[The world as inner space. Kafka's "The Burrow" as a paradigm of paranoid spatial experience]

The paranoid's experience of space is illustrated in the present study by means of an investigation of paraphrenic senile psychosis and an analysis of Kafka's short story, "The Burrow". This may be characterized as an experience of increasing permeability and disintegration of boundaries between one's own, private space and that belonging to others, or between inside and outside. At first, a latent ego-weakness is compensated by shifting the self-boundaries onto the territory of one's dwelling which serves as an "external shell" for the self. The emphasis on fencing-off and isolation from the external world, however, renders the hidden, inner spaces ever more threatening. The protecting barriers change into fragile facades through which enemies are able to attack. Finally, the sheltering but, nevertheless, exposed inner spaces fall prey to threats from the outside. Paradoxically, the disintegration of the inner space of self comes about by the paranoid constantly taking the view point of his fictitious enemies; he, thereby, sees through and penetrates the very barriers which he himself has erected.