Melanie Klein

The depressive position and the paranoid-schizoid position have an increasing importance in psychoanalytic thinking today. Give an account of the origins of these concepts, and how they have influenced both Kleinian psychoanalysis and one other psychoanalytic school.

“I am aware how difficult it is to draw a sharp line between the anxietycontents and feelings of the paranoiac and those of the depressive, since they are so closely linked up with each other. But they can be distinguished…if, as a criterion of differentiation, one considers whether the persecution-anxiety is mainly related to the preservation of the ego—in which case it is paranoiac— or the preservation of the good internalized objects with whom the ego is identified as a whole. In the latter case—which is the case of the depressive— the anxiety and feelings of suffering are of a much more complex nature. The anxiety lest the good objects and with them the ego should be destroyed, or that they are in a state of disintegration, is interwoven with continuous and desperate efforts to save the good objects both internalized and external”1 Melanie Klein is the acclaimed founder of a unique and hitherto uncharted clinical theory and praxis in psychoanalysis. Her significant contributions to the psychoanalytic canon emerged from her robust, and typically Freudian, interpretational technique as applied to the analysis of children.2 Klein is accredited with giving the ‘inner world’ of the child an increasingly central role in the process of development and she had a significant influence on the theory and praxis of adult analysis also. During the course of her observational and therapeutic work, initially with children but not without the input of her analyses of adults, we can trace the development of what was to become a pre-eminent metapsychological theory of normal and abnormal ego-organisation based on a much more sensitive appraisal of the development of object-relationships within the growing mind of the infant.

In order to achieve the goal of this thesis, we must first delve into Klein’s flagship theoretical constructs, paying close attention to her seminal papers of 1935 and 1940, before elaborating the origins of some of her key concepts within her own and Freud’s work. Thereupon, some genealogical links will be traced to the works of several other key authors. The Kleinian corpus will be given a respectful coverage and the influence of these ideas on the independent school of British Psychoanalysis via the thought of Winnicott, as well as their impact on Kleinian psychoanalysis, will be summarised.

Starting with Klein’s examination in 1935 of the infant’s earliest part-object relations (to the mother’s breast), along with the attendant anxiety-situations3 imputed at this 1

Klein, M. (1935) ‘A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16: 145-174, pp. 152-153 2 Children’s play equates, for Kleinians, to the free association technique in adult analyses. Through play, the Kleinian analyst gains a rich insight into the phantasies active within the child’s mind.

3 Freud prefers ‘danger-situation’: “The situation that the child registers as ‘dangerous’, and from which it seeks to be protected, is accordingly that of non-gratification, of an increase in the tension caused by unmet needs, in the face of which it is entirely powerless…The situation of nongratification, in which the quanta of stimulation reach an unpleasurable level without being brought under control through processes of psychic utilization and release, must seem to the baby directly analogous to the experience of being born; it must seem to be a repetition of that same danger-situation. The common factor in both is the economic disruption caused by the sudden

pre-differentiated and helplessly dependant stage of growth, we can extract a description of the infantile psychotic anxiety qua paranoia that Klein supposed to be experienced by the infant when the mother is absent or out of sight. The fragments of understanding about the nature of this psychotic anxiety—traceable to several authors including Freud—had hitherto not been synthesised nor given a central place in psychoanalytic developmental theory. Klein, however, gives an elaborate, and at times plainly phantastical account of both the genesis of psychotic anxiety in infancy and the corresponding sadistic phantasies that predominate at different stages of libido organisation, highlighting mechanisms of a much more primitive and psychotic nature than were previously accessible to analytic treatment or understanding: According to Klein, as the infant defends itself against the terrors of retaliatory persecution, first from objects in the outside world, and later from internalised objects4, it has recourse to several mechanisms which become available at different stages of development and relate to the level of organisation of the ego as well as to the predominant phantasies emerging from the drives (libido) in that phase. Klein describes the sequence of ‘anxiety-situations, anxiety-contents and defencemechanisms’ as moving from paranoid- to depressive- and then to manic- positions.

Crucially, Klein conceived of the dynamic interplay of these positions as being much more fluid and dialectical than a simple linear progression from earlier positions to later ones. She believed that infants and adults are constantly prone to regress or advance into later or earlier modes of ego operation, once they have been achieved and become liable5. It is the capacity of the ego to cope with the onslaught of stimulation and frustration emanating, first, from the non-gratification of the partobjects in the external world, and then from the drives, that determines the movement from paranoid-to-depressive and from depressive-to-manic positions.

Speaking of the paranoid-schizoid position and borrowing a term from Laforgue6

increase in the quanta of stimulation demanding urgent processing: this factor is accordingly the real nub of the ‘danger’….There is no reason whatever to suppose that a child retains anything from its birth other than this means of identifying danger.” Freud, S. (1926) ‘Inhibition, Symptom and Fear’ pp. 205-206 in Freud, S. (2003). ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings’.

Translated by John Reddick. London: Penguin.

4 “Real objects and those installed within the ego correlate from the very beginning of development.

Anxiety manifests as exaggerated fixation to the mother or primary caregiver. Maternal absence arouses anxiety lest the child is at the mercy of his bad objects (internal and external) which is felt as the death of the mother or her return in the guise of the ‘bad’ mother.” Klein, M. (1935) ‘A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’ International Journal of PsychoAnalysis, 16: 145-174p. 150 5 See footnote §40 6 “In an earlier work I have described Scotomization (or the forming of mental “blind spots”) as a process of psychic depreciation, by means of which the individual attempts to deny everything which conflicts with his ego....contrary to what happens in normal repression, the mind…is really simply trying to evade a situation in which it has to endure frustration and which it apprehends as castration.” Laforgue, R. (1927) ‘Scotomization in Schizophrenia’ International Journal of PsychoAnalysis, 8: 472-478 p. 473

(whom Freud also credits7), Klein re-instantiates ‘Scotomisation’8 as one of the most primitive defence mechanisms available to the infant’s, as yet undifferentiated, ego.

‘Scotomization’ constitutes a denial of psychic reality and a restriction of the defence mechanisms of introjection and projection9, which consequently deny external reality also. This early form of defence is thought to be the basis of severe psychosis such as schizophrenia. At this point we must ask and be clear on exactly what it is that the infant’s ego is defending itself against. It is not the loss of the mother because this is a depressive mechanism, akin to melancholia10 involving whole-object relations, which develop later on around the time of weaning. In the paranoid-position it is the anxiety-situation of non-gratification that is feared and perhaps induced by maternal absence.11 Denial of the ‘good breast leads’ to a heightened object-cathexis to the ‘bad breast’12, which is attacked in phantasy by all the sadistic means available to the infant. This leads the infant, in this earliest phase, to omnipotent beliefs about the success of its sadistic attacks, which are confirmed when the mother is absent or if she returns in the guise of the bad mother (or denying breast) and results in the dread of persecution against its ego.13 The anxiety-contents of the ‘paranoid-schizoid’14 7

“Certain French writers (notably Laforgue) have recently highlighted this feature of hysteria by giving it the special name ‘scotomization’. This particular technique of counter-cathexis is even more marked in the phobias, where the subject’s whole focus of interest is to remove himself ever further from any situation that might involve the perception he so dreads.” Freud, (1926) ‘Inhibiton, Symptom and Fear’, Addenda A; b pp. 227-228 in Freud, S. (2003). ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings’. Translated by John Reddick. London: Penguin.

8 “scotomisation may lead to the subjects’ becoming entirely cut off from reality, and to his complete inactivity” Klein, M. (1935) ‘A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16: 145-174 pp. 161-162 9 For Klein, infant development is regulated by the operation of introjection (taking-in) and projection (putting-out) which are assumed to be the ego’s earliest defences against the pressures it feels from the outside world and from the drives emanating from the id. It is thought that at the earliest stage of infancy, the ego is yet undifferentiated from the id, and the super-ego begins forming with the first introjections which become maintained and stable at the point where the depressive position is achieved.

10 Freud and Abraham had previously described melancholia as the ‘loss of the loved object’, which results in the object being installed within the ego. The point of reference here is melancholia in adult patients, but in the Kleinian scheme the loss of the loved object occurs at the stage of sadism where cannibalistic phantasies predominate (in the earliest oral stage of infancy) and pertains to a time in ego-development when only part-objects are perceived (i.e. the good and the bad breast): the loss of the whole object (qua Mother) can only be felt fully when the whole object is perceived.

11 The mother’s breast is the prototypic good and bad part-object. The gratifying breast is thought to be the object of love and care in the infant’s phantasies, whereas the denying breast becomes the object of the infant’s destructive tendencies (sadism) 12 “because the baby projects its own aggression on to these objects…it feels them to be ‘bad’ and not only in that they frustrate its desires: the child conceives of them as actually dangerous— persecutors who it fears will devour it, scoop out the inside of its body, cut it to pieces, poison it—in short, compassing its destruction by all the means which sadism can devise.” Ibid. p. 145 13 This persecution is found to be due to the frustration of ambivalence between love and hate and the sadistic tendencies this unleashes in the infant’s internal world, first act against his frustrating part-object the denied breast and later against a whole mother object. These part and whole objects are phantasied as seeking revenge against the infant’s ego or the objects installed therein and are thus felt to be persecutory.

14 “Klein called the state in which people are seen as all good or all bad in a cardboard cut-out way, the paranoid-schizoid position. The word ‘schizoid’ refers to the split between good and bad and the word ‘paranoid’ to the projection by means of which good or bad qualities are disowned and attributed to others, who are then either idealized, or feared, or hated. Negative feelings boomerang back, so that the hated object appears threateningly hateful. The paranoid-schizoid

position include internalised persecutors which the young ego of the infant tries to expunge through the mechanisms of projection and expulsion. These defensive expulsions do not, however, extinguish the dread15 of internal persecutors and therefore the ego “marshals against the persecutors inside the body the same forces [of sadistic aggression] as it employs against those in the outside world”16. The anxiety contents and defence mechanisms employed at this stage of the ego’s development (with regard to the status of its partial object-relationships and phantasies therewith) are thought to be the basis of paranoia and represent the fixation-point in the disturbance of severe psychosis.

Another defence mechanism that the young ego has against this paranoia (of external and internal persecutors) is that of annihilation (destroying the bad breast), which Klein finds characterised in the sadistic phantasies she envisaged in the infant’s mind.

It is after all, only really on the ‘inside’ that the defenceless baby can do any damage: where faeces and urine are equated with dangerous and poisonous substances.17 The internalised part-objects, however, become capable of launching the same attacks against the baby’s ego18 and are henceforth felt to be internal persecutors.19 These sadistic phantasies also reinforce the infant’s omnipotent beliefs that it has destroyed its object and is thus being punished (through frustration, maternal absence or internal persecution): thereby exacerbating the infantile psychotic anxiety and attendant state of mind is ruled by the principles of self-preservation, with no concern or mercy for others.”

Milton, J., Polmear, C. & Fabricius, J. (2004). A Short Introduction to Psychoanalysis. p. 33 15 “fear is unmistakably associated with expectation; it is fear of something…it is in the very nature of fear to be non-specific and to have no object. In proper linguistic usage it even changes its name if it acquires an object, the word ‘fear’ being replaced by the word ‘dread’. Freud, S (1926) ‘The Ego and the Id’ (Addenda, B, Fear: Supplementary Remarks) p. 223 in Freud, S. (2003). ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings’. Translated by John Reddick. London: Penguin 16 Klein, M. (1935) ‘A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16: 145-174 pp. 145-146.

17 “In phantasy the excreta are transformed into dangerous weapons: wetting is regarded as cutting, stabbing, burning, drowning, while the faecal mass is equated with weapons and missiles…these violent modes of attack give place to hidden assaults by the most refined methods which sadism can devise, and the excreta are equated with poisonous substances.” Chpt XIII ‘The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego’ (1930) p. 219, in Klein, M. (1998). ‘Love, Guilt and Reparation’ and other works 1921-1945’ London: Vintage 18

“the child’s feelings of guilt which are bound up with its urethral- and anal-sadistic tendencies are derived, I have found, from the phantasied attacks it makes on its mother’s body during the phase when sadism is at its height. In early analysis we get to know the child’s fear of its bad mother who demands back from it the faeces and the children it has stolen from her. Hence the real mother (or nurse) who makes demands of cleanliness upon it turns at once into a terrifying person, one who not only insists upon its giving up its faeces, but, as its terrified imagination tells it, who intends to tear them by force out of its body. Another, yet more overwhelming, source of fear arises from its introjected imagos from whom, because of its own destructive phantasies directed against external objects, it anticipates attacks of an equally savage kind inside itself.” Chpt IX ‘The Relations between Obsessional Neurosis and the Early Stages of the Super-ego’ pp. 166-165, in Klein, M. (1975; 1932) The Psycho-Analysis of Children, NY: Delacorte Press.

19 “In this phase, in consequence of likening excrement with dangerous, poisonous, burning substances and with offensive weapons of every kind, the child becomes terrified of its own excreta as something which will destroy its body. This sadistic equation of excreta with destructive substances, together with its phantasies of attacks under-taken with their help, furthermore lead the child to fear that similar attacks may be made against it both by its external and its internal objects and to feel a terror of excreta and of dirt in general. These sources of anxiety, all the more overwhelming because they are so manifold, are, in my experience, the deepest causes of the child’s feelings of anxiety and guilt in connection with its training in cleanliness.” Ibid

paranoia persecutoria prevalent in this stage of development.

We have to imagine a dialectical interplay between the infant’s sadistic phantasies, ‘now projected onto the outer world to protect the ego’— ‘now coming into (and therefore from) the ego and threatening the loved-object installed therein’. In times of frustration, the introjected ‘imago’20 of the ‘bad’ breast is highly cathected and sadistically attacked in phantasy.21 This anxiety-situation contains an equation in the infant’s unconscious mind of ‘absence = persecution’, first from the external partobjects and once introjected, from the internal imagos of those same objects: their ‘doubles’ so to speak.22 These self-directed attacks are felt by the infant as a repercussion of its own sadistic attacks upon its objects. Therefore, all the means the infant uses to defend himself against his paranoid, psychotic anxiety (annihilation, devouring, poisoning), are redirected back onto him (his ego) by virtue of the fact that his part-objects have been internalised and are thought to exist within him23; a process which is initiated by breast (and to a lesser extent, bottle) feeding and the weaning situation.

To support her metapsychological quest, Klein refers to Glover’s thesis that: “the ego, [is] at first but loosely organized, [and] consists of a considerable number of egonuclei…in the first place an oral ego-nucleus and later an anal ego-nucleus predominates over the others. In this early phase, in which oral sadism plays a prominent part and which in my [Klein’s] view is the basis of schizophrenia the ego’s power of identifying itself with its objects is as yet small, partly because it is itself still uncoordinated and partly because the introjected objects are still mainly partial objects which it equates with faeces.”24 Why faeces we ask? Faeces are deemed, psychoanalytically, to be among the infant’s first possessions; the gifts it gives and the first weapons with which it can attack its objects in the external world and later on, after incorporation, its objects on the inside. So it is that the introjected objects or part-objects also have, or equate to, dangerous weapons i.e. faeces, which persecute 20

“…side by side with its relations to real objects…relations to its unreal imagos, both as excessively good and excessively bad figures, and that these two kinds of object-relations intermingle and colour each other to an ever-increasing degree in the course of development.” (Ibid pp. 170-171) This quote of Klein’s contains references to three of her earlier works where she began using this nomenclature.

The first two relate to her divorcing of excessively good and excessively bad unreal imagos (1928; 1929) and the third relates to her conception of the ever-increasing intermingling of the two imagos (Klein, M. 1975; 1932 The Psycho-Analysis of Children, NY: Delacorte Press. Chpt VIII) 21

It is to be remembered that the young ego at this point, is as yet undifferentiated from the external world including the mother, or itself (into an ego/id/super-ego), thus ‘feels’ its sadism to exist ‘out there’ in the real world (in the form of its attacked, damaged or even dead objects).

22 Rado states that: “the idea of a ‘double’ which in dreams, myths and other creations of the unconscious is so often met with as an expression of ambivalence” Rado, S. (1928). ‘The Problem of Melancholia.’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 9: 420-438, p. 432 23 “Every injury inflicted in phantasy by the child upon its parents (primarily from hate and secondarily in self-defence), every act of violence committed by one object upon another (in particular the destructive, sadistic coitus of the parents, which it regards as yet another consequence of its own sadistic wishes)—all this is played out both in the outside world and, since the ego is constantly absorbing into itself the whole external world, within the ego as well. Now, however, all these processes are viewed as a perpetual source of danger both to the good object and to the ego.” Klein, M. (1935) ‘A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16: 145-174, p. 149 24 Klein, M. (1935) ‘A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16: 145-174 pp. 146-147

the infant’s ego. Once a fuller identification with the mother as a whole becomes possible (signalling the emergence of the depressive position) the infant’s internal imagos25, through a process of splitting26, approximate ever closer to reality. The ambivalent paradox27 of love/hate in his relation to his objects (internal and external) is now integrated28 and the object of fear moves from being dread of persecution of the ego, to the dread of persecution of the internalised ‘good’ mother, the prototype of which was the imago of the gratifying breast. In this, the depressive position, “preservation of the good object is regarded as synonymous with the survival of the ego.”29 In the paranoid-schizoid position, this full identification with an introjected, whole and real mother has not been successfully maintained for several reasons: “persecution-anxiety is too great [and] suspicions and anxieties of a phantastic nature stand in the way of a full and stable introjection.”30 These doubts and suspicions turn the loved object once more into an internalised persecutor31 and such overpowering paranoid infantile psychotic anxiety precludes the possibility that the infant will also be able to bear “the additional burden of anxieties for a loved one…besides, the 25

Rado goes to some lengths to explain this inner situation: “it is one and the same mother in two different moods…signifies an enormous advance when the child…make[s] this synthesis; at first he is incapable of such an achievement…wholly dominated by the pleasure-principle…he distinguishes between these two impressions as objects with are ‘good’ or ‘bad…The experiences and recollections connected with the mother do not form in the child’s mind one continuous series…His perceptions and memory-images of the real object produce two series, sharply differentiated according to their hedonic value.” Rado, S. (1928). ‘The Problem of Melancholia.’ International Journal of PsychoAnalysis, 9: 420-438, p. 430 26 “I have explained that, gradually, by unifying and then splitting up the good and bad, the phantastic and the real, the external and the internal objects, the ego makes its way towards a more realistic conception both of the external and the internal objects and thus obtains a satisfactory relation to both” Klein, M. (1935) ‘A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16: 145-174, footnote §7, p. 151 27 Rado also elucidates this issue of ambivalence in a way that echoes and perhaps predates Klein: “the dawning of intellectual activity acquires a lasting importance in our mental life from the fact that it is connected with the ambivalence of instinctual life. The ‘good’ (pleasure-conferring) and the ‘bad’ (frustration-inflicting) mothers become for the child isolated objects (instinctrepresentations) of his love and his hate. This duality…persists…even [with]…the complete idea of ‘mother’ (including both her…moods)…the still weak ego is avoiding the conflict of ambivalence by turning with its love to a mother who is only loveable with its hate to another mother who deserves only hate…ambivalence is established only when education succeeds in causing him to relate the two contrary discharges of instinct to the one real mother-object.” Rado, S. (1928). ‘The Problem of Melancholia.’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 9: 420-438, pp. 431-432 28 “It seems that at this stage of development the unification of external and internal, loved and hated, real and imaginary objects is carried out in such a way that each step in that unification leads again to a renewed splitting of the imagos. But as the adaptation to the external world increases, this splitting is carried out on planes which gradually become increasingly nearer and nearer to reality. This goes on until love for the real and the internalized objects and trust in them are well established. Then ambivalence, which is partly a safeguard against one’s own hate and against the hated and terrifying objects, will in normal development again diminish in varying degrees.” Klein, M. (1935) ‘A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16: 145-174, p. 173 29 Ibid. p. 147 30 Ibid. p. 155 31 “Thus his relationship to whole objects and to the real world is still influenced by his early relation to internalized part-objects and faeces as persecutors and may again give way to the latter.” Ibid.

feelings of guilt and remorse”32 that dominate in the depressive position.

Overcoming paranoid infantile psychotic anxiety and achieving the ‘depressiveposition’ ushers in a weakening of oral fixations33 and the corresponding phantasies created in connection with them (biting, chewing etc). This is thought to occur at around the time that the infant is weaned and is therefore suffering increasing frustration and non-gratification. During the depressive position, when a whole object-relationship has been incorporated, to both a good and bad mother, the infant identifies more strongly with the good: “the libidinal urges increase; he develops a greedy love and desire to devour this object and the mechanism of introjection is reinforced.”34 Klein believes that the infant is impelled towards the repetitive incorporation of the good object (mother) “partly because he dreads that he has forfeited…[her] by his cannibalism…and partly because he fears internalized persecutors against whom he requires a good object [mother] to help him.”35 The repetitive introjection of the good mother constitutes the reality-testing of the depressive position, where the infant repeatedly attempts to disprove his fears, or in Kleinian terminology, ‘sexual theories’, that he has destroyed his object through his sadistic phantasying or cannibalistic incorporation. At this stage of ego-development, the infant is strongly directed by love and concern for the mother as well as a need to take her into himself.36 Paradoxically, the paranoid-schizoid position (where the characteristic defence is obsessive phantasied expulsion) establishes that the inner world of the infant is not always such a safe place37. The depressive defence of introjection surpasses the paranoid defence of projection, but the infant has already surrendered his power to keep objects safe inside his emerging ego.38 The realisation of this ‘psychic helplessness’39 (equating, in the infant’s mind, to leading the loved mother into

32

Ibid “One manifestation of this may be observed in the difficulties very young children often show in regard to eating which, I think, always have a paranoid” root” Ibid. pp. 147-148 34 Ibid 35 Ibid 36 “Another stimulus for an increase of introjection is the phantasy that the loved object may be preserved in safety inside oneself. In this case the dangers of the inside are projected on to the external world.” Ibid 37 “there is…a deep anxiety as to the dangers which await the object inside the ego. It could not be safely maintained there, as the inside is felt to be a dangerous and poisonous place in which the loved object would perish.” Ibid 38 “when the ego becomes fully identified with its good, internalized objects, at the same time becomes aware of its own incapacity to protect and preserve them against the internalized, persecuting objects and the id.” Ibid 39 “The danger of psychic helplessness befits the period of life in which the ego is still immature” Freud, S. (1926) ‘Inhibition, Symptom and Fear’, p. 210, in Freud, S. (2003). ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings’. Translated by John Reddick. London: Penguin.

33

danger40) leads to an anxiety that Klein41, and Freud before her42, considered as being psychologically justified and fundamental to the melancholic response to the ‘loss of the loved object’. This fear of the loss of the loved mother typifies the anxietycontents of the depressive position. Dread of losing this introjected, whole and loved mother “becomes a perpetual source of an anxiety lest the real mother should die”43 and every semblance of a real loss (however temporary) corresponds to a dread felt by the infant that his inner mother has been lost also.44 This leads Klein to state thus: “we see that sufferings connected with the depressive position thrust him back to the paranoiac position. Nevertheless, though he has retreated from it, the depressive position has been reached and therefore the liability to depression is always there.”45 In the depressive position, a full identification with the mother does not totally extinguish the defence mechanisms previously resorted to in the earlier paranoidschizoid position. Klein appeals to Abraham’s hypothesis that “the annihilation and expulsion of the object—processes characteristic of the earlier anal level—initiate the depressive mechanism”46, to confirm the genetic link between paranoia and melancholia that she needed to establish in her attempt at a metapsychological synthesis of her theories.47 The paranoiac defence of annihilation “by every means which oral, urethral and anal-sadism can command”48 endures, with a reduction in strength, and is modified to embrace the new and complete object-relationships of the depressive-position. The paranoid dread “lest the good object should be expelled along with the bad”49 is what inhibits the paranoid-schizoid defence mechanisms and promotes the depressive mechanisms.50 40

“the anxiety of leading an external good object into danger within oneself by incorporating it is a depressive one…in cases with strong paranoiac features I have met phantasies of luring external object into one’s inside, which was regarded as a cave full of dangerous monsters, etc. Here we can see the paranoiac reasons for an intensification of the introjection-mechanism, while the depressive employs this mechanism so characteristically, as we know, for the purpose of incorporating a good object.” Klein, M. (1935) ‘A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16: 145-174, p. 156 41 “when the ego becomes fully identified with its good, internalized objects, at the same time becomes aware of its own incapacity to protect and preserve them against the internalized, persecuting objects and the id. This anxiety is psychologically justified.” Ibid. p. 148 42 ??

43 Klein, M. (1935) ‘A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16: 145-174, p. 148 44 “the loss of the loved object takes place during that phase of development in which the ego makes the transition from partial to total incorporation of the object…The processes subsequently become defined as ‘loss of the loved object’ are determined by the subject’s sense of failure (during weaning and in the periods which precede and follow it) to secure his good, internalized object, i.e. to possess himself of it. One reason for his failure is that he has been unable to overcome his paranoid dread of internalized persecutors” Ibid. p. 150 45 Ibid. p. 155 46 Ibid. p. 148 47 “The depressive state is based on the paranoid state and genetically derived from it. I consider the depressive state as being the result of a mixture of paranoid anxieties and of those anxiety-contents, distressed feelings and defences which are connected with the impending loss of the whole loved object.” Ibid. p. 159 48 Ibid 49 Ibid 50 “when the ego has introjected the object as a whole and has established a better relationship to the external world and to real people it is able fully to realize the disaster created through sadism

In the depressive position, the divorce between good and bad imagos is not as severe as in the paranoid position, yet a marked cleavage between the good and the bad mother-imago does exist. Hatred is directed against the frustrating, non-gratifying mother while love and reparation are directed towards the satisfying, gratifying mother. Klein says that “every access of hate or anxiety may temporarily abolish the differentiation and thus result in a ‘loss of the loved object”51. The infant’s ‘uncontrollable hatred’ towards its objects clearly imperils them but his love too, at this early stage, is closely connected to devouring52 and thus also threatens to destroy his objects.53 To recap: “in the first few months of its life the child goes through paranoid anxieties related to the ‘bad’ denying breasts, which are felt as external and internalized persecutors. From this relation to part-objects, and from their equation with faeces, springs at this stage the phantastic and unrealistic nature of the child’s relations to all other things: parts of it own body, people and things around it, which are at first but dimly perceived.”54 Klein describes the very young infant’s ‘object world’ as containing both gratifying and persecuting fragments of the real world. As the infant’s internalised imagos approximate closer to reality (through an ever refined process of splitting), first the whole mother and then other whole objects in the world are perceived.55 When sadism is at its zenith (the paranoid-schizoid position) the infant’s emotional and libidinal fixation to the breast evolves into an emotional and libidinal attachment to the mother as a person and, crucially, love and hatred are directed towards the same object, which results in “deep and disturbing conflicts in the child’s mind”56 (the depressive position).57 Such is the significance of the ideas contained in Klein’s and especially through its cannibalism, and to feel distressed about it…The ego then finds itself confronted with the psychical fact that its loved objects are in a state of dissolution—in bits—and the despair, remorse and anxiety deriving from this recognition are at the bottom of numerous anxiety-situations…how to put the bits together in the right way and at the right time; how to pick out the good bits and do away with the bad ones; how to bring the object to life when it has been put together; and there is the anxiety of being interfered with in this task by bad objects and by one’s own hatred, etc.” Ibid. p. 153 51 Ibid. p. 149 52 “A little child which believes, when its mother disappears, that it has eaten her up and destroyed her (whether from motives of love or hate) is tormented by anxiety for her and for the good mother which it has absorbed into itself.” Ibid 53 “It now becomes plain why, at this phase of development, the ego feels itself constantly menaced in its possession of internalized good objects. It is full of anxiety lest such objects should die. Both in children and adults suffering from depression, I have discovered the dread of harbouring dying or dead objects (especially parents) inside one and an identification of the ego with objects in this condition.” Ibid. pp. 149-150 54 Ibid. p. 170 55 “The fact that a good relation to its mother and to external world helps the baby to overcome its early paranoid anxieties throws a new light on the importance of the child’s early experiences, but it seems to me that only since we know more about the nature and contents of its early anxieties, and the continuous interplay between its actual experiences and its phantasy-life, are we able fully to understand why the external factor is so important.” Ibid 56 Ibid 57 “In the normal course of events the ego is faced at this point of its development—roughly between four to five months of age—with the necessity to acknowledge psychic reality as well as the external reality to a certain degree. It is thus made to realize that the loved object is at the same time the hated one, and in addition to this that the real objects and the imaginary figures, both external and

groundbreaking work with very young infants that a whole new field of investigation became viable under a psychoanalytic microscope and the theoretical advances or aberrations as some extreme traditionalists would have said at the time, lead to what is claimed to be one of the most elaborate and punctilious debates within the history of psycho-analysis.58 They contributed, inevitably, to the trifurcation of the British Society. The Kleinian ‘camp’ had achieved the status of Freud armed with competitive metapsychology, supported with clinical material which was crucially endorsed by many leading psychoanalysts on the British scene.

Having now done some justice, with shameful brevity, to the complexity and significance of Klein’s conceptualistion of the infantile depressive-position (which covers the earlier paranoid-schizoid and later manic positions), there is more than enough material, and putatively enough understanding, for us to trace the genesis of the notions and constructs therein. We have already mentioned ‘sadism’ and the implied notion of the ‘death-drive’, which plays a pivotal role in Kleinian theory, as one such area where Freud is clearly referenced in Klein’s work (particularly her earlier papers). Additionally, the concept of defence-mechanisms, not so elaborated in their connection to repression in Klein, are comprehensively dealt with in Freud.59 Connected to this, the notions of introjection and projection are also first introduced

by Freud60 as surrogation-processes, though it is clear that Klein extends their internal, are bound up with each other…The first important steps in this direction occur, in my view, when the child comes to know its mother as a whole person and becomes identified with her as a whole, real and loved person” Ibid. pp. 170-171 58 ‘The Controversial Discussions’ (1943-1944) 59 “There is now clearly no danger of our declaring fear of castration to be the sole motor driving the defence process that leads to neurosis.” Freud, S. (1926) p. 210 in Freud, S. (2003). ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings’. Translated by John Reddick. London: Penguin Also: “I now think that it is distinctly advantageous to hark back to the old concept of ‘defence’, provided it is clearly established that it is intended to serve as the general designation of all the techniques used by the ego in its various conflicts, any of which may lead to neurosis, while ‘repression’ remains the name of one particular such mechanism that we have first become more familiar with because of the direction our investigations happen to have taken.” Ibid. p. 231; Furthermore: “we expect that there is a real possibility of our discovering another, equally significant pattern of dependence: it may well be that prior to the sharp differentiation of the ego and the id and the formation of the super-ego, the psychic apparatus uses different methods of defence from those it uses after attaining these stages of organization.” Ibid. p. 233 60 “Where an individual is required or compelled to give up a sexual object, there is not uncommonly a compensatory process in the form of that particular ego-alteration that we can only describe as ‘erecting the object within the ego’, just as occurs on melancholia. We did not yet know the precise circumstances in which this surrogation process takes place. Perhaps the ego uses this introjection, which is a form of regression to the mechanism of the oral phase, in order to make it easier to give up the object, or even to make it possible in the first place. Perhaps this identification is the one and only condition under which the id will give up its objects. Be that as it may, the process is a very frequent one, especially in the early phases of development, and gives grounds for the view that the character of the ego is a residual imprint of the object-cathexes that have been given up, and contains the entire history of those object-choices. Needless to say, it must be granted from the outset that there is a considerable range in the capacity for resistance that determines whether a person’s character rejects or accepts these influences deriving from his or her cumulative history of erotic object-choices…We must also consider the possibility that object-cathexis and identification can occur simultaneously, in other words, that there can be a character-alteration before the object has been given up. In this event the character-alteration may well last beyond the subject’s relationship to the object, and in some respects preserve it…When the ego adopts the features of the object, it so to speak presses itself on the id as a love-object; it seeks to make good the id’s loss by saying ‘There, you see, you can love me too – I look just like the object’.” Freud, S. (1923) ‘The Ego and The Id’ (III) p. 120 in Freud, S. (2003). ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings’. Translated by John Reddick. London: Penguin

meaning substantially. Paranoia persecutoria is also a subject of psychoanalytic discourse prior to the publication of Klein’s seminal and groundbreaking work (1935;1940) and we can trace Klein’s use of notions of persecution and annihilation to Starcke and Ophuijsen. Finally we will attempt to cover the strong connection between Klein’s ‘depressive- position’ and the psychoanalytic theory of mourning and melancholia, which is identifiable in Rado and Freud and permits for a greater appreciation of the infantile psychotic anxieties of the depressive position.

It may still be unclear to the reader where infantile sadism comes from and where it is directed. To understand this, it is crucial to go back to Freud prior to Klein’s ingress into the psychoanalytic idiom. We find one crucial reference to Freud in Klein’s 1932 publication61 in a chapter regarding the relations between obsessional neurosis and the early stages of the super-ego, which reflects the vast and comprehensive influence her theories were already beginning to have on some of the fundamental tenets of psychoanalysis (i.e. Freud’s tripartite model of the mind; neurosis etc.). Klein cites from Freud’s 1913 paper on ‘The Predisposition to Obsessional Neurosis’ in order to elucidate her fairly complex views on the operations of sadism in infancy. Freud hypothesised a link between the epistemophilic instinct and sadism in obsessional neurosis, which Klein wholeheartedly corroborates in her theory. 62 In her view, the epistemophilic instinct is rooted in the infant’s sadistic tendencies. Klein also appeals to the work of her mentor and first personal analyst, Abraham who thought that the epistemophilic instinct arose at the inception of the Oedipus conflict and served the oral-sadistic trends of the young ego. The link with Abraham is prevalent in Klein’s work and in an illuminating footnote to her 1931 paper she elaborates the affinity of their theories to an impressive degree.63 And: “I once characterized phobias as being in the nature of a projection in that they substitute a danger perceived in the world without for a danger posed by drives within; this has the advantage that one can protect oneself from an external danger by fleeing from it, or avoiding all sight of it, whereas flight is quite useless if the danger emanates from within.” Freud, S. (1926) p. 194 in Freud, S. (2003).

‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings’. Translated by John Reddick. London: Penguin 61 Klein, M. (1975; 1932) The Psycho-Analysis of Children, NY: Delacorte Press.

62 “From what I have been able to observe, the connection between the two is formed in a very early stage of ego-development, during the phase at which sadism is at its height….My experience has shown me that the first object of this instinct for knowledge is the interior of the mother’s body, which the child first of all regards as an object of oral gratification and then as the scene where intercourse between its parents takes place, and where in its phantasy the father’s penis and the children are situated. At the same time as it wants to force its way into its mother’s body in order to take possession of the contents and to destroy them, it wants to know what is going on and what things look like in there. In this way, its wish to know what there is in the interior of her body is equated in many ways with its wish to force a way inside her, and the one desire reinforces and stands for the other. This the instinct for knowledge becomes linked at its source with sadism when it is at its height, which makes it easier to understand why that bond should arouse feelings of guilt in the individual.” Klein, M (1975; 1932) pp. 173-174 63 Referring to her 1930 paper she says: “The view put forward there is in agreement with Abraham’s theory that in paranoiacs the libido has regressed to the earlier anal stage; for the phase of development in which sadism reaches its height begins, in my opinion, with the emergence of the oral-sadistic instincts and ends with the decline of the earlier anal stage…In this way Abraham’s theory would be extended in two directions. In the first place we see what an intensive co-operation of the various instruments of the child’s sadism there is in this phase, and especially, besides his oral sadism, what enormous importance attaches to his hitherto little recognized urethral-sadistic tendencies in reinforcing and elaborating his anal-sadistic ones. In the second place, we get a more detailed understanding of the structure of those phantasies in which his anal-sadistic impulses belonging to the earlier stage find expression” Ibid. pp. 238-239

Hanna Segal, a remarkable contemporary of Klein’s, states quite clearly in her ‘New Introduction’ to Klein’s collected papers64 that “Klein’s work confirmed Freud’s discoveries about infantile sexuality and aggression”65, though Klein is thought to have “emphasized much more the role of aggression in children.”66 We can trace this attention to aggression to Klein’s 1930 paper on symbol formation67 where the phantastical nature of the anxieties connected to the child’s aggressive impulses are scrutinised68. In this paper also, Klein refers to a seminally important paper of Freud’s69, which deserves a genealogical exegesis of its own. The overwhelming significance of both its contents, and the references contained therein to yet another formative thesis of Freud’s, that being his anatomisation of ‘The Ego and the Id’ of 1923, leaves us in no doubt that Klein was strongly influenced by the ideas contained in both of these Freudian treatises. We can find evidence of this link clearly demonstrated from 1930 onwards, though traces of these influences can be identified in Klein’s earliest works: Two papers in 1929 instigate the central place that sadistic trends take in the eventual Kleinian metapsychology. Firstly70, Klein presents the case of a six-year-old patient: ‘Erma’ who is said to have entered analysis with severe paranoiac traits and fears of persecution. The personification of beneficent and malevolent forces in Erma’s play gave telltale signs as to the sadistic phantasies that Klein thought were underlying them.71 Again72, Klein reiterates the breast-feeding situation as initiating this oral64

Klein, M. (1998). ‘Love, Guilt and Reparation’ and other works 1921-1945’. London: Vintage Ibid. p. ix 66 Ibid. p. x 67 Ibid. Chpt XIII ‘The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego’ (1930) pp.

219-235 68 “The child expects to find within the mother (a) the father’s penis, (b) excrement, and (c) children, and these things it equates with edible substances. According to the child’s earliest phantasies (or ‘sexual theories’) of parental coitus, the father’s penis (or his whole body) becomes incorporated in the mother during the act. Thus the child’s sadistic attacks have for their object both father and mother, who are in phantasy bitten, torn, cut or stamped to bits. The attacks give rise to anxiety lest the subject should be punished by the united parents, and this anxiety also becomes internalized in consequence of the oral-sadistic introjection of the objects and is thus already directed towards the early super-ego. I have found these anxiety-situations of the early phases of mental development to be the most profound and overwhelming. It is my experience that in the phantasied attack on the mother’s body a considerable part is played by the urethral and anal sadism which is very soon added to the oral and muscular saidism. In phantasy the excreta are transformed into dangerous weapons: wetting is regarded as cutting, stabbing, burning, drowning, while the faecal mass is equated with weapons and missiles. At a later stage of the phase which I have described, these violent modes of attack give place to hidden assaults by the most refined methods which sadism can devise, and the excreta are equated with poisonous substances.” Ibid. p. 219 69 Freud, S. (1926) in Freud, S. (2003). ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings’.

Translated by John Reddick. London: Penguin 70 Chpt X ‘Personification in the Play of Children’ (1929) pp. 199-210 in Klein, M. (1998). ‘Love, Guilt and Reparation’ and other works 1921-1945’. London: Vintage 71 “Often Erma herself played the part of the child. Then the game generally ended up in her escaping the persecutors (on these occasions the child was ‘good’), becoming rich and powerful, being made queen and taking a cruel revenge on her persecutors. After her sadism had spent itself in these phantasies, apparently unchecked by any inhibition (all this came about after we had a done a good deal of analysis), reaction would set in in the form of a deep depression, anxiety and bodily exhaustion. Her play then reflected her incapacity to bear this tremendous oppression, which manifested itself in a number of serious symptoms” Ibid. p. 200 72 Ibid. Chpt XI ‘Infantile Anxiety-Situations Reflected in Work of Art and in the Creative Impulse’ 65

sadism73, which is typified by phantasies of smashing, tearing and striking with swords.74 In 1928 Klein had already instituted the connection between epistemophilia and sadism as characteristic of the earliest stages of what she termed the Oedipus conflict.75 For Klein, this universal connection was seen as invaluable to the total development of the infant’s mind. Oedipal tendencies gave rise to the infant’s curiosity, primarily with the mother’s body (or parts thereof)76 at a stage in development where the anal-sadistic libido-position dominates. We can thus interpolate the notions of appropriating or possessing the contents of the mother’s body as characteristic of the sadistic phantasies experienced at this stage. Already then, Klein is seen to be highlighting the significance of a very early maternal identification that pre-Kleinian analysis had neglected and was soon to become a centrepiece to her metapsychological framework.

Earlier still, in her 1923 paper77 the inhibition of symbolism is attributed to primarily libidinal and duly aggressive sources. Klein’s views on aggression correspond to Freud’s post-1920 works where the death-instinct is introduced as a metapsychological remedy to the growing disparities, inaccuracies and discontinuities in classical Freudian theory.78 From this milestone development in classical psychoanalytic metapsychology, the focal conflict in the mind qua conflict between the forces of love and hate, libido and destruction, Eros and Thanatos, became increasingly important to the Kleinian oeuvre.79 This demonstrates, once again, Klein’s close affinity with Freud despite their obvious differences, which were probably more to do with clinical experience (Klein’s being predominantly with children, Freud’s being predominantly with adults)80 than with fundamental theoretical disparities at this stage of Klein’s development as an analyst. Having now (1929) pp. 211-218 73 “The oral frustration which turns the indulgent ‘good mother’ into the ‘bad mother’ stimulates his sadism.” Ibid p. 214 74 Klein equates these weapons and attacks to the child’s primary sadism: “which he employs [with] his teeth, nails, muscles and so on.” Ibid. p. 212 75 As opposed to the later inception proposed for Freud’s Oedipus Complex.

76 The child’s sexual theories, or phantasies at this stage include an assumption, not so far from the actuality, that the mother’s body is the locus of the complete remit of sexual processes and sexual development.

77 Chpt III ‘The Role of the School in the Libidinal Development of the Child’ (1923) in Klein, M. (1998). ‘Love, Guilt and Reparation’ and other works 1921-1945’ London: Vintage 78 Freud was preoccupied with the dialectic between ego- and sexual- drives prior to his introduction of narcissism (1914) which somewhat contradicted this duality. The ego-drives were now seen to arise out of a narcissistic libido-cathexis. By 1920, in ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’, Freud re-introduces this dualism as between a tension between Eros and Thanatos.

79 “This new conception envisaging two groups of drives seems on the face of it to demolish the earlier theory of successive phases of libido-organisation. But we have no need to invent some new explanation to help us out of this difficulty, for the solution presented itself to us long ago, to the effect that we practically never find ourselves dealing with pure, unalloyed drive-impulses, but invariably with combinations of both kinds of drives in varying proportions. Thus a sadistic objectcathexis also has a perfect right to be treated as a libidinal one, the aggressive impulse directed against the father has just as much right to become an object of repression as the affectionate impulse in favour of the mother – and there is accordingly no need for us to revise our view of the various forms of libido organization.” Freud, S (1926) VIII p. 193 in Freud, S. (2003). ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings’. Translated by John Reddick. London: Penguin 80 There is a colloquialism stating that Freud found the child in the adult, whereas Klein found the infant in the child and the adult.

established the genealogical traces of the pivotal concept of sadism in Klein back to Abraham and Freud, it would seem appropriate to seek a similar genealogy for the concept of paranoia, particularly the phantasied paranoia persecutoria that is prominent in Klein’s construction of the paranoid-schizoid and depressive-position.

We can locate Klein’s initial analysis of paranoia in her work with Erma, which is discussed for the first time in her 1929 paper where she describes, through the personification of Erma’s play, rigid paranoiac identifications and the role they play in severe psychosis.81 A year later in her paper on symbol-formation, Klein confirms the idea that the dread of external and internal objects is synonymous with persecutory paranoia and it is here that once again Klein supplicates her grasp of paranoia—as a central mechanism in the operations of infantile mental states and organisation—with the earlier work of Freud and Abraham.82 Resorting once more, in 1931, to her signature case studies, Klein established her theory of paranoia in response to the analysis of her seven-year-old patient (John).83 There are several references in this paper as to the origins of the notions of persecution and paranoia: Starcke in 192084 and Van Ophuijisen (1920)85 were both strongly influenced by Freud’s ideas on the regression of sublimated homosexuality to narcissism – detectable in delusions of grandeur, and they are attributed with some of the earliest 81

“The paranoiac possesses, it is true, a rich phantasy-life, but the fact that in the structure of his superego the cruel, anxiety-inspiring identifications predominate, causes the types he invents to be preeminently negative and susceptible only of reduction to the rigid types of persecutor and persecuted. In schizophrenia, in my opinion, the capacity for personification and for transference fails, amongst other reasons, through the defective functioning of the projection-mechanism. This interferes with the capacity for establishing or maintaining the relation to reality and the external world.” Chpt X ‘Personification in the Play of Children’ (1929) pp. 199-210’: in Klein, M. (1998). ‘Love, Guilt and Reparation’ and other works 1921-1945’ London: Vintage 82 “The first part of the phase when sadism is at its height is that in which the attacks are conceived as being made by violence. This I have come to recognize as the fixation-point in dementia praecox. In the second part of this phase the attacks are imagined as being made by poisoning, and the urethral and anal-sadistic impulses predominate. This I believe to be the fixation-point in paranoia. I may recall that Abraham maintained that in paranoia the libido regresses to the earlier anal stage. My conclusions are in agreement with Freud’s hypotheses, according to which the fixation-points of dementia praecox and paranoia are to be sought in the narcissistic stage, that of dementia praecox preceding that of paranoia.” Ibid. Chpt XII ‘The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego’ (1930) pp. 219-235: p. 232 83 “The example of John’s case shows: (a) that the destruction imagined to have been wrought in the mother’s body is also anticipated and imagined as having occurred in his own body; and (b) how the dread of attacks on this inside of one’s body by the internalized penises of the father and by faeces is experienced.” Ibid. Chpt XIV ‘A Contribution to the Theory of Intellectual Inhibition’ (1931) pp. 236247: p. 242 84 “in delusions of persecution the figure of the loved one reappears as the ‘persecutor’. As a rule it is more or less disguised…Freud has called this phenomenon the return of the repressed libido…with a reversal of the sign…what was repressed in the shape of love returns as hatred. This hatred is projected, and represents the content of the delusion…such a reversal of sign…is…to be found in some attitude of ambivalency.” Starcke, A. (1920) ‘The Reversal of the Libido-Sign in Delusions of Persecution’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 1: 231-234 p. 231 85 “the psycho-analyst is brought into constant touch with the problem of delusions of persecution… the feeling of being persecuted…is a symptom which, in mitigated form, is never absent from a case of psychoneurosis…this feeling can be traced back to the anal complex…‘persecutor’ and skybalum are simply treated as equivalent things…the anal persecution [may be]…the primary fact in the case of those who suffer from delusions of persecution.” Van Ophuijsen, J. H. W. (1920) ‘On the Origin of the Feeling of Persecution’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 1: 235-239

adult-psychoanalytic work on paranoia persecutoria. Klein found in the work of these two authors a reference to the anal-erotic character of this narcissistic regression.86 The unconscious equation in the paranoiac’s mind between ‘persecutor’ and the scybalum of the bowels87, which are “identified with the penis of his persecutor”88, Klein believes, is a derivative of the infant’s urethral- and anal-sadistic phantasies.89 At pains to keep her theories in line with the predominant psychoanalytic developmental stages of Freud and Abraham, Klein once more reiterates where her new positions fit in with regards to her forefathers’ ideas: “That period of the phase…which, in my view, forms the basis of paranoia, would occur, therefore, at a time when the earlier anal stage is in the ascendant.”90 This reinforces Klein’s thesis from 1930 where, with the aid of Freud and Abraham, the fixation point for paranoia is, “situated…in the phase when sadism is at its height.”91 (i.e., the paranoid-schizoid position.)

Although Klein fails to identify which papers of Abraham’s she refers to, there is more evidence of the strong link between their views on paranoia in her book of 1932, which contains most of Klein’s corroborative clinical case materials.92 Another significant reference is made here to the work of Schmideberg: an entreaty that is 86

“Freud’s formula might then be amplified in this way: Part…of the sublimated homosexuality regresses to anal-eroticism. In so far as the latter is positive it is used for reconstruction in the shape of delusions of grandeur, and in so far as it is negative it is diverted by being projected as a delusion of persecution.” Starcke, A. (1920) ‘The Reversal of the Libido-Sign in Delusions of Persecution’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 1: 231-234 p. 234 87 Starcke and Ophuijsen mutually cite one another in confirming the link between anal-eroticism and persecution delusions: “an unconscious identification of the loved object with the skybalum (faeces) was present in the first instance…this identification provides the more precise basis for the special ambiavlency of the paranoic constitution. The skybalum is the primary (real) persecutor; it commits anal acts of violence which are often at the same tome acts of pleasure.” Ibid. p. 232.

88 Chpt XIV ‘A Contribution to the Theory of Intellectual Inhibition’ (1931) pp. 236-247:p. 238 in Klein, M. (1998). ‘Love, Guilt and Reparation’ and other works 1921-1945’ London: Vintage 89 “In these phantasies he turns his own faeces into things that persecute his objects; and by a kind of magic (which, in my opinion, is the basis of black magic) he pushes them secretly and by stealth into the anus and other orifices of the objects and lodges them inside their bodies. Because he has done this he becomes afraid of his own excrements, introjected within him, of his objects, since he expects the latter to make similar secret attacks on him by means of their dangerous faeces. These fears give rise to a terror of having a number of persecutors inside his body and of being poisoned, as well as to hypochondriacal fears.” Ibid.

90 Ibid. pp. 238-239 91 “when the child carries out his attacks upon his mother’s inside, and his father’s penis which he supposes to be there, by means of his faeces, transformed into poisonous and dangerous animals or substances” Ibid. p. 238 92 Referring once again, to her 1930 paper Klein finds herself: “in agreement with Abraham’s view that in the paranoiac the libido regresses to the earlier anal stage, as I assume that the phase of sadism at its height is introduced by the oral-sadistic trends and terminates with the decline of the earlier anal stage. The period of this phase which has been described above and which I consider to be fundamental for paranoia will be seen to be under the supremacy of the earlier anal stage. What has been said here supplements, I think, the findings of Abraham. It shows that in the abovementioned phase the various means of sadism are employed in conjunction and to their fullest capacity, and that the fundamental importance of the urethral-sadistic trends is stressed side by side with the oral-sadistic ones. It has also furnished a certain amount of information about the structure of those phantasies in which the anal-sadistic trends belonging to the earlier stage find expression…and delusions of reference and persecution seem to me to spring from these anxietysituations.” Klein, M. (1975; 1932) The Psycho-Analysis of Children, NY: Delacorte Press. Chpt VIII, p. 146,

more formally dealt with in Klein’s pioneering work of 1935;1940. In this earlier relation to Schmiderberg93, Klein finds evidence for the idea that in infantile psychotic anxiety94 of paranoid persecution, there is a dread of a multiplicity of persecutors95, which is fairly complex to try and explain.96 Suffice it to say, Klein’s ideas of the anxiety-contents of the paranoid-schizoid position are verified by the cases of delusional ideation and persecution described by Schmideberg97 and by her analysis of the anxiety-situations of primitive man.98 Crucially, Schmideberg reiterates the defence-mechanism of ‘flight’ from the external objects (introjection/the depressiveposition) as a narcissistic regression,99 which can only occur when dread of the internal objects is less than the dread of external ones,100 whereas the “chief process in 93

Who thought that: “persecutory ideas were projected sadistic phantasies…Fear of being spied upon was the projection of…desire to spy, which originally had to do with parental coitus; the aggressive gaze…was a substitute for aggressive acts.” Schmideberg, M. (1931) ‘A Contribution to the Psychology of Persecutory Ideas and Delusions’, IJPA, 12: 331-367, p. 339 94 “fear of the introjected object and the projection of the dreaded object are of a paranoid nature.

The flight to the internal object—the basis of the magical attitude and of the delusion of grandeur— together with renunciation of the relation to reality and activity in it and of the normal boundaries of the ego, may play an important rôle in schizophrenia” Schmideberg, M. (1930) ‘The Role of Psychotic Mechanisms in Cultural Development’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 11: 387418 p. 410 95 “oral sadistic wishes, the content of which is to tear the object to pieces, by way of projection cause the dread of being assailed by many persecutors, through the single parts coming to life…So it seems that from the oral-sadistic wishes to chew the penis of the father to pieces arises the conception of many penises, which become the basis of the belief in many demons.” Ibid. p. 390 96 “The fear of numerous persecutors has not only an anal-sadistic origin, as being a fear of many persecuting faeces, but an oral one as well. In my experience the child’s sexual theory, according to which its mother incorporates a new penis every time she copulates and its father is provided with a quantity of penises, contributes to its fear of having a great number of persecutors…Schmideberg regards this multiplicity of persecutors as being a projection of the child’s own oral-sadistic attacks on its father’s penis, each separate bit of his penis becoming a new object of anxiety.” Klein, M. (1975; 1932) The Psycho-Analysis of Children, NY: Delacorte Press (Chpt VIII) p. 146 97 Schmideberg, M. (1931) ‘A Contribution to the Psychology of Persecutory Ideas and Delusions’, IJPA, 12: 331-367 98 “with primitive man demons, witches, magicians, vampires, werewolves, etc., represent a projection of the super-ego—all on the oral (or, more rarely, on the early anal) level. The demons devour, bite and gnaw; the witches eat up the heart and the entrails; the vampires suck blood; the werewolves tear men to pieces and devour them. The chtonic goddess Hecate is addressed as 'drinker of blood', 'eater of hearts', 'consumer of flesh' and 'devourer of the unborn fruit of the womb'. The oral origin of it is mirrored in our speech: in all languages there are phrases for the gnawings of conscience, remorse, etc. Conscience gnaws, just as the demons gnaw and devour.”

Schmideberg, M. (1930) ‘The Role of Psychotic Mechanisms in Cultural Development’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 11: 387-418, p. 391 And: “As civilization developed, the gradual modification of psychotic to neurotic and magical mechanisms overcame the original psychotic condition of the horde on the death of the primal father. Here we have a phylogenetic analogy to the ontogenetic evolution described by M. Klein. In her book now in preparation she gives an account of an early psychotic state that she regards as a normal phase in development, which is gradually modified into a neurosis and thus overcome.” Ibid. p. 414 99 “When castration anxiety leads the subject to shun the normal Oedipus attitude, he remains arrested on the earliest levels of ego-development. We see this in…psychotics…Regression constitutes a narcissistic gain and an hallucinatory satisfaction; its motive seems to be castration anxiety, which shuns the Oedipus situation” Ibid. pp. 406-407 100 “Flight to the external object (projection) can take place only when the subject dreads it less than he dreads the internal object. If the converse is the case, he has to try at all costs to reconcile himself

the mechanism of projection (the paranoid-schizoid position) appears to be an obsessional attempt to expel the introjected object…in proportion to the dread felt.”101 Returning once again to the role of obsessional mechanisms in early infantile egoorganisation102, Klein not only fortifies her links with Freud, who was the first to give these mechanisms a psychoanalytic treatment, but also secures her theoretical proofs in the work of Abraham.103 It is thus conceived that: “the severity of…obsessional illness [depressive-position] depends on the severity of the paranoid disturbances that have…preceded it. If…obsessional mechanisms cannot adequately overcome those disturbances…paranoid traits will…come to the surface, or he may succumb to a regular paranoia.”104 From here, Klein progresses into her trademark contributions of 1935;1940, much of which has already been discussed. The relation between depressive states and paranoia is of at least equal importance in 1935, as the relation between depression and mania in 1940 and it is the ubiquity of mixed paranoiac and depressive trends in both adults and children with depressive, neurotic and border-line conditions that eventually leads Klein to introduce her metapsychological thesis qua the ‘depressive-position’. Having now traced the paranoid-schizoid roots of Klein’s theories, it is critical to show how her ideas about the depressive position also built on the previous work on melancholia by Freud and Rado105.

The ‘loss of the loved object’ in Kleinian metapyschology constitutes: “a failure to maintain the identification with both the internalised and real loved objects [and] may result in the psychotic disorders of the depressive states…mania, or…paranoia.”106 By 1940, Klein describes the depressive position as melancholia in statu nascendi107 and the dread of losing both parents at this stage is thought to emerge in the Oedipus situation.108 In Klein’s scheme, the Oedipus situation arises from the very first with the latter object in order to be released from his anxiety. Flight to the internal object presupposes an abandonment of projection, which aims at getting rid of the internal object and is therefore felt as hostility. Projection is based on ambivalence.” Ibid. p. 406 101 Ibid. p. 411 102 Klein, M. (1975; 1932) The Psycho-Analysis of Children, NY: Delacorte Press Chpt IX pp. 166-167 103 “According to Abraham, in paranoia the libido regresses to the earlier of the two anal-sadistic stages. From what I have been able to discover, I should be inclined to go further and say that in the early anal-sadistic stage. The individual, if his early anxiety-situations are strongly operative, actually passes through rudimentary paranoid states which he normally overcomes in the next stage (the second anal-sadistic one)” Ibid 104 Ibid 105 “the deepest fixation-point in the melancholic (depressive) disposition is to be found in the ‘situation of threatened loss of love’, more precisely, in the hunger-situation of the infant.” Rado, S. (1928). ‘The Problem of Melancholia.’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 9: 420-438,p. 427 106 Klein, M. (1935) ‘A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16: 145-174 p. 174 107 “The object which is being mourned is the mother’s breast and all that the breast and the milk have to come to stand for in the infant’s mind: namely, love, goodness and security. All these are felt by the baby to be lost, and lost as a result of his own uncontrollable greedy and destructive phantasies and impulses against his mother’s breasts.” Klein, M. (1940) ‘Mourning and its Relation to Manic-Depressive States’ IJPA, 21; 125-153, pp. 126-127 108 “I have pointed out before that, in my view, already during the sucking period, when it comes to know its mother as a whole person and when it progresses from the introjection of part-objects to the introjection of the whole object, the infant experiences some of the feelings of guilt and remorse, some of the pain which results from the conflict between love and uncontrollable hatred, some of the anxieties of the impending death of the loved internalized and external objects…in a lesser and

frustrations of the breast-feeding situation in which oral fixations and anxieties predominate.109 Sadistic phantasies, now directed towards a larger array of whole objects (father, siblings etc.), which are attacked within the mother’s body, increase the potential for the infant to experience loss and guilt.110 Klein continues to delineate the melancholic from the mourner, relying yet again on the work of Freud (1917) and Abraham111: Freud pioneered the exploration of “the nature of archaic processes at work in melancholia”112 and Abraham established a similitude of these processes in the work of normal mourning, according to Klein. Where normal mourning succeeds in the instalment of the lost loved object within the subject’s ego, melancholia fails.113 The idea of introjection becomes salient once again, and Klein attributes the discovery of the role of introjection in the work of mourning and melancholia to Freud, who is thought to have introduced the super-ego into his structural theory on the basis of such an appreciation. Here, the super-ego can be seen as the establishment of the parents within the ego.114 The important point for Klein is that the sufferings in adult melancholia (conflict, remorse, guilt) are connected to the ego’s relation to its internal imagos, which are already operative in the baby.115 An earlier paper by Rado in 1928116 is also called upon to fortify Klein’s views on the nature and content of the infantile depressive-position.117 Rado anatomised the mechanism of melancholia in milder degree the sufferings and feelings which we find fully developed in the adult melancholic” Klein, M. (1935) ‘A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16: 145-174 pp. 170-173 109 “the baby experiences depressive feelings which reach a climax just before, during and after weaning” Ibid 110 “The sorrow and concern about the feared loss of the ‘good’ objects, that is to say, the depressive position, is, in my experience, the deepest source of the painful conflicts in the Oedipus situation, as well as in the child’s relations to people in general. In normal development these feelings of grief and fears are overcome by various methods.” Ibid 111 As is often the case, Klein refers again to Abraham’s work, without explicit reference to any particular paper.

112 Ibid. p. 145 113 “My experience leads me to conclude that, while it is true that the characteristic feature of normal mourning is the individual’s setting up the lost object inside himself, he is not doing so for the first time but, through the work of mourning, is reinstating that object as well as all his loved internal objects which he feels he has lost. He is therefore recovering what he had already attained in childhood.” Ibid 114 “the processes of introjection and projection from the beginning of life lead to the institution inside ourselves of loved and hated objects, who are felt to be ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and who are interrelated with each other and with the self: that is to say, they constitute an inner world. This assembly of internalized objects becomes organized, together with the organization of the ego, and in the higher strata of the mind it becomes discernible as the super-ego.” Ibid. pp. 145-146 115 “If the infant at this period of life fails to establish its loved object within – if the introjection of the ‘good’ object miscarries – then the situation of the ‘loss of the loved object’ arises already in the same sense as it is found in the adult melancholic” Ibid. p. 172 116 “the melancholiac…feels guilty because by his aggressive attitude he has himself to blame for the loss of the object, and in this we certainly cannot contradict him. We observe, too, that this confession of guilt by the ego is modelled on infantile prototypes and its expression is strongly reinforced from infantile sources.” Rado, S. (1928). ‘The Problem of Melancholia.’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 9: 420-438, p. 429 117 “This [the depressive] position is stimulated and reinforced by the ‘loss of the loved object’ which the baby experiences over and over again when the mother’s breast is taken away from it, and this loss reaches its climax during weaning…Rado has pointed out that ‘the deepest fixation-point in the

such a way as to synthesise Freud’s views and lay the ground for what Klein was to contribute soon after.118 He traces the chain of ideas of ‘guilt119 —atonement— forgiveness’120, squarely into the “sequence of early infancy: rage, hunger, [and] drinking at the mother’s breast.”121 Rado saw melancholia as “a very extensive loss of the relation to reality and complete subjection of the ego to the unrestrained tyranny of the sadistic super-ego”.122 With this, the explicit traces of the origins of Klein’s keynote concepts is complete.

Not mentioned here, but clearly influential are such figures as Ferenczi and Glover and surely there is more of Freud in Klein that even she would admit. The ineluctable fusion of Freudian and Kleinian terminology echoes the ineluctable fusion of Kleinian and ‘Independent’ nomenclature though these linguistic affinities disguise fundamental differences in approach. Klein established something of a coup d’etat within the institution of psychoanalysis, primarily in Britain but her ideas have become internationally respected as being formative in the extension of the psychoanalytic modus operandi to the productive and illuminating work of child analysis. Klein’s was the first psychoanalytic treatment of an autistic child and this I think highlights an area where her ideas have had the most profound impact: on the understanding and elucidation of infantile psychotic states. I am not yet convinced that the value of Klein’s work has truly been appreciated and can only posit the depressive position is to be found in the situation of threatened loss of love, more especially in the hunger situation of the suckling baby’” Klein, M. (1935) ‘A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16: 145-174 . p. 172 118 “From the paroxysm of rage in the hungry infant proceed all the later forms of aggressive reaction to frustration (e.g. devouring, biting, striking, destroying, etc.) and it is on these that the ego, in the period of latency, concentrates its whole sense of guilt…Evidently the ego is incapable of erecting a barrier against the manifestations of aggression as it does against those of gross sensuality. The former are constantly presented to it by the unavoidable impressions of daily life and not least by the aggressive measures adopted by those who train the child. Education must therefore content itself with condemning his acts of aggression in the most severe terms and causing him to attach to them the ideas of guilt and sin. The close relation between genitality and repression on the one hand and aggression and defence through reaction on the other—a relation to which Freud has recently drawn attention — thus has its roots in the child's practical situation…The torments of hunger are the mental precursors of later 'punishments' and, by way of the discipline of punishment, they come to be the primal mechanism of self-punishment, which in melancholia assumes such a fatal significance. At the bottom of the melancholiac's profound dread of impoverishment there is really simply the dread of starvation (that is, of impoverishment in physical possessions), with which the vitality of such part of his ego as remains normal reacts to the expiatory acts which threaten the life of the patient in this disease. But drinking at the mother's breast remains the radiant image of unremitting, forgiving love.” Ibid. p. 427 119

“exactly why and of what does the ego feel guilty?...With the melancholiac…we have only to listen attentively…at…his self-reproaches. He feels guilty because by his aggressive attitude he has himself to blame for the loss of the object…this confession of guilt by the ego is modeled on infantile prototypes and its expression is strongly reinforced from infantile sources…It has its origin in the sadistic trend of hostility to the object, which has already shown its force in the ambivalent character of the love relation.” Rado, S. (1928). ‘The Problem of Melancholia.’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 9: 420-438. p. 429 120 “The repentant ego desires to win the forgiveness of the offended object and, as an atonement, submits to being punished by the super-ego instead of by the object. In the undreamed-of harshness of the super-ego the old tendency of hostility to the object is expending its fury on the ego, which is thrust into the place of the hated object.” Ibid. p. 430 121 Ibid. p. 427 122 Ibid. p. 430

uncomfortable nature of some of her ideas as a possible explanation for why this is so.123 Notwithstanding, Klein’s work is often linked with that of the paedeatrician-comepsychoanalyst – Winnicott124, who ranked her depressive position as “on a par with Freud’s Oedipus complex.”125 Aguayo (2002) executes a scholarly investigation into the summaries of Winnicott’s clinical thought after his intensive collaboration with Klein during the publication of her metapsychological theses.126 Geissmann and Geissmann (1998) also tie Winnicott much more to Klein than to Freud127 though in general, the summaries are more focussed on Winnicott’s later divergence from Klein after the controversial discussions.128 Aguayo (2002) characterises the Kleinian period (1935-46) of Winnicott’s theoretical evolution as an analyst.129 Starting with an enthusiastic adherence to Klein’s theories about the manic-defence to the sufferings of the depressive position. He later cites Klein’s play technique as a ‘brilliant plan’, endorsing it as enabling the child to express deeply unconscious phantasies. Finally he emerges as an independent thinker after his work with evacuee children during the Blitz of WWII.130 Klein contributed to Winnicott’s pamphlet on the effects 123

“The idea of an infant of from six to twelve months trying to destroy its mother by every method at the disposal of its sadistic trends—with its teeth, nails and excreta and with the whole of its body, transformed in phantasy into all kinds of dangerous weapons—presents a horrifying, not to say an unbelievable picture to our minds. And it is difficult, as I know from my own experience, to bring oneself to recognize that such an abhorrent idea answers to truth. But the abundance, force and multiplicity of the cruel phantasies which accompany these cravings are displayed before our eyes in early analyses so clearly and forcibly that they leave no room for doubt.” Klein, M. (1975; 1932) The Psycho-Analysis of Children, NY: Delacorte Press. Chpt VIII ‘Early Stages of the Oedipus Conflict and of Super-ego Formation’ pp. 123-148 p. 130.

124 “Klein (1935, 1940, 1946) put forth the essence of her theoretical system as she supervised Winnicott, who simulataneously undertook a Kleinian analysis with Joan Riviere. Klein’s influence in the establishment of a paradigmatic shift in the psychoanalytic understanding of the infant’s subjective experience of the mother was crucial to the work of Winnicott.” Aguayo, J. (2002) ‘Reassessing the Clinical Affinity Between Melanie Klein and D. W. Winnicott (1935-51): Klein’s Unpublished ‘Notes on baby’ In Historical Context.’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 83: 1133-1152 p. 1133 125 Winnicott, D. W. (1962). A personal view of the Kleinian contribution. In The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. Madison: Int. Univ. Press, pp. 171-8 p. 176 126 “there is little historical appreciation of the formative contexts in which Winnicott fashioned his psychoanalytic identity, or indeed what he derived from his long-term association with Klein.”

Aguayo, J. (2002) ‘Reassessing the Clinical Affinity Between Melanie Klein and D. W. Winnicott (1935-51): Klein’s Unpublished ‘Notes on baby’ In Historical Context.’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 83: 1133-1152 p. 1135 127 “the contribution of…Klein to his [Winnicott’s] work would be much greater than that of Freud, and it can be said that he followed her line faithfully for about two decades.” Geissmann, C. & Geissmann, P. (1998) A History of Child Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, p. 220 128 When Winnicott chose to become a non-aligned, Independent analyst, whose ideas permeated the Independent literature extant from thereon in.

129 “Overwhelmed by the originality of her formulations, his…‘The Manic Defence’ (1935)…was both derivative and supportive of Klein’s 1935…paper. He followed her definition of the depressive position, as well as her conception of manic defences, emphasizing omnipotence and denial as a defence against depression and the dread of containing dead or dying objects.”Aguayo, J. (2002) ‘Reassessing the Clinical Affinity Between Melanie Klein and D. W. Winnicott (1935-51): Klein’s Unpublished ‘Notes on baby’ In Historical Context.’ International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 83: 1133-1152 p. 1140 130 “Winnicott oversaw 285 children and noticed a diversity of normal versus pathological adjustments to new environments…expressed his concern…about the psychological damage caused

evacuation on parents, indicating still close affinities in their mutual concerns. Later still, Winnicott had “stripped away any pretence of conciliatory or diplomatic posturing towards Klein’s theories”131 and “believed that he had outlined the ‘predepressive’ position…in a way to either extend or clarify Klein’s work with older children.”132 Where Klein did give favourable mention to Winnicott, she referred mostly to the corroborative aspects of his work with her notion of the infantile depressive position. Beyond this period of collaboration, Winnicott stands very much on his own two feet and becomes a prominent figure of British psycho-analysis, representing some of the finest independent thinking from within this non-aligned school.

It is of the greatest importance to recognise that before Klein crystallised her theories on infantile psychotic anxiety, psychoanalysis was predominantly the therapy of choice for adult patient’s suffering from hysteria, obsessional neuroses or phobias, which were all considered as symptoms or reaction-formations to early-infantile anxiety situations, explored retrospectively. Although more severe forms of psychotic symptomatology were becoming known to psychoanalysts, few contributions to the understanding of these more primitive disturbances, came from the actual ‘psychoanalysis’ of children. In a fiercely imaginative way, Melanie Klein forged the ground upon which psycho-analysis became astute to the immanent difficulties and sadistic phantasies connected to these earliest psychotic mechanisms which predate the level of ego-organisation posited as being the outcome of the dissolution of the Oedipus complex in Freud.133 It certainly benefited the acceptance of Klein’s theories that she implicitly and explicitly adhered to the Freudian sequence of infantile psycho-sexual development and she somewhat depends on her familiarity with Abraham’s authentication of the Freudian theory of sexuality in order to overlay her ‘positions’ on top of these ontological developments. Freud and authors up to Klein, barring to small children between the ages of 2 and 5 by their prolongued separation from this homes…

Winnicott now dealt with the effects of total war on small children…Winnicott also addressed the experience of the ‘deprived mother’…often left feeling personally inadequate because they could not provide a propoer home for their children.” Ibid. p 1142 131 “…as he now took issue with aspects of the paranoid-schizoid position, the death instinct and aggressive attacks on the maternal object that underlay persecutory anxiety…his interest lay in… synthesizing the work of Klein and Anna Freud, something neither theoriest would have welcomed.”

Ibid.

132 “…Klein was not apparently rankled by…a ‘pre-depressive’ position…because she found it more urgent to theoriese about the earliest stages of development.”Ibid. p. 1143 133 It is the central issue of ego-organisation, where Klein differs most with Freud: whereas Freud considered the formation of the super-ego as a consequence of the passing of the Oedipus complex, late into his ‘latency’ period; Klein saw the very first introjections of objects as being constitutive of development of the super-ego and thus presented the much younger infant, in her theories, with many more dynamic processes of defence and structuration than Freud was able to do (this perhaps by virtue of Klein’s vastly superior experience with young children and infants). On this point, it is interesting to note that in the beginning, Klein avowed to stay loyal to her predecessor (Freud) and his theory of the Oedipus complex. As time goes by, however, we can notice an increasing trend in Klein’s clinical work to tackle earlier and earlier disturbances in younger and younger patients, culminating is her theoretically sound contributions to the psychogenesis of manic-depressive states and the relation of mourning to melancholia. Anna Freud, Klein’s only real counterpart in the realm of child analysis, had very different views on the age at which analysis could or should take place and indeed, how to go about it (it was this, amongst other issues dealt with during the controversial discussions that eventually led to the trifurcation of the British Psycho-Analytical Society into three branches). Suffice it say, Klein was unique in her adamant belief in the viability of psychoanalysis for the youngest of patients.

Anna Freud, typically worked on the treatment of psycho-neuroses and actualneuroses which pre-supposed the existence of an infantile-neurosis that was not yet overcome. The only access the pre-Kleinian analyst had to the contents of this primary neurosis of infancy was through the unreliable recollection of their adult patients: Melanie Klein developed the first technique that allowed for a detailed analysis of the very infantile neurosis that lay the foundations for all later psycho- and actual-neuroses. The mother-infant dyad became centrally significant to the psychoanalysis of children and Klein influenced a paradigmatic shift in psychoanalytic work that has remained unmatched in the British Society for over half a decade. Klein synthesises Freud, Abraham, Rado, Schmideberg, Laforgue to name but a few, in her metapsychological quest and her ideas remain unavoidably poignant today, reflected in the fact that hers in one of two aligned perspectives upheld within British Psychoanlysis and has a strong basis in much of the non-aligned, independent work going on, as has been briefly referenced to Winnicott, but certainly does not end there.