Personal Membrane

Strong and permeable together are the whole definition, and holding both at once is what distinguishes this from an endosocial membrane. A personal membrane controls intimacy, meaning it regulates what passes rather than preventing passage, and it permits the establishment of euphoric and empathic conduits, which an endosocial membrane blocks. So the same shape performs opposite functions depending on whether things can get through. Marsh points at what other vocabularies reach for here, since a personal membrane holds self esteem, dignity, integrity and face, and people speak of personal bubbles protecting them from what some circles call psychic predators. English handles the territory badly and names the effects rather than the thing. Damage to the membrane or depletion of its euphoric content is an existential threat to the person inside, which is why attacks on privacy, reputation and relationships are attacks on the capacity to hold a position rather than on comfort. Autonomy is the precondition. It is impossible to create a strong autonomous membrane without bodily autonomy, which many people in sublated positions do not have, and autonomy is not a state of power but a state free from power. Integrity is defined as strength of personal membrane and exosocial network together, so the membrane is half of what makes a person robust and the conduits passing through it are the other half.

Boundaries in psychotherapy name much the same thing, with healthy boundaries described as firm and flexible and their absence as enmeshment, and the language has passed into ordinary use. Personal space research measures the physical version, and the psychology of privacy treats selective disclosure as identity regulation, following Irwin Altman. Marsh's version differs by making the membrane a real structure with a specified function rather than a metaphor for interpersonal habits, which is what allows the same term to explain why isolation enables coercion, why surveillance transfers dignity and why torture targets the innermost circle.