Pat lacked object constancy (see chapter 2 and Appendix B). Friendships and love relationships had to be constantly tested because she never felt secure with any human contact. Her need for reassurance was insatiable. She had been through countless other relationships in which she first appeared ingenuous and in need of caretaking and then tested them with outrageous demands. The relationships all ended with precisely the abandonment she feared; then she would repeat the process in her next romance.
