"Only the good die young"
The parental imago of Death for the echoist is tied to a "good object." Good object is so general, because what is good is very different depending on one's libidinal position. However, for the subject altruist, it is the nurturing, pure, kind, and protective parental-substitute.
It can be an ego injury if the beloved good object dies or leaves, and also if the beloved good object doesn't give one the love or protection that one depends on.
In projective identification, the people who have assertiveness issues and problems saying no to others have become the good/dead parental imago. They imagine that saying no, or not giving to those in their life who ask for their help will result in those people being angry with them, thinking they are selfish, and not wanting to be close to them any more. Invariably, they experienced these feelings themselves with their parents or parental-substitutes in the past and defended against this injury with PI.
I can't back this up with clinical data yet, but it seems like the actual death or departure of the good parental imago is what leads to the mania that belongs to the subject altruist. Identification with literal Death/departure seems to go with a compensatory overproduction of energy. Of course this state is also tied to a primitive imago due to its relation to bodily energy (as opposed to relations to others). This mania has powerful sense of merger with the environment and Death is also loss of the boundaries of self.
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