RESEARCH ARTICLE Matrix of the mind. An investigation into mother–child continuity Paolo Azzone Department of Juridical Mental Health. ASST‐Rhodense, Garbagnate, Milan, Italy Correspondence Paolo Azzone, Via Statuto 9, 20020 Lainate MI, Italy. Email: paoloazzone@hotmail.com Abstract Matrix, Wachowsky sisters' blockbuster, depicts an ominous scenario where sensory reality is illusory and the feigned product of hostile forces. Such general mistrust towards the contents of experience has underlain the whole course of Western philosophy from Plato to Descartes. The paper explores the hypothesis the movie reflects a basic human anxiety about unconscious represen- tation of interpersonal reality. Relying on some basic insights of Freud's and Fairbairn's the author propose a model of human dependence where the passive sharing of the love‐object's uncon- scious phantasies is a basic dimension. This set of resident object's phantasies is termed matrix. The hypothesis is illustrated through clinical material. KEYWORDS dependence, history of philosophy, interpersonal psychoanalysis, Kleinian developments 1 | MOVIE BLOCKBUSTER In 1999 movie audiences worldwide enthusiastically greeted Matrix, a science fiction film directed by the sisters Lana and Lilly Wachowsky. The plot goes as follows: Neo, the main character, discovers the world, as he and most humans perceive it, is not real. Sensory input would be projected on him by hostile powers, through a computer program, called Matrix. Neo, in fact most men and women, would be kept prisoner in a vat by mysterious machines in order to drain some indefinite energy: humans would be captive, cheated, exploited. A small minority have escaped such doom: the Resistance, engaged in a heroic and merciless war in the real world against the machines. Neo is confronted with a basic question about his own identity: is he entitled to the messianic role of leading the final battle against the machines? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received: 22 September 2016 Revised: 17 January 2017 Accepted: 9 June 2017 DOI: 10.1002/aps.1537 Int J Appl Psychoanal Studies. 2017;1–14. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/aps 1