Thus, any threat to her children is interpreted to mean a threat on her Self. Her reaction is, therefore, strong and enduring and can be recurrently elicited. The truth, of course, is that her children are a part of her identity in a superficial manner. Removing them will make her a different person, but only in the shallow, phenomenological sense of the word. Her deep-set, true identity will not change as a result.
Children do die at times and their mother does go on living, essentially unchanged.
It is our personality. This elusive, loosely interconnected, interacting, pattern of reactions to our changing environment. Like the Brain, it is difficult to define or to capture. Like the Soul, many believe that it does not exist, that it is a fictitious convention. Yet, we know that we do have a personality.