  The damping of single-particle and collective motion in exotic isotopes is a
new topic and its study may shed light on basic problems of nuclear dynamics.
For instance, it is known that nuclear structure calculations are not able, as
a rule, to account completely for the empirical single-particle damping. In
this contribution, we present calculations of the single-particle self-energy
in the case of the neutron-rich light nucleus $^{28}$O, by taking proper care
of the continuum, and we show that there are important differences with the
case of nuclei along the valley of stability.
