Endopsychic structure

Fairbairn's model of the mind, put in place of Freud's id, ego and superego. Faced with a parent who both excites and frustrates, the infant internalises the unsatisfying object and splits it into an exciting object and a rejecting object, and the ego splits with it into a central ego, a libidinal ego bound to the exciting object and an internal saboteur bound to the rejecting object. Each part of the ego is a dynamic structure with its own energy, and the central ego keeps the other two repressed.