Encyclopedia, Difference between revisions of "Melanie Klein" - New World
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'''Melanie Klein''', ([[March 30]] [[1882]] – [[September 22]] [[1960]]), Austrian [[psychoanalysis | psychotherapist]]. | '''Melanie Klein''', ([[March 30]] [[1882]] – [[September 22]] [[1960]]), Austrian [[psychoanalysis | psychotherapist]]. | ||
| + | ==Life== | ||
Born in [[Vienna]], she built on the work of [[Sigmund Freud]], particularly in the area of [[child psychology]]. Klein is one of the cofounders of [[object relations theory]]. | Born in [[Vienna]], she built on the work of [[Sigmund Freud]], particularly in the area of [[child psychology]]. Klein is one of the cofounders of [[object relations theory]]. | ||
Invited by [[Ernest Jones]], Melanie Klein came to [[London]] in 1926, where she worked until her death in 1960. | Invited by [[Ernest Jones]], Melanie Klein came to [[London]] in 1926, where she worked until her death in 1960. | ||
| + | ==Work== | ||
Klein's theoretical work gradually centered on a highly speculative hypothesis propounded by Freud, which stated that life may be an [[anomaly]], that it is drawn toward an [[inorganic]] state, and therefore, in an unspecified sense, contains an instinct to die. In psychological terms [[Eros (Freud)|Eros]], the sustaining and uniting principle of life, is thereby postulated to have a companion force, [[Thanatos]], which seeks to terminate and disintegrate life. | Klein's theoretical work gradually centered on a highly speculative hypothesis propounded by Freud, which stated that life may be an [[anomaly]], that it is drawn toward an [[inorganic]] state, and therefore, in an unspecified sense, contains an instinct to die. In psychological terms [[Eros (Freud)|Eros]], the sustaining and uniting principle of life, is thereby postulated to have a companion force, [[Thanatos]], which seeks to terminate and disintegrate life. | ||
| Line 18: | Line 20: | ||
Melanie Klein's insistence on regarding aggression as an important force in its own right when analyzing children brought her into conflict with [[Anna Freud]], the other major child psychotherapist working in England at the time. Many controversies arose from this conflict. | Melanie Klein's insistence on regarding aggression as an important force in its own right when analyzing children brought her into conflict with [[Anna Freud]], the other major child psychotherapist working in England at the time. Many controversies arose from this conflict. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Object Relations Theory=== | ||
| + | |||
| + | '''Object relations theory''' is the idea that the ego-self exists only in relation to other objects, which may be external or internal. The internal objects are internalized versions of external objects, primarily formed from early interactions with the parents. There are three fundamental "affects" that can exist between the self and the other - attachment, frustration, and rejection. These affects are universal emotional states that are major building blocks of the personality. Object relations theory was pioneered in the 1940's and 50's by British psychologists [[Ronald Fairbairn]], [[Winnicott|D.W. Winnicott]], [[Harry Guntrip]], and others. | ||
| + | |||
| + | [[Freud]] developed the concept [[object relation]] to describe or emphasize that bodily [[drive|drives]] satisfy their need through a medium, an object, on a specific locus. The central thesis in [[Melanie Klein]]'s object relations theory was that objects play a decisive role in the development of a subject and can be either [[part-object|part-objects]] or [[whole-object|whole-objects]], i.e. a single organ (a mother's breast) or a whole person (a mother). Consequently both a mother or just the mother's breast can be the locus of satisfaction for a [[drive]]. Furthermore, according to [[traditional psychoanalysis]], there are at least two types of drives, the [[libido]] (mythical counterpart: [[Eros]]), and the [[death]] drive (mythical counterpart: [[Thanatos]]). Thus, the objects can be receivers of both [[love]] and [[hate]], the affective effects of the [[libido]] and the death drive. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Until the 1970s, however, few American psychoanalysts were influenced by the school of [[Melanie Klein]], on the one hand, who constituted an opposite polarity to the school of [[Anna Freud]] (which dominated American psychoanalysis in [[1940s]], [[1950s]], and [[1960s]] and was represented in the US by Hartmann, Kris, Loewenstein, Rapaport, Erikson, Jacobson, and Mahler), and, on the other hand, the "middle group" who fell between Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, and was influenced by the British schools of [[Michael Balint]], [[Donald Winnicott]], and [[Ronald Fairbairn]]. The strong animosity in England between the school of Anna Freud and that of Melanie Klein was transplanted to the US, where the Anna Freud group dominated totally until the [[1970s]], when new interpersonal psychoanalysis arose partly from ideas of culturalist psychoanalysis, influenced also by [[Ego psychology]], and partly by British theories which have also entered under the broad terminology of "British object relations theories". | ||
| + | |||
| + | Recent decades in developmental psychological research, for example on the onset of a "[[Theory of mind#Theory of Mind - Understanding that others have minds with separate beliefs desires and intentions|theory of mind]]" in children, has found that the formation of mental world is enabled by the infant-parent interpersonal interaction which was the main thesis of British object-relations tradition (e.g. Fairbairn, 1952). | ||
| + | |||
| + | [[Ronald Fairbairn|Fairbairn]] also discovered the psychological condition of dysfunctional interpersonal attachment of abused children to their abusing parents, which is now explained by [[Stockholm Syndrome]] as genetically programed neurobiological psychological response to a situation where the victim perceives her or his life (acutely or chronically) depends on their captor's good will. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Projective Identification=== | ||
| + | '''Projective identification''' is a psychological term was first introduced by [[Melanie Klein]] of the [[Object relations]] school of psychoanalytic thought in 1946. It refers to a psychological process in which a person will project a thought or belief that they have onto a second person. Then, in most common definitions of projective identification, there is another action in which the second person is changed by the projection and begins to behave as though he or she is in fact actually characterized by those thoughts or beliefs that have been projected. This is a process that generally happens outside of the awareness of both parties involved, although this has been a matter of some argument. What is projected is most often an intolerable, painful, or dangerous idea or belief about the self that the first person cannot tolerate (i.e. "I have behaved wrongly" or "I have a sexual feeling towards ...." ). Or it may be a valued or esteemed idea that again is difficult for the first person to acknowledge for some reason. Projective identification is believed to be a very early or primitive psychological process and is understood to be one of the more primitive defense mechanisms. Yet is also thought to be the basis out of which more mature psychological processes like empathy and intuition are formed. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Many authors have described the process of projective identification. One notable, Ogden (1979, 1986) describes a process in which the part of the self is projected onto an external object. The external object experiences a blurring of the boundaries or definitions of the self and other. This takes place during an interpersonal interaction in which the projector actively pressures the recipient to think, feel and act in accordance with the projection. The recipient of the projection then processes or "metabolizes" the projection so that it can then be re-internalized by the projector. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Different definitions of projective identification exist and there are disagreements as to a number of its aspects. For example, where does the process begin and end, exactly "what" is projected and what is "received", is a second person required for projective identification to take place, does projective identification occur when it is within the awareness of either party involved, and what is the difference between projection and projective identification. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Ogden (1982) describes the process of projective identification as simultaneously involving a type of psychological defense against unwanted feelings or fantasies, a mode of communication, and as a type of human relationship. | ||
| + | |||
| + | As a defense a psychiatric patient, for example, can use PI to deny the truth of unwanted feelings or beliefs by projecting them into the other person. Additionally, because the analyst begins to unknowingly enact these feelings or beliefs (even though they were originally alien to him or her), the patient is in a sense "controlling" the interaction with the analyst. This is often experienced by the analyst as a subtle pressure to behave or believe in a particular way; but it is an influence which the analyst usually is not attentive to or it is not experienced consciously. By influencing the analyst to behave in a particular way, more exploratory, original and vulnerable material is prevented from coming into the discussion. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Projective identification functions as a mode of communication as well. The first person "gives" his or her unwanted thoughts or feelings to the second person. Instead of communicating these thoughts or feelings with words, the unwanted content is given directly to the second person. In this way the second person may understand what the first person is experiencing, even if the first person is unaware of such experience. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Projective identification is often experienced not as an isolated incident, but as a series of projections and identifications and counter-projections and counter-identifications that evolve in a relationship over time. An example of this might be the mother/infant dyad or a husband and wife pairing. In such cases there is an ongoing emotional economy or transaction between the partners that takes place over the course of an entire relationship. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Other authors have identified multiple motivations for projective identification including: to control the object, to acquire its attributes, to evacuate a bad quality, to protect a good quality, to avoid separation (Spillius, 1988, vol. 1, pp. 81-3). | ||
| + | |||
| + | Here is a simple example of projective identification in a psychiatric setting. A traumatized patient describes to his analyst a horrible incident which he experienced recently. Yet in describing this incident the patient remains emotionally unaffected or even indifferent to his own obvious suffering and perhaps even the suffering of his loved ones. When asked he denies having any feelings about the event whatsoever. Yet, when the analyst hears this story, she begins to feel very strong feelings (i.e. perhaps sadness and/or anger) in response. She might tear up or become righteously indignant on behalf of the patient, thereby acting out the patient's feelings resulting from the trauma. Being a well trained analyst however, she recognizes the profound effect that her patient's story is having on her. Acknowledging to herself the feelings she is having, she suggests to the patient that he might perhaps be having feelings that are difficult for him to experience in relation to the trauma. She processes or metabolizes these experiences in herself and puts them into words and speaks them to the patient. Ideally, then the patient can recognize in himself the emotions or thoughts that he previously could not let into his awareness. Another common example is in the mother/child dyad where the mother is able to experience and address her child’s needs when the child is often unable to state his own needs at all. | ||
| + | |||
| + | The above examples describe projective identification within the context of a dyad. However, PI takes place within a group context as well. Another notable psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion (1961) described projective identification in the following way: "the analyst feels he is being manipulated so as to be playing a part, no matter how difficult to recognize, in someone else's fantasy" (p. 149). This ongoing link between internal intra-psychic process and the interpersonal dimension has provided the foundation for understanding important aspects of group and organizational life. Bion's studies of groups examined how collusive, shared group phenomena such as scapegoating, group-think and emotional contagion are all rooted in the collective use of projective identification. In fact, sociologists often see projective identification at work on the societal level in the relationship of minority groups and the majority class. | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | -Bion, W. (1961). Experiences in Groups.Routledge. | ||
| + | |||
| + | -Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. In Money-Kyrle, R., Joseph, B., O'Shaughnessy, E. & Segal, H. (Eds.).(1984). The writings of Melanie Klein. Vol III. London: The Hogarth Press. | ||
| + | |||
| + | -Ogden, T.H. (1979), On projective indentification. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 60: 357-373. | ||
| + | |||
| + | -Ogden, T. (1986). The Matrix of the Mind. Object Relations Theory and the Psychoanalytic Dialogue. Northwale, NJ: Jason Aronson. | ||
| + | |||
| + | - Spillius, Elizabeth B.(1988) Melanie Klein Today, 2 vols. Routledge. | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | ==Sources== | ||
| + | Fairbairn, W. R. D., (1952). An Object-Relations Theory of the Personality. New York: Basic Books. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Fairbairn, W. R. D., (1952). Endopsychic structure considered in terms of object relationships, London. | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
==Literature== | ==Literature== | ||
| Line 47: | Line 101: | ||
| − | {{ | + | {{Credit3|Melanie_Klein|43361757|Object_relations_theory|31209870|Projective_identification|44072810||}} |
Revision as of 17:04, 16 March 2006
Melanie Klein, (March 30 1882 – September 22 1960), Austrian psychotherapist.
Life
Born in Vienna, she built on the work of Sigmund Freud, particularly in the area of child psychology. Klein is one of the cofounders of object relations theory.
Invited by Ernest Jones, Melanie Klein came to London in 1926, where she worked until her death in 1960.
Work
Klein's theoretical work gradually centered on a highly speculative hypothesis propounded by Freud, which stated that life may be an anomaly, that it is drawn toward an inorganic state, and therefore, in an unspecified sense, contains an instinct to die. In psychological terms Eros, the sustaining and uniting principle of life, is thereby postulated to have a companion force, Thanatos, which seeks to terminate and disintegrate life.
Examining ultra-aggressive fantasies of hate, envy, and greed in very young, very ill children, Melanie Klein put forth the interpretation that the human psyche is in a constant oscillation depending on whether Eros or Thanatos is in the fore. She calls the state of the psyche, when the sustaining principle of life is in domination, the depressive position. The psychological state corresponding to the disintegrating tendency of life she gives the name the paranoid-schizoid position.
Melanie Klein's insistence on regarding aggression as an important force in its own right when analyzing children brought her into conflict with Anna Freud, the other major child psychotherapist working in England at the time. Many controversies arose from this conflict.
Object Relations Theory
Object relations theory is the idea that the ego-self exists only in relation to other objects, which may be external or internal. The internal objects are internalized versions of external objects, primarily formed from early interactions with the parents. There are three fundamental "affects" that can exist between the self and the other - attachment, frustration, and rejection. These affects are universal emotional states that are major building blocks of the personality. Object relations theory was pioneered in the 1940's and 50's by British psychologists Ronald Fairbairn, D.W. Winnicott, Harry Guntrip, and others.
Freud developed the concept object relation to describe or emphasize that bodily drives satisfy their need through a medium, an object, on a specific locus. The central thesis in Melanie Klein's object relations theory was that objects play a decisive role in the development of a subject and can be either part-objects or whole-objects, i.e. a single organ (a mother's breast) or a whole person (a mother). Consequently both a mother or just the mother's breast can be the locus of satisfaction for a drive. Furthermore, according to traditional psychoanalysis, there are at least two types of drives, the libido (mythical counterpart: Eros), and the death drive (mythical counterpart: Thanatos). Thus, the objects can be receivers of both love and hate, the affective effects of the libido and the death drive.
Until the 1970s, however, few American psychoanalysts were influenced by the school of Melanie Klein, on the one hand, who constituted an opposite polarity to the school of Anna Freud (which dominated American psychoanalysis in 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s and was represented in the US by Hartmann, Kris, Loewenstein, Rapaport, Erikson, Jacobson, and Mahler), and, on the other hand, the "middle group" who fell between Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, and was influenced by the British schools of Michael Balint, Donald Winnicott, and Ronald Fairbairn. The strong animosity in England between the school of Anna Freud and that of Melanie Klein was transplanted to the US, where the Anna Freud group dominated totally until the 1970s, when new interpersonal psychoanalysis arose partly from ideas of culturalist psychoanalysis, influenced also by Ego psychology, and partly by British theories which have also entered under the broad terminology of "British object relations theories".
Recent decades in developmental psychological research, for example on the onset of a "theory of mind" in children, has found that the formation of mental world is enabled by the infant-parent interpersonal interaction which was the main thesis of British object-relations tradition (e.g. Fairbairn, 1952).
Fairbairn also discovered the psychological condition of dysfunctional interpersonal attachment of abused children to their abusing parents, which is now explained by Stockholm Syndrome as genetically programed neurobiological psychological response to a situation where the victim perceives her or his life (acutely or chronically) depends on their captor's good will.
Projective Identification
Projective identification is a psychological term was first introduced by Melanie Klein of the Object relations school of psychoanalytic thought in 1946. It refers to a psychological process in which a person will project a thought or belief that they have onto a second person. Then, in most common definitions of projective identification, there is another action in which the second person is changed by the projection and begins to behave as though he or she is in fact actually characterized by those thoughts or beliefs that have been projected. This is a process that generally happens outside of the awareness of both parties involved, although this has been a matter of some argument. What is projected is most often an intolerable, painful, or dangerous idea or belief about the self that the first person cannot tolerate (i.e. "I have behaved wrongly" or "I have a sexual feeling towards ...." ). Or it may be a valued or esteemed idea that again is difficult for the first person to acknowledge for some reason. Projective identification is believed to be a very early or primitive psychological process and is understood to be one of the more primitive defense mechanisms. Yet is also thought to be the basis out of which more mature psychological processes like empathy and intuition are formed.
Many authors have described the process of projective identification. One notable, Ogden (1979, 1986) describes a process in which the part of the self is projected onto an external object. The external object experiences a blurring of the boundaries or definitions of the self and other. This takes place during an interpersonal interaction in which the projector actively pressures the recipient to think, feel and act in accordance with the projection. The recipient of the projection then processes or "metabolizes" the projection so that it can then be re-internalized by the projector.
Different definitions of projective identification exist and there are disagreements as to a number of its aspects. For example, where does the process begin and end, exactly "what" is projected and what is "received", is a second person required for projective identification to take place, does projective identification occur when it is within the awareness of either party involved, and what is the difference between projection and projective identification.
Ogden (1982) describes the process of projective identification as simultaneously involving a type of psychological defense against unwanted feelings or fantasies, a mode of communication, and as a type of human relationship.
As a defense a psychiatric patient, for example, can use PI to deny the truth of unwanted feelings or beliefs by projecting them into the other person. Additionally, because the analyst begins to unknowingly enact these feelings or beliefs (even though they were originally alien to him or her), the patient is in a sense "controlling" the interaction with the analyst. This is often experienced by the analyst as a subtle pressure to behave or believe in a particular way; but it is an influence which the analyst usually is not attentive to or it is not experienced consciously. By influencing the analyst to behave in a particular way, more exploratory, original and vulnerable material is prevented from coming into the discussion.
Projective identification functions as a mode of communication as well. The first person "gives" his or her unwanted thoughts or feelings to the second person. Instead of communicating these thoughts or feelings with words, the unwanted content is given directly to the second person. In this way the second person may understand what the first person is experiencing, even if the first person is unaware of such experience.
Projective identification is often experienced not as an isolated incident, but as a series of projections and identifications and counter-projections and counter-identifications that evolve in a relationship over time. An example of this might be the mother/infant dyad or a husband and wife pairing. In such cases there is an ongoing emotional economy or transaction between the partners that takes place over the course of an entire relationship.
Other authors have identified multiple motivations for projective identification including: to control the object, to acquire its attributes, to evacuate a bad quality, to protect a good quality, to avoid separation (Spillius, 1988, vol. 1, pp. 81-3).
Here is a simple example of projective identification in a psychiatric setting. A traumatized patient describes to his analyst a horrible incident which he experienced recently. Yet in describing this incident the patient remains emotionally unaffected or even indifferent to his own obvious suffering and perhaps even the suffering of his loved ones. When asked he denies having any feelings about the event whatsoever. Yet, when the analyst hears this story, she begins to feel very strong feelings (i.e. perhaps sadness and/or anger) in response. She might tear up or become righteously indignant on behalf of the patient, thereby acting out the patient's feelings resulting from the trauma. Being a well trained analyst however, she recognizes the profound effect that her patient's story is having on her. Acknowledging to herself the feelings she is having, she suggests to the patient that he might perhaps be having feelings that are difficult for him to experience in relation to the trauma. She processes or metabolizes these experiences in herself and puts them into words and speaks them to the patient. Ideally, then the patient can recognize in himself the emotions or thoughts that he previously could not let into his awareness. Another common example is in the mother/child dyad where the mother is able to experience and address her child’s needs when the child is often unable to state his own needs at all.
The above examples describe projective identification within the context of a dyad. However, PI takes place within a group context as well. Another notable psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion (1961) described projective identification in the following way: "the analyst feels he is being manipulated so as to be playing a part, no matter how difficult to recognize, in someone else's fantasy" (p. 149). This ongoing link between internal intra-psychic process and the interpersonal dimension has provided the foundation for understanding important aspects of group and organizational life. Bion's studies of groups examined how collusive, shared group phenomena such as scapegoating, group-think and emotional contagion are all rooted in the collective use of projective identification. In fact, sociologists often see projective identification at work on the societal level in the relationship of minority groups and the majority class.
-Bion, W. (1961). Experiences in Groups.Routledge.
-Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. In Money-Kyrle, R., Joseph, B., O'Shaughnessy, E. & Segal, H. (Eds.).(1984). The writings of Melanie Klein. Vol III. London: The Hogarth Press.
-Ogden, T.H. (1979), On projective indentification. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 60: 357-373.
-Ogden, T. (1986). The Matrix of the Mind. Object Relations Theory and the Psychoanalytic Dialogue. Northwale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
- Spillius, Elizabeth B.(1988) Melanie Klein Today, 2 vols. Routledge.
Sources
Fairbairn, W. R. D., (1952). An Object-Relations Theory of the Personality. New York: Basic Books.
Fairbairn, W. R. D., (1952). Endopsychic structure considered in terms of object relationships, London.
Literature
Melanie Klein's collected works are encapsulated in two volumes:
- Love, Guilt and Reparation: And Other Works 1921-1945, Paperback, Free Press 2002
- Envy and Gratitude
Also:
- The Psycho-Analysis of Children (1932)
Other books on Melanie Klein:
- C. Fred Alford, Melanie Klein and Critical Social Theory: An Account of Politics, Art, and Reason Based on Her Psychoanalytic Theory, Yale UP 1990
- P. Grosskurth, Melanie Klein: Her World and Her Work, Karnac Books 1987 - A thorough biography
- Robert Hinshelwood, Susan Robinson, Oscar Zarate, Introducing Melanie Klein, Icon Books UK 2003
- Meira Likierman, "Melanie Klein, Her Work in Context" Continuum International, Paperback, 2002
- Jacqueline Rose, Why War?— Psychoanalysis, Politics, and the Return to Melanie Klein, Blackwell Publishers 1993
External Links
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