Franz Breuer's insightful considerations are based on the relationship between predecessor and successor in the management of family businesses and their specific development dynamics. Structurally similar traits and patterns can also be found in other contexts and situations that deal with changes and transitions between people and objects with identity potential: the transfer of "personal objects". When an element leaves or exits such a person-object coupling, the participants decide existential questions regarding the continuity of the institutional or interpersonal system, its change or its demise: What remains of me? How much am I determined by the past? Can I realize myself? For the first time, Franz Breuer is developing a comprehensive and empirically based theory on this topic. The diversity of the areas and examples discussed opens up new perspectives for the reader in a profound and at the same time entertaining way - also through their own involvement in predecessor-successor transitions.