Fragmentation
The feeling that things are falling apart can be experienced as a mental or physical phenomenon.
L, who always carries a knife, unexpectedly found herself in a room with a rival whom she feared would win the attention of a man she was attached to. She had the concrete experience of her arms coming off her body and saw them disappearing into ‘space’.
In the integrated state (arms attached), L had had the motivation and capacity to use the knife.
