projective identification in the egoist, sexual difference in the volar stage.

Having to do intakes and go through the long, boring questions I've been struck by my experience of projective identification. A few egoistic patients with long criminal records have had the ability to make me feel impotent and anxious to ask them the variations of the same questions which I imagine the creators of the intake paperwork thought were clever ways to find inconsistencies. By expressing to the patients that I agreed with them that it was ridiculous and irritating they were able to elaborate on their common feelings of thinking there are "a lot of idiots in the world". The avowed that they were judgmental and had little patience with others who lacked "common sense". They were careful to say that this doesn't make them angry but and instead irritation and frustration were the key words.

Both patients caused an impressive feeling of their inaccessibility and completeness. They didn't seem to have any questions or ambivalences about life. Prison was bad and they needed to get out and when they got out they knew that they had to work and that's the end of the story.

One of them was very explicit that he has never had male friends and that he wanted to work with a woman.

I've posted about sexual difference at the phallic level that concerns, like social anxiety, the ideal of having an image-ego regarded as good by others (even if one has a double life or secretly breaks the mores). I've also mentioned that Reich, Stoller, and others have a sense of embodied sexual difference at the anal stage that references one's comportment. However, I've begun to wonder if it isn't possible that sexual difference isn't retroactively placed at the volar stage in the encounter with any other that isn't mediated through social hierarchy.  

I've posted about a female patient who was able to express the "disgust for anyone who isn't her" which seems to indicate that there is no sexual difference at the volar stage, but it's possible that there is a difference between the proto and deutero stages there.

It's also possible that this attitude is part of the anal stage.

Doing an intake isn't enough information, but I thought I'd share some of my thoughts anyway- even though no conclusions have been reached.