The Skin Ego: A New Translation by Naomi Segal

The author's concept of the Skin-ego is the answer to questions he regards as crucial to contemporary psychoanalysis: questions of topography which were left incomplete by Freud; the analysis of fantasies of the container as of the contained; issues of touch between mothers and babies. In this classic work, Didier Anzieu presents and develops his theory of the importance of 'the Skin-ego'. Just as the skin is wrapped around the body, so Anzieu sees the 'Skin-ego' as a psychical wrapping containing, defining and consolidating the subject. From this perspective, the structure and functions of the skin can provide psychoanalysts and general readers with a fertile and practical metaphor.Anzieu's concept of the Skin-ego is the answer to questions he regards as crucial to contemporary psychoanalysis: questions of topography which were left incomplete by Freud; the analysis of fantasies of the container as of the contained; issues of touch between mothers and babies; extending the concept of prohibitions within an Oedipal framework to those derived from a prohibition on touching; and questions pertaining to the representation of the body and to its psychoanalytic setting.This new translation of Le Moi-peau is based on the second and last (1995) edition. The translator, Professor Naomi Segal, is Professorial Fellow in French and German Studies at Birkbeck, University of London.