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Candice, I have a feeling my remark was referring to social realities rather than psychological syndromes, although what you describe is quite recognisable - ie I was rather more literally thinking that I cannot think how a person could survive without some degree of dependence on other people: and that therefore any kind of autonomy of the self cannot but be ultimately an illusion. How this squares up with Wittgenstein's argument on solipsism I have no idea. But I have a feeling they are linked. I'm a little blurred this week - I finished my book, all 380 pages of it. (Yes!) Naturally I've come down with a shocking cold... But some thoughts - Love which seeks to be more than a projection of individual desire onto an unwitting, even if willing, object - there are some who argue there is no such thing - requires the self to permit the other. To love the other for him/her self, beyond the controlling expectations of the lover, which can be a shattering experience for the self. I link this in fact with acceptance of death. In this case an autonomous self, in the less radical sense you mean, might be one which can survive this shattering and construe it as positive, can see that the boundaries which vanish under the pressures of alterity are limiting and blinding. What might less than ideally be perceived as indifference might be in ideal circumstances seen as acceptance. Rather than the trammels of possession the autonomous lover might seek mutual freedom. No question that this is difficult almost to the point of impossibility, but at this point I can't help thinking of Rilke's comment that lovers should seek to protect each other solitudes. Not that Rilke was the most stunningly successful of partners...but I think he had a clue or two about the problems. Of course there are many kinds of love beside romantic love. All equally difficult. But difficult need not be negative. Writing poems is difficult. Best Alison %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%