This book is concerned with the primitive edge of human experience. It explores the idea that human experience is the product of the dialectical interplay of three modes of generating experience: the depressive, the paranoid-schizoid, and the autistic-contiguous.



Ogden constructs an anatomy and physiology of the psychic apparatus based on the interplay of the depressive, the paranoid-schizoid and the autistic - contiguous positions. The last position is his unique creation and refer to a primitive mode of experiencing that involves the moulding and shaping of boundaries.