From Marina Komissarova and Carl Gustav Jung to a Model of Psychic Reality
Marina Komissarova is a Russian psychologist and blogger who has developed her own conceptual system for describing relationships, psychological boundaries, attachment, and personal development. Much of this system is presented through recurring metaphors and character patterns rather than through conventional academic terminology.
One such classification uses four literary names: Onegin, Rapunzel, Pechorin, and Cinderella. In very simplified terms, Onegin and Rapunzel tend to merge psychologically with people they like, whereas Pechorin and Cinderella maintain separation but are prone to distance, individualism, and frustration. Komissarova describes development beyond both problems in terms of increasingly well-formed psychological boundaries.
In her article “Stages in the Formation of Boundaries,” Komissarova asks why some people tend to “merge boundaries” with those they like, while others maintain separation.
Her answer is unexpected:
“Because they feel no danger whatsoever from people they like.”
If a person senses danger, Komissarova writes, they keep their distance. But if another person is attractive and does not seem dangerous, that person begins to be perceived as “one of us” and then as an “extension of oneself.” The person imaginatively joins self and other into a single whole and relates to the other as though the other were a loving mother and the person themselves a nursing infant.
Komissarova describes the opposite pattern through Pechorins and Cinderellas. From childhood, they understand that other people exist separately from them, that even the mother is “in opposition” to them, that everyone is ultimately for themselves, and that the human being is fundamentally alone.
Komissarova interprets these states as different stages in the formation of boundaries. They can, however, be interpreted differently: as two different forms of one-sidedness in the attitude toward the object.
Such an interpretation becomes possible if Komissarova’s concept is compared with Carl Gustav Jung’s distinction between the extraverted and introverted attitudes and both attitudes are then considered within the model of psychic reality proposed here.
The Attitude Toward the Object
For Carl Gustav Jung, extraversion and introversion are not simply characteristics of sociability or reserve. They are two different attitudes of the psyche toward the object.
In the model proposed here, the distinction can be formulated as follows.
With an extraverted attitude, the psyche generates content about the environment independently of its relevance to the subject.
With an introverted attitude, the psyche selects from the environment what is relevant to the subject. It abstracts from features that are irrelevant to the subject.
It is important not to confuse attitude with psychic function.
The function determines what kind of content is generated:
- S — perception of invariants;
- N — perception of change;
- F — significance for the subject;
- T — significance for the non-subject.
Attitude determines something different: whether content is selected according to its relevance to the subject or generated independently of that relevance.
Both introverted and extraverted functions therefore perceive real objects in the environment. Introverted perception is no less “real” than extraverted perception. It simply abstracts from what is irrelevant to the subject.
This distinction allows Komissarova’s description of psychological boundaries to be read in a different way.
When the Environment Is “Mother”
Komissarova writes that a person prone to merging ceases to perceive danger from an attractive object. The object becomes “one of us” and then an “extension of oneself.”
In her terminology, these are poor boundaries.
If we consider this phenomenon through the distinction between attitudes toward the object, however, we can see here the one-sidedness of an extraverted attitude.
With an extraverted attitude, the environment exists independently of the subject. Its content is not selected according to how relevant it is to the subject.
Such an attitude does not in itself lead to merging. The problem arises when it remains uncompensated by the opposite attitude.
It is this kind of one-sidedness that can be compared with Komissarova’s Onegins and Rapunzels.
The object attracts the person; the person opens to the object; the separation of boundaries disappears. Komissarova describes the result as turning the other into a “loving mother” and oneself into an infant.
In Jungian terms, extraverted one-sidedness can be described as excessive determination by the object, to the point at which the subject appears to become insufficiently accounted for or “lost” before the object.
This Jungian formulation should not be transferred literally into the model proposed here.
Here, the subject is an atomic pole of psychic reality in the dichotomy:
subject — environment
The subject cannot “disappear” or be “less represented.” Jung’s notion of the “loss of the subject” should therefore be understood here only as a description of the phenomenon of a one-sided extraverted attitude, not as a description of the structure of the subject in the present model.
When the Environment Is “Stepmother”
The opposite extreme is particularly interesting.
Komissarova writes of Pechorins and Cinderellas that:
other people are not mother;
even mother is “in opposition”;
everyone is for themselves;
man is a wolf to man;
the human being is fundamentally alone.
Komissarova regards this as a state in which boundaries have already formed, although it is still an imperfect stage: such people have learned to separate themselves from others but have not yet learned to love while preserving that separation.
From the perspective of the present model, this can be understood as one-sidedness of the introverted attitude.
With an introverted attitude, the environment is represented through its relevance to the subject.
This does not mean that the introvert distorts or invents external reality.
An introvert may perceive real changes, real invariants, and real significance with complete accuracy. But out of all possible content, the psychic model primarily includes what is relevant to the subject.
For precisely this reason, the independence of the environment becomes difficult to represent under a one-sided introverted attitude.
If an object enters the model through its relevance to the subject, it becomes something for the subject:
beneficial or detrimental;
supportive or obstructive;
useful or harmful;
safe or dangerous.
In the simplest image:
either a loving mother or a wicked stepmother.
The third possibility—
the environment exists independently of the subject and is not organized around the subject’s well-being at all
—requires the opposite, extraverted attitude.
Why the Absence of Care Turns into Hostility
The logic of Komissarova’s Pechorin and Cinderella is especially revealing here.
Initially, a person may expect:
the environment takes care of me.
Then the person discovers:
other people take care of their own interests.
Under a one-sided introverted attitude, it is difficult to move directly from this discovery to the neutral proposition:
they exist independently of me.
Because the environment is still represented through its relevance to the subject, the absence of care for the subject can easily acquire the opposite sign:
if they are not for me, they are against me.
Mother turns into stepmother.
This is why Komissarova’s formulation that even the mother is “in opposition” is so revealing.
“In opposition” is not a description of an independent environment.
It is still a description of the object in relation to the subject.
The object remains relevant to the subject; only the sign of that relevance changes.
Not Stages, but Two Different Forms of One-Sidedness
In the interpretation proposed here, Onegin/Rapunzel and Pechorin/Cinderella are not successive stages through which the same person passes.
They correspond to two different forms of one-sidedness in the attitude toward the object.
In a person whose main function has an extraverted attitude and who is on the Left Path, that attitude is not differentially compensated by introverted functions. Komissarova’s merging Onegin and Rapunzel can be associated with this form of one-sidedness.
In a person whose main function has an introverted attitude and who is on the Left Path, differentiated compensation by extraverted functions is absent. Komissarova’s Pechorin and Cinderella can be associated with this form: the environment is considered exclusively in terms of its relevance to the subject and therefore appears either favourable or unfavourable to the subject.
One form is not a stage leading to the other. The attitude of the main function does not change when a person moves from the Left Path to the Right Path.
What changes is the structure of its compensation.
An extravert on the Left Path does not first have to acquire introverted one-sidedness in order to arrive at a compensated attitude. On the Right Path, the extraverted main function remains extraverted, but two differentiated functions with an introverted attitude are present.
Likewise, an introvert does not first pass through extraverted one-sidedness. The main function remains introverted, while on the Right Path its attitude is compensated by two differentiated extraverted functions.
The model therefore does not propose:
uncompensated extraverted attitude → uncompensated introverted attitude → compensation
nor the reverse.
Instead, there are two different transitions, depending on the attitude of the main function:
uncompensated extraverted attitude → compensated extraverted attitude
or
uncompensated introverted attitude → compensated introverted attitude.
Compensation of Attitude in Jung
Jung repeatedly argued that the one-sidedness of the conscious attitude is compensated by the opposite attitude of the unconscious.
A conscious extraverted tendency is accompanied by introverted compensation.
A conscious introverted tendency is accompanied by extraverted compensation.
In classical Jungian theory, this compensation is described primarily in terms of the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious.
The model proposed here makes it possible to describe compensation differently and more structurally.
Compensation is provided by differentiated functions of the opposite attitude.
This is where the distinction between the Right Path and the Left Path becomes crucial.
The Right Path: Both Attitudes Are Represented by Differentiated Functions
On the Right Path, consciousness contains not only the main function and not only functions with the same attitude as the main function.
Two differentiated functions have an attitude opposite to that of the main function.
The one-sidedness of the main attitude is therefore structurally compensated.
If the Main Function Is Extraverted
The extraverted attitude generates content about the environment independently of its relevance to the subject.
But on the Right Path there are also two differentiated introverted functions.
They generate content selected according to its relevance to the subject.
The extraverted attitude therefore does not remain the psyche’s only mode of relating to the object.
Alongside content about the environment as independent of the subject, there is content about the same environment selected for its relevance to the subject.
The extraverted attitude on the Right Path is therefore compensated by the introverted attitude.
For this reason, extraversion itself should not be identified with the merging of boundaries that Komissarova describes in Onegin and Rapunzel.
If the Main Function Is Introverted
With an introverted attitude, content about the environment is selected according to its relevance to the subject.
But on the Right Path there are two differentiated extraverted functions.
They generate content about the environment independently of its relevance to the subject.
The environment therefore ceases to be represented exclusively through the question:
What does this mean for the subject?
Other content is also present in consciousness: content concerning the environment independently of its relation to the subject.
For this reason, an introverted attitude on the Right Path need not produce either the image of a loving mother or that of a wicked stepmother.
It is compensated by the extraverted attitude.
Compensation Is Not the Correction of One Attitude by the Other
It is important to emphasize that one attitude is not “correct” while the other repairs its deficiencies.
The extraverted attitude is not less mature because it is oriented toward the environment independently of its relevance to the subject.
The introverted attitude is not less mature because it selects content according to its relevance to the subject.
Both attitudes are necessary.
Both can become one-sided if the opposite attitude is not represented by differentiated functions.
Compensation therefore does not mean correcting an error. It means the coexistence of two different modes of relating to the object.
This gives a different interpretation of Jung’s idea that the conscious attitude is compensated by the opposite attitude of the unconscious.
In the model proposed here, what Jung described as compensation receives a specific functional structure.
The Left Path: Only the Main Function Is Differentiated
The structure is different on the Left Path.
Only the main function remains differentiated.
The other three functions form an undifferentiated complex.
The opposite attitude is therefore not represented by two differentiated functions in the way it is on the Right Path.
The main attitude remains uncompensated.
This makes possible the two contrasting patterns described by Komissarova.
Uncompensated Extraverted Attitude
If the main function is extraverted and there is no differentiated introverted compensation, the extraverted attitude becomes one-sided.
This one-sidedness can be associated with Komissarova’s Onegins and Rapunzels, who, when they like someone, begin to perceive the other as “one of us” and as an “extension of themselves.”
In Jungian terminology, this can be described in terms of excessive determination by the object and the “loss of the subject.”
In the present model, however, the expression “loss of the subject” is not used literally. The subject remains the atomic pole of psychic reality.
What is at issue is an uncompensated extraverted attitude toward the object.
Komissarova describes one possible manifestation of this condition as the merging of boundaries.
Uncompensated Introverted Attitude
If the main function is introverted and there is no differentiated extraverted compensation, the environment is represented primarily through its relevance to the subject.
This one-sidedness can be associated with Komissarova’s Pechorins and Cinderellas.
Here the other is no longer perceived as an extension of the subject. On the contrary, separateness is strongly emphasized.
But that separateness itself remains relevant to the subject.
The other:
will not take care of me;
has interests of their own;
may act against my interests;
may constitute a danger.
Hence:
everyone is for themselves;
man is a wolf to man;
the human being is fundamentally alone.
The independence of the environment is unavailable as a neutral category.
If the environment is not mother, it becomes stepmother.
Why Correct Rules Do Not Solve the Problem
A large number of perfectly reasonable rules can be formulated:
other people have interests of their own;
another person should not be treated as an extension of oneself;
one should not expect others to satisfy one’s needs;
not everyone is dangerous;
other people’s boundaries should be respected.
A person on the Left Path may sincerely agree with every one of these propositions.
But agreement with a correct proposition does not create differentiated functions of the opposite attitude.
A person with an uncompensated extraverted attitude may know:
“The other person is not an extension of me.”
That knowledge does not itself create differentiated introverted compensation.
A person with an uncompensated introverted attitude may repeat:
“The environment is not hostile to me.”
That statement does not itself create differentiated extraverted functions capable of generating content about the environment independently of its relevance to the subject.
This is why psychological advice that is correct at the level of explicit propositions may change very little in the organization of psychic content.
The problem does not lie primarily at the level of beliefs.
It lies at the level of function differentiation and the compensation of attitude.
Good Boundaries as an Effect of Compensated Attitude
We can now return to Komissarova’s concise formula:
“Good boundaries mean opening up without merging.”
This formula describes the result well, but not necessarily the mechanism that produces it.
In the model proposed here, the ability to “open up without merging” can be understood as a consequence of the main function’s attitude being compensated by differentiated functions of the opposite attitude.
When the main function is extraverted, the psyche generates content about the environment independently of its relevance to the subject. On the Right Path, however, differentiated introverted functions simultaneously generate content selected according to its relevance to the subject.
When the main function is introverted, the psyche selects content about the environment according to its relevance to the subject. On the Right Path, however, differentiated extraverted functions simultaneously generate content independently of that relevance.
Neither attitude therefore becomes the psyche’s only differentiated mode of relating to the object.
This is the crucial structural difference between the Right Path and the Left Path.
Neither Mother nor Stepmother
The images of “mother” and “stepmother” make this distinction particularly clear.
Under a one-sided introverted attitude, the environment is perceived through its relevance to the subject.
It therefore appears as something for the subject.
If it satisfies the subject’s needs, it is “mother.”
If it becomes clear that it is not concerned with the subject’s well-being, the opposite interpretation arises: it is “stepmother.”
This is why the discovery that the environment is independent can be experienced not as the neutral recognition:
“It exists independently of me,”
but as:
“It threatens me.”
In both cases, the environment is still being considered in relation to the subject.
The attitude has not changed. Only the sign of relevance has changed.
On the Right Path, the introverted attitude is compensated by differentiated extraverted functions. Alongside content that is relevant to the subject, the psyche therefore generates content about the environment independently of that relevance.
A possibility then appears that is unavailable to a one-sided introverted attitude:
the environment can be neither mother nor stepmother.
It can simply exist independently of the subject.
The Extraverted Attitude Does Not Have to Become Introverted
Conversely, none of this means that an extravert must learn to view the world primarily in terms of its relevance to the subject in order to develop good boundaries.
That would merely replace one attitude with the other.
This does not happen on the Right Path.
The extraverted main function remains extraverted. The environment continues to be represented independently of its relevance to the subject.
Compensation is provided by other differentiated functions with an introverted attitude.
The two attitudes therefore retain their distinct character.
Likewise, an introvert on the Right Path does not cease to be an introvert. The main function continues to generate content selected according to its relevance to the subject. But two differentiated extraverted functions prevent that attitude from becoming the only differentiated attitude.
Compensation does not eliminate the main attitude.
It eliminates its one-sidedness.
From Jung to a Functional Model of Compensation
This is also where it becomes clear that the proposed model does more than restate Jung in different terminology.
Jung identified the general principle: the conscious attitude tends toward one-sidedness, while the opposite attitude performs a compensatory function.
In his model, however, compensation is described largely through the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious.
The model proposed here specifies a more concrete structure.
On the Right Path:
the attitude of the main function + two differentiated functions of the opposite attitude.
On the Left Path:
only the main function is differentiated; the opposite attitude is not represented by two differentiated functions.
The distinction between the Right Path and the Left Path can therefore explain why the same attitude may manifest itself in very different ways.
Extraversion in itself does not mean merging.
Introversion in itself does not mean vigilance or the perception of the environment as threatening.
These extremes arise when the attitude is uncompensated.
A Different Interpretation of Komissarova’s Character Patterns
From this perspective, Komissarova’s character typology acquires a different meaning.
Her observations can be retained without accepting her proposed sequence of developmental stages.
She describes two very different ways of relating to the object.
Onegin and Rapunzel
The other easily becomes “one of us” and then an “extension of oneself.” When attraction appears, the boundary disappears.
This pattern can be associated with an uncompensated extraverted attitude.
Pechorin and Cinderella
The other is clearly separate. Yet that separateness is still perceived in relation to the subject: the other has interests of their own, will not take care of the subject, and may be in opposition to the subject. Hence the ideas that “everyone is for themselves” and “man is a wolf to man.”
This pattern can be associated with an uncompensated introverted attitude.
These are therefore not two stages that a person must successively pass through.
They are two different forms of one-sidedness in the attitude toward the object, corresponding to different attitudes of the main function.
One does not develop into the other.
For a person whose main function is extraverted, the relevant transition is:
uncompensated extraverted attitude → compensated extraverted attitude.
For a person whose main function is introverted:
uncompensated introverted attitude → compensated introverted attitude.
What Komissarova calls good boundaries can therefore be understood not as the next stage after both extremes, but as an effect of compensation of the main attitude on the Right Path.
What Exactly Is Being Compensated?
It is important to emphasize once more that what is being compensated is the attitude, not the rational or irrational character of the function and not the kind of significance it generates.
An introverted T remains a function generating significance for the non-subject.
An introverted F remains a function generating significance for the subject.
Introverted S and N remain functions perceiving invariants and changes.
The same applies to extraverted functions.
Attitude does not determine the content of the function.
It determines the relation of that content to relevance for the subject.
Compensation of an introverted attitude by an extraverted one therefore does not mean, for example, that “the subject’s needs” are compensated by information about another person.
Nor does compensation of an extraverted attitude by an introverted one mean that some “lost subject” is restored to the psyche.
Such formulations would mix different levels of the model.
What is compensated is specifically the one-sidedness of the attitude toward the object.
Boundaries as a Structural Effect
This also makes it possible to move away from the idea that good boundaries are primarily a set of learned rules.
A person may know all the rules:
the other is separate;
the other should not be appropriated;
everyone has a right to their own wishes;
not everyone is dangerous;
closeness does not mean merging.
But this knowledge in itself does not alter the differentiation status of the functions.
The question can therefore be formulated differently.
Not:
What beliefs must a person learn in order to develop good boundaries?
But:
Under what organization of psychic functions do the phenomena described as good boundaries arise naturally?
The hypothesis proposed here is that the relevant condition is the compensation of the main function’s attitude by differentiated functions of the opposite attitude on the Right Path.
Neither merging with the object nor defensive distancing from it is then required.
Not because the person has learned the correct formula for relationships, but because the psyche is no longer restricted to one differentiated attitude toward the object.
Conclusion
Komissarova’s statement that people merge boundaries because they “feel no danger whatsoever from people they like” provides an unexpected starting point for examining psychological boundaries.
She contrasts merging with the discovery of the other’s separateness: other people are egoistic, everyone takes care of their own interests, and even the mother may stand “in opposition.” This hostile separateness must then, in Komissarova’s developmental scheme, be transformed into a calm acceptance of other people’s independent interests.
When this construction is compared with Jung’s attitudes toward the object, another interpretation becomes possible.
Onegin/Rapunzel and Pechorin/Cinderella are not successive developmental stages. They represent two different forms of one-sidedness in the attitude toward the object.
The first can be associated with an uncompensated extraverted attitude.
The second can be associated with an uncompensated introverted attitude.
A person does not move from one of these forms of one-sidedness to the other. The attitude of the main function remains unchanged.
On the Right Path, its one-sidedness is compensated by two differentiated functions of the opposite attitude.
The extraverted attitude remains extraverted.
The introverted attitude remains introverted.
Neither is treated as more mature, more correct, or safer.
They compensate each other.
The title Neither Mother nor Stepmother can therefore be understood literally within the model.
Under a one-sided introverted attitude, the environment cannot be psychologically neutral in relation to the subject, because what enters the model is precisely what is relevant to the subject. The environment therefore appears either favourable—“mother”—or unfavourable—“stepmother.”
The extraverted attitude introduces another possibility:
the environment exists independently of its relevance to the subject.
The introverted attitude, meanwhile, preserves content selected according to its relevance to the subject.
On the Right Path, both possibilities are simultaneously present through differentiated functions.
Good psychological boundaries therefore need not be understood primarily as a set of rules that must be learned.
They can be understood as a structural effect of a consciousness in which neither of the two attitudes toward the object remains one-sided.