an organizing and explanatory principle in action, and it is applied equally to all ego states, all self states, whatever you want to call it. But I think everyone uses self states. Everyone transitions. The question is the degree and access to resources. In healthy individuals, the self states share. They access the same resources. They compare nodes. They have a unique pool, the same pool of memory. Consequently, they contribute to the formation of identity over time. In disease people, in sick people, people with mental health pathologies, the self states compete. They fight. They're polarized. They refuse to share resources. They hoard resources. They have exclusive resources. They take over. They become executive. So they regard all the other self states as objects. They suppress them. There's a constant civil war because there's no, no one to tell them what to do. There's no organizing principle. There's no consensus. There's no agreement. In most people with dissociative identity disorders, something called the host personality. It's the closest approximation to an ego or a self. But even the host personality is not in full control. In the narcissist and the borderline, we have the false self. It's the closest thing to an ego or a self, but it's not it. In a codependent and a borderline, we have an internalized, internalized intimate partner who then become a self surrogate or an ego surrogate. It's not it. It's not enough. In the absence of a self, in the absence of an ego, you are an absence. And as an absence to act upon a world and in a world of presences and real life external objects is very close to impossible. Ultimately, all these personality disorder people withdraw into a schizoid phase. I mean, if they're not treated, if there's no treatment involved, if we let the diseases, the disorders progress unimpeded and uninterrupted and unintervent in, these people end up as schizoids. They end up homeless, they end up alone, they die alone, they end up ruminating and brooding. They end up living much more in the past than in the present or the future. They end up disappearing externally as they had always been absent and void internally.