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Object Relations: Melanie Klein Pt. 3

Getting her act together

As Melanie Klein put her past behind her, she began conversing with analysts in England. There was a mixture of skepticism with a sense of wonder and mystery about her process. She appeared both as a riff raff in the psychoanalytical community, but others were curious to see if she had been underrated, a diamond in the rough. Alix Strachey got the impression that "Mélanie is rather tiresome as a person—a sort of ex-beauty and charmer—and she’s unpopular with a certain section of the [Society] who pretend she’s quite sound in practice, but feebleminded about theory." Melanie felt that she was ahead of Hug-Hellmuth, because she found the Oedipus Complex with her play technique, whereas the former had not. "She’s not only got vast hoards of data, but a great many ideas, all rather formless and mixed, but clearly capable of crystallizing in her mind. She’s got a creative mind, and that’s the main thing." Hug-Hellmuth on the other hand was an influence to Anna Freud, who went more in the direction of Ego psychology.

Even as Melanie was keeping her personal life secret in many ways, like not talking about her estranged husband, she was willing to live life fully. "She’s really a very good sort and makes no secret of her hopes, fears, and pleasures, which are of the simplest sort." The two were in Berlin and living it up at dances and balls, despite having different personalities. "While Melanie was extremely perspicacious about analysis, Alix found her limited as a person." Regardless, Alix was sending copious letters back to England with the insights she was learning from Melanie. The translations into English were difficult but when Klein arrived in England, she found the experience positive overall and wanted to stay. "In 1925 I had the wonderful experience of speaking to an interested and appreciative audience in London—all members were present at Dr. Stephen’s house because at that time there was not yet an institute where I could give these lectures. Ernest Jones asked me whether I would answer in the discussion. Although I had learnt a lot of English privately and at school, my English was still not good and I remember well that I was half guessing what I was asked, but it seemed that I could satisfy my audience that way. The three weeks that I spent in London, giving two lectures a week, were one of the happiest times of my life. I found such friendliness, hospitality and interest, and I also had an opportunity of seeing something of England and I developed a great liking for the English. It is true that later on things did not always go easily, but those three weeks were very important in my decision to live in England."

Her impact was immediate and Melanie was starting to network with other experimental child psychologists in England, and she began taking the extra money she was earning to dress more professionally and reinvent herself after her failed marriage. Ernest Jones responded to Freud's objections, with a crossed out word that the author Phyllis Grosskurth thought was a slip that revealed his new allegiance. "I know that Melanie Klein’s work has met with considerable opposition in Vienna and also in Berlin, though more at first than later. I regard the fact as indicating nothing but resistance against accepting the reality of her your conclusions concerning infantile life. Prophylactic child analysis appears to me to be the logical outcome of psycho-analysis." Alix at the time was growing tired of Melanie's fastidiousness and goody-two-shoes persona, but she still respected her knowledge. "However, I like her, and she’s very impressive in her line, there’s no doubt of it. (I now think that Anna Freud simply hates her on personal grounds because she thinks she’s a 'low' woman. Someone ought to speak to her about her general sniffiness, don’t you think?)"

Melanie was also involved in a fling with C.Z. Kloetzel, in her last days on the continent, but it was a mismatch between a woman who wanted a long-term relationship alongside a strong sexual compatibility, but "Melanie Klein was too intense, too serious, too depressed for the kind of lighthearted liaison Kloetzel had in mind. She seems, however, to have continued to exert a strong sexual attraction for him since, according to Eric Clyne, he made periodic trips to England to visit her. She was an intelligent woman who was capable of losing her head. The man whom she always considered the love of her life seems to have regarded the relationship as one of a series of trifling flings." When she was invited to England to analyze Ernest Jones's children, it ended up being the last time she saw Berlin or Vienna.

Around this time, Melanie's analyst, Karl Abraham, died at a young age leaving her analysis in limbo. For her it was "a great pain to me and a very painful situation to come through. When I abruptly finished my analysis with Abraham there was much that had not been analysed, and I have continually proceeded along the lines of knowing more about my deepest anxieties and defences." She loved Abraham because he defended her in Berlin, but after his death, the Berlin Society increased their attacks on her. Sandor Radó in particular was very jealous and refused to publish Klein's works, because he was passed on Freud's papers from Ferenczi to read, and so he felt close to the source of true knowledge. A continental vs. English rivalry was beginning to brew.

Criticism

When Anna Freud was beginning to publish, she was having trouble getting acceptance in England. Her theories on child psychology differed from those of Melanie's. For instance, Anna was less into interpreting everything that arose within children and wanted to allow more simple explanations, to avoid being too suggestive, but ironically, she supported an educational mentorship, partially because children are still developing and need to learn so many practical things. They also disagreed on what the transferences meant, both positive and negative towards the analyst. The big differences between Klein's methods and Anna's was the differences in ages of the children. Melanie wanted to go as far back as possible, whereas Anna felt that this could be too intense for the children. Those convinced by Melanie Klein found that the analysts themselves may have had their own blocks to their infantile lives, and their fears of penetrating more deeply were limiting their progress. Even Ernest Jones wrote to Freud about the benefits of not waiting. He wanted to engage the neuroses while they were "still in a plastic state, than after the mind has become set and organized on an unhealthy basis and at great cost." He deftly avoided saying that Melanie Klein was analyzing his children, to spare Freud's feelings.

Sigmund Freud responded by disavowing Anna's theories as well as Melanie's, especially her theories of an independent super-ego in younger children. In terms of the superego, he agreed more with Anna. "I would like to contradict Mrs. Klein in this point, that she regards the super-ego of the children [to be] as independent as that of adults while it appears to me that Anna is right in emphasizing that the infantile superego is still under the direct influence of the parents." Anna then responded with her own papers on connecting to the Oedipus Complex in the classical timeline.

In the end, both theorists claimed results in their methods. Certainly there are similarities despite differences in the timeline. Both theorists explain emotional investment as a build up of tension and then a release, like the sex act. Anna emphasizes skill development, which Melanie wants the child to do more on their own accord, and this may be a weakness in that the child cannot always be counted on to develop any of the requisite skills to deal with life's challenges. After an interpretation in the Kleinian method, some children do go into their own searches for solutions in their family life, and let go of rumination at the same time. Anna's weakness could be that the education from the analyst may impose too many restrictions on the child and make them dependent on the analyst, like a parent or teacher. Also, the analyst may not know the child or parents well enough to make those decisions, so in many circumstances it would be better to let the child make their own determinations, especially when it comes to hobbies and interests.

Children, like adults, all have desires and are affected by obstacles and frustrations that stand in the way. This is true in the early days of an infant's life as well as throughout adolescence and adulthood. Rumination is let go of when there's discharge and venting, but especially when problems are solved and put behind oneself. Otto Rank was criticized for his birthing pains theory, but his acceptance of a meditative response is very instructive in that it can help to save energy. Venting has its limits if there are no solutions to problems. Endless venting may result in a lack of tact in social situations. Some problems also cannot be solved, so a certain amount of letting go of endless interpretations can save energy that is more needed in the arena of skill development. A daily meditation practice that goes along with work, to check in on one's breath and to relax any unnecessary tension, to let the breath move on it's own, can clearly demarcate attachment and resistance in the Buddhist way, but also in the psychoanalytic way, one can see the beginnings of wasted energy when thoughts begin to dwell on unnecessary topics or on things that cannot be controlled. Venting, on the other hand, can then be more appropriate when there are severe shocks and misfortunes. Part of the reason why venting is so helpful is that it's part of a grieving process where a misfortune cannot be changed, so the patient can exhaust emotions in grieving until acceptance arises naturally. In situations where it would better to face problems and solve them in a practical way, a more constructive and active approach is efficacious. Helene Deutsch also noted that all desires always end in larger or smaller depressions, so the child may not necessarily be autotelic enough to just quickly pick up new goals to regulate emotions. They may not think that this is what is needed and be stuck in depression. Goals can also be tiring, and a meditative rest is desirable for a burnt out psyche. On the other hand, both Melanie and Anna supported a resilience and persistence with Ego in some cases, because being intolerant of delays in gratification would limit skill development. It isn't always skills that should be analyzed, but also goals. Many goals are futile, and therapeutically helping the patient let go of those types of goals is a way to teach the patients on how to be autonomous and use their own agency to make choices without the need for added suggestions, education, or more analysis.

Object Relations: Otto Rank Pt. 1: https://rumble.com/v1gvrq9-object-relations-otto-rank-pt.-1.html

Object Relations: Otto Rank Pt 2: https://rumble.com/v1gvsf5-object-relations-otto-rank-pt-2.html

Object Relations: Helene Deutsch Pt. 1: https://rumble.com/v2wrvg5-object-relations-helene-deutsch-pt.-1.html

Object Relations: Helene Deutsch Pt. 2: https://rumble.com/v2yepky-object-relations-helene-deutsch-pt.-2.html

In the text, Freud-Klein Controversies, the British Psychoanalytic Society saw the danger of the different methods splintering into their own schools with autocratic leaders and administrators punishing heretics, like in Freud's own circle, so they intelligently agreed on a compromise where people just joining the association could choose among three avenues. There was still some control over theoretical divergences, but the flexibility allowed for new advancements. "The Kleinians were organized around Melanie Klein’s contributions to theory and technique, the Viennese or ‘B’ group, as it was called, around the approach to psychoanalysis and technique supported by Anna Freud and her colleagues, while the 'Middle' group (later referred to as 'Independents') carried on the tradition and technique of the indigenous Members of the British Society, while maintaining their right to learn from all reasonable sources of knowledge."

There were a lot of competing theories around at this time on how to be a good analyst. Those criticizing Klein offered that Kleinian analysts didn't express their emotions enough so a rapport with the patient couldn't develop. The lack of social reassurance and physical contact created a non-therapeutic atmosphere. Despite this aloofness, critics also felt that Kleinians were too active paradoxically, and didn't allow the patient to do more of the insight work themselves. The most common complaint, which is leveled at all psychoanalysts, is the invasiveness of interpretation. Critics felt that interpretations alienate clients so their personal story remains buried under theory. Negative feelings were also a bone of contention, since many people look at therapy as a way to become happier. Those types of critics were more interested in the role that love plays in Melanie's theories than the dark side she explored. The worry was that negative thinking would be habituated. Exploration takes a long time in psychoanalysis, and so cognitive behavior therapists felt that they were more efficient by just focusing on conscious thinking, and by clarifying distortions there, many of the same results would manifest, and in some cases, there are even better results because clearer thinking improves thinking skills directly so the client could apply those very skills immediately after therapy. Because psychotherapy focuses on the past, both patients and cognitive behavioral therapists often wanted to focus more on the future, since that is the only place where opportunities for change emerge. As important as transference was, critics felt that it could be interpreted too much and not always reflect accurately. Not everything needs to be traced back to the primal scene in family life. Finally, many patients simply have skill deficits and nothing will improve until they are addressed.

In response to these criticisms, Kleinians felt that expressing their own emotions too much would interfere with the transference, since the goal of the analyst is to be a screen to land on, for projections from the patient to reveal themselves. As pointed out in Part 2, patients are bringing their current level of social skills and predictions, so they can't help but demonstrate these to an analyst that is a blank canvass at the beginning of therapy. When it comes to being social and physically welcoming, Kleinians are more comfortable with a friendly, non-judgmental attitude, because without dealing with underlying problems you are still stuck in a surface situation like in any other. Any therapeutic hugging or petting risks being too shallow and ineffective in the long run. Kleinian interpretations may seem too active, but as they relieve stress bit by bit, the therapy is actually progressing in depth. By also interpreting negative feelings, a lot more information could be discovered with negative transferences. Those insights further relieve anxiety for the analysand and allow a natural opening for love and a positive transference to arise, like a sunny day after the clouds disperse. Like in meditation, love is considered something that is naturally there but covered over with rumination. This means that negativity is not actually being strengthened but instead it's being understood. With strong supportive internal objects in the mind through positive transference with the analyst, the need for psychoanalysts to be just a teacher of skills can then offload that responsibility to patients, who will probably want to do it themselves and enjoy the pleasure of making their own choices. The future is also important for Kleinians, but without dealing with the past it is likely that habits will repeat themselves regardless of the skills taught. If teaching skills was all you needed then you could just replace therapists with a trainer. Finally, if cognitive therapy and clear thinking was all that was needed, how do they deal with behavior that is unconsciously driven?

The mind's creative expression

Because the unconscious is a very intuitive place, where in real time experience ideas pop out of nowhere, it made sense that Klein would want to explore creativity and play as it pertains to child psychology. From her point of view, play was just another language that could describe the inner world of a patient, and transference itself is a kind of creativity, where you take the inner world and make it manifest in the outer world. From Klein's point of view, both methods can expose the current skill level of patients, which includes their arsenal of reactions that are used when there are obstacles or there is a delay in gratification. How do they adapt to reality? "At a very early age children become acquainted with reality through the deprivations which it imposes on them. They defend themselves against reality by repudiating it." One of the markers of a good adaptation to reality is if the analysand has enough patience to tolerate how things are. "...One of the final results to be attained is successful adaptation to reality. One way in which this shows itself in children is in the modification of the difficulties encountered in their education. In other words, such children have become capable of tolerating real deprivations." The earliest deprivation for psychoanalysts of all stripes is being able to tolerate the Oedipus Complex.

As children grow up, through many weaning processes, they have to gradually become more independent and choose ever more appropriate relationship choices all the way up to adulthood, and somehow make a satisfactory final choice. For most parents, they want a heterosexual result with the opportunity to have grandchildren, so they can watch the inheritance they leave behind, to bring solace to the last years of their lives. It's their stamp of immortality. How typically people find new object choices is by being disappointed with the current one, for one reason or another, and then trading up for the next available person who appears more sympathetic or helpful. For adults, this can be good if the current object choice is pathological and dangerous, but it could be frivolous if they underrate their current choice. This often appears after a disappointment and then love transfers to another object-choice based on the lifestyle they provide, as well as an initial flattery and a welcoming flirtatiousness. Prospective partners need some skill at seduction. In fact, this mechanism can be exploited in toxic relationships, which starts with "love-bombing," and a welcoming with slutty demonstrations, but sooner or later, the adult who traded up will have to experience deprivations again as normal life resumes. They now have to decide if they made a mistake or not. Whether you call it "grooming" or conditioning, even an adult mind can be hacked easily, because most people react unconsciously to ALL flattery in a positive way. Even ugly people can appear sexy if they show signals that you are free to go all in and use them as you will. Though, a cold mechanistic feeling may arise if the relationship has no authentic connection beyond flattery. It requires some life experience, including about typical love triangles, and reflection to see beyond the warm and fuzzy feelings.

The Lovebomb - Narcdaily: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh9SXcJnILk

Daft Punk - Instant Crush (Video) ft. Julian Casablancas: https://youtu.be/a5uQMwRMHcs?si=cZxxiaFy_yNx6KKw

Rick Springfield - Jessie's Girl: https://youtu.be/qYkbTyHXwbs?si=bEdxRXzEIRczVUeO

New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkOr12AQpnU

For children, they instead do this in their restricted environment with their nuclear family. "In a number of children's analyses I discovered that the little girl's choice of the father as love-object ensued on weaning. This deprivation, which is followed by the training in cleanliness (a process which presents itself to the child as a new and grievous withdrawal of love), loosens the bond to the mother and brings into operation the heterosexual attraction, reinforced by the father's caresses, which are now construed as a seduction...On the other hand, however, the oral and anal deprivation of love [by the father's competition] appears to promote the development of the Oedipus situation in boys, for it compels them to change their libido-position and to desire the mother as a genital love-object." So for more heterosexual boys, they get jealous of the attention that the mother gets from the father and their rivalry makes the mother a stronger object choice. That then loosens because of it's inappropriateness and the boy then has to find a mother replacement, especially since the bond between mother and father is mutual and aligned more often. The heterosexual girl is in the same situation and has to find a father replacement. The united parents for the children provide the most potent relationship template, and the children will likely soak up identifications and repeat that template throughout their lives, especially if this is done with zero awareness of psychology. The influence of encouragement and discouragement can also go throughout life with people trading up and playing people off of each other. People who are rejected by others are discouraged by them, and make a transference to others who look similar, like having a similar personality, sex, or sexual orientation. Their similarities trigger a negative response, or transference, to the old situation. People who find candidates who apply flattery, act slutty, welcoming, and non-judgmental, they will have a strong feeling of encouragement. The mind is always looking for replacements in desires, and if it can't find it in one place, it will consider other options and possibilities. There's also the influence of lifestyle, where providers and nurturers of all different kinds are trying to meet up in whatever combination can be found. People can also adjust their contribution as a provider or nurturer depending on the vicissitudes of life as they happen. Sometimes people have to switch roles.

The Oedipus Complex now can be seen as the sum total of the reactions and inhibitions that arise when there are human obstacles to wish-fulfillments, goals and desires. It doesn't stop with parents, as René Girard pointed out, and some people are stuck with endlessly perceived challenges and obstacles, and will be attempting to trade up for their entire lives. All these psychoanalysts also had to accept that children have different constitutional dispositions and may respond to the same shocks differently. "I cannot determine whether it is neurotic children whom the early working of the Oedipus complex affects so intensely, or if children become neurotic when this complex sets in too soon." Children absorb their parental and familial role models and reenact their behaviors and also internally control their own minds with the same introjected personalities. This process starts with incorporation, which is a sampling of what is good and bad in the limited environment of the person, then it goes into introjection, which is a preference found in said environments, and then a habit of introjection of the same actions can turn into an identification, which phenomenologically appears as an image of oneself as the main agent acting in the world, devoid of the role models that supplied the earlier influences. Lesser identifications down the line may include more images of people who influenced you and a psychological distance between self and internal object is seen more clearly. If one has a meditation practice, and it is used for internal reflection, one can catch oneself, for example, imitating a way of speaking from another person, and you may see an image of that person while you're speaking in their same manner and accent. With a strong identification, that image of the role model doesn't appear and it feels like your sense of self. This is why imitation can be a sly and unconscious process. If you didn't invent something that you feel is the real you, you can improve clarity by asking "where did I imitate this from?"

The Origin of Envy & Narcissism - René Girard: https://rumble.com/v1gsnwv-the-origin-of-envy-and-narcissism-ren-girard.html

Our role-modeling goes beyond speaking and can permeate our play, which is why authenticity is more connected with culture than many of us are willing to accept, and has more to do with our current skill levels on how to deal with obstacles and challenges, and the zeal or taste we can sense when we can see our way through obstacles successfully. If people are open enough as adults, they need to look at how their wish-fulfillments are almost 100% taken from family and culture, and any originality has more to do with original mixes of those influences. Play is another illuminating method for children to reenact what they copied in their household and it provides clues for the analyst as to how developed the child is. Skills = Development. They also point to those original influences that have gone under the radar of the analysand, as well as unresolved negative emotions. "A fundamental and universal mechanism in the game of acting a part serves to separate those different identifications at work in the child which are tending to form a single whole. By the division of roles the child succeeds in expelling the father and mother whom, in the elaboration of the Oedipus complex, it has absorbed into itself and who are now tormenting it inwardly by their severity. The result of this expulsion is a sensation of relief which contributes in great measure to the pleasure derived from the game. Though this game of acting often appears quite simple and seems to represent only primary identifications, this is only the surface appearance. To penetrate behind this appearance is of great importance in the analysis of children. It can, however, have its full therapeutic effect only if the investigation reveals all the underlying identifications and determinations and, above all, if we have found our way to the sense of guilt which is here at work."

For Melanie, guilt is more powerful in the child, because the ego is too weak to accept mistakes and come up with adult solutions, but if the therapeutic result is achieved in child analysis, the child's nascent ego can now handle things at the appropriate level that the child is expected to be at. "As the analysis of children teaches us, we strengthen that ego when the analytic procedure curbs the excessive demands of the super-ego. There can be no doubt that the ego of little children differs from that of older children or of adults, but, when we have freed the little child's ego from neurosis, it proves perfectly equal to such demands of reality as it encounters demands as yet less serious than those made upon adults." Children of course have limitations on what they can do, because they have many years of education ahead of them. "Children cannot change the circumstances of their lives, as adults often do at the end of an analysis. But a child has been very greatly helped if, as a result of analysis, we enable him to feel more at ease in the existing circumstances and to develop better. Moreover, the clearing-up of neurosis in children often diminishes the difficulties of their milieu. For instance, I have repeatedly proved that the mother's reactions were much less neurotic when favourable changes took place in her children after analysis." The child begins to project, or predict accurately the behavior of parents, and is now not surprised or vexed. Interpretations help to understand reality so the thinking becomes less distorted and children know what to expect, which is important because inaccurate expectations usually lead to stress and rumination. Expectation is stressful because it has a mental element of control, which is felt as an exertion, especially when expectations are dashed. Expectations met are encouraging, and disappointments are discouraging, or inhibiting. If the children know better how to respond to situations, then rumination decreases in daily life. Even more of a prophylaxis is if the child can prevent a pathological secret from developing in the mind, and learn skills so as to avoid being in highly shameful situations.

Object Relations: Melanie Klein Pt. 2: https://rumble.com/v435lsq-object-relations-melanie-klein-pt.-2.html

When interpretations are done well, the child saves energy from the rumination found in the severe super-ego, and that translates into happier play and it creates a positive transference with the analyst that now appears so helpful. "The pleasure in play, which visibly ensues after an interpretation has been given, is also due to the fact that the expenditure necessitated by a repression is no longer required after the interpretation. But soon we once more encounter resistances for a time, and here matters are no longer made easy in the way I have described. In fact, at such times we have to wrestle with very great difficulties. This is especially the case when we encounter the sense of guilt." Guilt is difficult for a child as it is for an adult, because if there's any perfectionism and a lack of acceptance towards mistakes, the self-preoccupation continues unabated as a low self-esteem and can begin a masochistic streak in the patient. Developing a learning mentality is crucial for parenting to be successful and helps to avoid pathological secrets from developing and metastasizing in behaviors.

As noted in prior reviews, any of these feelings of guilt are usually about traumatic or embarrassing sexual encounters, early masturbation that was punished, or the result of severe conflicts with others. The tension and discharge in sexuality inevitably moves into any tension and discharge with regular activities. If the embarrassment and guilt is connected with sexuality, and any other forms of passionate exploration in play and hobbies, it can stunt the growth of a child. They freeze at a particular level until a learning mentality is discovered, usually after a surrender and acceptance of imperfection in the self. If children freeze they will not be able to make any more approaches towards challenges. This is why Melanie focused on the Oedipus Complex to try and get an awareness to appear in the child through interpretations. "Inhibitions in play and in learning have their origin in an exaggerated repression of these phantasies and, with them, of all phantasy. Sexual experiences are associated with the masturbation-phantasies and, with these, find representation and abreaction [catharsis/discharge] in play. Amongst the experiences dramatized, representations of the primal scene play a prominent part and they regularly appear in the foreground of the analyses of young children. It is only after a considerable amount of analysis, which has partially revealed the primal scene and the genital development, that we come on representations of pregenital experiences and phantasies...Consistent interpretations, gradual solving of resistances and persistent tracing of the transference to earlier situations, these constitute in children as in adults the correct analytic situation." Again one sees a learning mentality being trained in the child, which brings awareness to the child of how the brain functions and provides the live-and-let-live experience of self-forgiveness and self-belief that one can try again next time and develop more appropriate behaviors. A sympathetic analyst can also provide a non-judgmental atmosphere that expects children to learn from mistakes and not constantly freeze in self-preoccupation and perfectionism. They have to understand that development is what human life is all about and that no human is born fully formed.

Guilt can also be connected with hatred for the human obstacles in one's life and lead to scapegoating, even if the victims are only toys. This can appear in play unconsciously, but if an interpretation is accurate enough, it can point to the real struggles that are looking for solutions, release, and freedom. "For instance, children begin to distinguish between the 'pretense' mother and the real mother and between the wooden baby-doll and the live baby brother. They then firmly insist that they wanted to do this or that injury to the toy baby, only the real baby, they say, of course they love. Only when very powerful and long-standing resistances have been overcome do children realize that their aggressive acts were directed against the real objects. When this admission is made, however, the result; even in quite little children, is generally a notable step forward in adaptation to reality...It has always been my experience that the effects of such knowledge, gradually elaborated, is in fact to relieve the child, to establish a fundamentally more favourable relation to the parents and thus to increase its power of social adaptation."

Beyond a simple education to tell the child what is right and what is wrong, Melanie wanted the children to reason things out through the consequences of their phantasies in their inner worlds. They unconsciously want to do something bad, but when made conscious, they see more clearly that they would prefer to try something else more appropriate. "When this has taken place children also are quite able to replace repression to some extent by reasoned rejection. We see this from the fact that at a later stage of the analysis children have advanced so far from various anal-sadistic or cannibalistic cravings (which at an earlier stage were still so powerful) that they can now at times adopt an attitude of humorous criticism towards them. When this happens I hear even very little children making jokes to the effect, for instance, that some time ago they really wanted to eat up their mummy or cut her into bits. When this change takes place, not only is the sense of guilt inevitably lessened, but at the same time the children are enabled to sublimate the wishes which previously were wholly repressed. This manifests itself in practice in the disappearance of inhibitions in play and in a beginning of numerous interests and activities." They accept that they are a kid and that they are growing and learning. They can laugh at themselves, because it's a part of their development. This is also one of the ways to alleviate that compulsion to repeat, where a patient repeats their bad experiences because they haven't really learned how to regulate their emotions to move to another level. The important realization for all patients is to see that there is more love and connection when one takes on attitudes and actions that make it easier for others to do the same. In fact, when patients start seeing ways in which they can be more harmonious with others, that is a successful pathway after a bout of analysis.

In each child, there are different manifestations of a severe super-ego. In one patient, Erna, it was a more paranoid one. "In her play Erna often made me be a child, while she was the mother or a teacher. I then had to undergo fantastic tortures and humiliations. If in the game anyone treated me kindly, it generally turned out that the kindness was only simulated. The paranoiac traits showed in the fact that I was constantly spied upon, people divined my thoughts, and the father or teacher allied themselves with the mother against me, in fact I was always surrounded with persecutors. I myself in the role of the child, had constantly to spy upon and torment the others. Often Erna herself played the part of the child. Then the game generally ended in her escaping the persecutions (on these occasions the 'child' was good), becoming rich and powerful, being made a 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 done a good deal of analysis), reaction would set in in the form of 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. In this child's phantasies all the roles engaged could be fitted into one formula, that of two principal parts: the persecuting super-ego and the id or ego, as the case might be, threatened, but by no means less cruel." Exhaustion keeps coming back as long as the pathological responses to family and the community are not resolved and understood, and also because resistance and stress is exhausting, full stop.

When children feel helpless, they begin to proactively take the place of the powerful one that made them feel so vulnerable. "In these games the wish-fulfilment lay principally in Erna's endeavour to identify herself with the stronger party, in order thus to master her dread of persecution. The hard-pressed ego tried to influence or deceive the super-ego, in order to prevent its overpowering the id, as it threatened to do. The ego tried to enlist the highly sadistic id in the service of the super-ego and to make the two combine in the fight with a common enemy. This necessitated extensive use of the mechanisms of projection and displacement. When Erna played the part of the cruel mother, the naughty child was the enemy; when she herself was the child who was persecuted but soon became powerful, the enemy was represented by the wicked parents. In each case there was a motive, which the ego attempted to render plausible to the super-ego, for indulging in unrestrained sadism. By the terms of this 'compact' the super-ego was to take action against the enemy as though against the id. The id, however, in secret, continued to pursue its predominantly sadistic gratification, the objects being the primal ones. Such narcissistic satisfaction as accrued to the ego through its victory over foes both without and within helped also to appease the super-ego and thus was of considerable value in diminishing anxiety."

So in this case, the child needed an excuse for the super-ego to accept the sadistic id so that it could be discharged in aggression while the ego is being morally supported by that same super-ego. Roleplaying can illuminate if there is serious fragmentation in the psyche when the patient doesn't have a core self and is just acting out endless roles in daily life. It means that the same ego, and superego, which need the energy of the id, or desire, can attack itself and others, draining energy, becoming entangled in internal personality contradictions, and covering over the potential mental peace that could be had in more harmonious relationships with self and other. The cost of course was the exhaustion that Erna felt. "...in Erna's case it broke down completely because of the excessive sadism of both id and super-ego. Thereupon the ego joined forces with the super-ego and tried by punishing the id to extract a certain gratification, but this in its turn was inevitably a failure. Reactions of intense anxiety and remorse set in again and again, showing that none of these contradictory wish-fulfilments could be sustained for long." This leads eventually to an adaption to reality, to abandon unrealistic wish-fulfillments, or it can lead to psychosis where the dreaming takes over as well as draining internal conflicts. In an obsession example, in another case study, the child persisted in rituals that didn't function in reality, which is also exhausting and another waste of energy. Melanie also noticed that some children had more or less helpful imagos, which could be examples to strengthen and condition in the child. Those positive imagos can provide a sense of autonomy, and self-reliance, especially if they are hopeful, helpful, practical, and realistic, like the adults who have already modeled those positive behaviors for the child. The more severe the pathology, the more resistant the old behaviors are to treatment, leading to more repetition. These frozen states of being can manifest themselves at differing levels of development and remain into adulthood.

Throughout development, there is a pressure for the ego to take on the different identifications imitated from all the different role models in the child's life and to fuse them into a cohesive personality. "The more extreme and sharply contrasting the imagos, the less successful will be the synthesis and the more difficult will it be to maintain it. The excessively strong influence exerted by these extreme types of imagos, the intensity of the need for the kindly figures in opposition to the menacing, the rapidity with which allies will change into enemies (which is also the reason why the wish-fulfilment in play so often breaks down) all this indicates that the process of synthesizing the identifications has failed. This failure manifests itself in the ambivalence, the tendency to anxiety, the lack of stability or the readiness with which this is overthrown, and the defective relation to reality characteristic of neurotic children. The necessity for a synthesis of the super-ego arises out of the difficulty experienced by the subject in coming to an understanding with a super-ego made up of imagos of such opposite natures. When the latency period sets in and the demands of reality are increased, the ego makes even greater efforts to effect a synthesis of the super-ego, in order that on this basis a balance may be struck between super-ego, id and reality[-ego]." A meditation example of this would be to use the present-moment-ego to follow the breath and use the breath as an anchor while setting up goals and knocking them down. Different super-ego personalities may interrupt the good intentions of the ego and send one into a repetitive cycle of regression with archaic personality goals. It would manifest as a feeling of a comfort zone that prevents development. The different personalities and their weaknesses would manifest different types of internal distractions, like with examples above of obsession or paranoia. Each person has to see what their particular problem is. A wholistic personality, in ideal circumstances, has less internal battles. Since the id is desire without a cultural example to imitate, it is flexible precisely because of that. If you have wish-fulfillments that conflict with each other, because you have conflicting role models in your life and culture, you'll have super-ego reactions that want to punish other super-ego tendencies, which leads the id to wasting more energy. If the ego can pursue goals that do not trip up the conscience of any of the super-ego internal role models, then a feeling of unity and consolidation can be felt. This is felt in the amount of peace that manifests.

The value of play is further seen when the child's projections manifest in how the toys are used, and the splitting is readily apparent when certain toys are treated with more or less antagonism or cooperation. A toy becomes either all good or all bad. Projections appear in play and the child can then find satisfaction that cannot be found in the real world. Maybe the evil toy gets their way. Maybe in another battle, good wins out. "By their means the synthesis of the super-ego, which can be maintained only with more or less effort, can be given up for the time being and, further, the tension of maintaining the truce between the super-ego as a whole and the id is diminished. The intrapsychic conflict, thus becomes less violent and can be displaced into the external world." Anxiety, guilt and stress can then be emotionally released in the play, like an adult being caught up in a good movie. Ultimately, no amount of entertainment or play will replace realistic solutions, so the best forms of art will solve a problem in a way that an audience member can see how it would work for themselves. Play can also be a way to think through a problem and try out different responses until an optimum one appears. "...Every step forward in adaptation to reality involved the releasing of large quantities of anxiety and the stronger repression of phantasies. It was always a great advance in the analysis when this repression was, in its turn, lifted and the phantasies became free as well as more closely linked with reality." Adaptation described here is to see the pathological skills come out of the unconscious, be made conscious, discharge emotionally along with the understanding, then in ideal situations, the child may start to look for better solutions so that the phantasies can begin to conform to reality and increase both external and internal harmony.

Children as they develop can then separate their play into fiction and non-fiction. By having both forms of tension and release, there's more opportunity for more flexible children to find gratification in life with play and responsibility. Responsibility also has a belief in oneself, a confidence, and self-efficacy, that one can achieve goals in life. "Normal children are able to master reality in better ways. Their play shows that they have more power to influence and live out reality in conformity with their phantasies. Moreover, where they cannot alter the real situation they are better able to bear it, because their freer phantasy provides them with a refuge from it and also because the fuller discharge that they have for their masturbation-phantasies in an ego-syntonic form (play and other sublimations) gives them greater opportunities of gratification." So simply, it's not just love and work, but play as well.

As distortion in the super-ego decreases, the good and evil in mental objects begins to be more realistic, so the underrated becomes conscious as well as the overrated in people. "...The analyst must simply be a medium in relation to whom the different imagos can be activated and the phantasies lived through, in order to be analysed. When the child in his play directly assigns to him certain roles, the task of the children's analyst is clear...With children as well as with adults, we have to infer from the analytic situation and material the details of the hostile role attributed to us, which the patient indicates through the negative transference. Now what is true of personification in its open form I have found to be also indispensable for the more disguised and obscure forms of the personifications underlying transference. The analyst who wishes to penetrate to the earliest, anxiety-inspiring imagos, i.e. to strike at the roots of the super-ego's severity, must have no preference for any particular role; he must accept that which comes to him from the analytic situation." This can be a little scary, considering how traumatized many kids are, but Melanie made a compromise. "When children ask me to play parts which are too difficult or disagreeable I meet their wishes by saying that I am 'pretending I am doing it.'" Empathy for Melanie becomes a hallmark of development. "In ontogenetic development sadism is overcome when the subject advances to the genital level. The more powerfully this phase sets in, the more capable does the child become of object-love, and the more able is he to conquer his sadism by means of pity and sympathy." So when children can empathize with others, meaning they can love others, and themselves, that object-choice is going to be more healthy because of the reduced sadism. You're not going to be taking things out on them, and you don't expect perfection from them.

When it came to the use of toys, Melanie wanted the toy to dictate less what kinds of games would be played and instead require the child to use their projections to make them what they will and more clearly take on different roles that exist in the child's real life. "I believe that the toys provided by the analyst should on the whole be of the type I have described, that is to say, simple, small, and non-mechanical...In such games the child frequently takes the part of the adult, thereby not only expressing his wish to reverse the roles but also demonstrating how he feels that his parents or other people in authority behave towards him—or should behave. Sometimes he gives vent to his aggressiveness and resentment by being, in the role of parent, sadistic towards the child, represented by the analyst."

The aggressiveness may lead to damaged toys which can create a sense of guilt in the child over what they might do to their family members. Interpretations that connect the destructiveness to the reality of home life bring the sense of consciousness to the problem and an opportunity to see reality more closely, that the object was underrated, and bring possible solutions to more adapt to the reality of those relationships. A reparation. Everything about reparation is about adapting to reality and changing tactics when one method or another doesn't work. It's for repairing relationships. "Feelings of guilt may very soon follow after the child has broken, for instance, a little figure. Such guilt refers not only to the actual damage done but to what the toy stands for in the child's unconscious, e.g. a little brother or sister, or a parent; the interpretation has therefore to deal with these deeper levels as well. Sometimes we can gather from the child's behaviour towards the analyst that not only guilt but also persecutory anxiety has been the sequel to his destructive impulses and that he is afraid of retaliation...By then we have been able to analyse some important defences, thus diminishing persecutory feelings and making it possible for the sense of guilt and the urge to make reparation to be experienced...Reparation in this sense is a wider concept than Freud's concepts of 'undoing in the obsessional neurosis' and of 'reaction-formation'. For it includes the variety of processes by which the ego feels it undoes harm done in phantasy, restores, preserves and revives objects. The importance of this tendency, bound up as it is with feelings of guilt, also lies in the major contribution it makes to all sublimations, and in this way to mental health." And for those who feel that Melanie Klein pursues the darkness too much, one can easily see a danger if the darkness is not approached and unconscious reactions are left to play out in life. In the real world, a toy dismemberment can translate to murder and dismemberment in actuality. Perusing any crime stories or stories of war, one can see dehumanization, which is to make humans into pests, to make it easier for the super-ego to accept murder. A populace that engages in little reflection and is easily slighted will have consequences in predictable violence, kleptomania, and genocide.

Another criticism against Klein's therapy modality has to do with the capacity of the child to understand. "'Are young children intellectually able to understand such interpretations?' My own experience and that of my colleagues has been that if the interpretations relate to the salient points in the material, they are fully understood. Of course the child analyst must give his interpretations as succinctly and as clearly as possible, and should also use the child's expressions in doing so. But if he translates into simple words the essential points of the material presented to him, he gets into touch with those emotions and anxieties which are most operative at the moment; the child's conscious and intellectual understanding is often a subsequent process. One of the many interesting and surprising experiences of the beginner in child analysis is to find in even very young children a capacity for insight which is often far greater than that of adults. To some extent this is explained by the fact that the connections between conscious and unconscious are closer in young children than in adults, and that infantile repressions are less powerful. I also believe that the infant's intellectual capacities are often underrated and that in fact he understands more than he is credited with."

Because Melanie analyzed children as far back as she could go she felt that object relations were almost always there, and for any child that doesn't remember their birth, the reality is that they are becoming aware of their connections with others and developing enough of a memory and story of their lives which can't exist without object relations. "I found that object relations start almost at birth and arise with the first feeding experience; furthermore, that all aspects of mental life are bound up with object relations. It also emerged that the child's experience of the external world, which very soon includes his ambivalent relation to his father and to other members of his family, is constantly influenced by—and in turn influences—the internal world he is building up, and that external and internal situations are always interdependent, since introjection [to take in what is desirable] and projection [a defense] operate side by side from the beginning of life."

The mind is already reacting to the good and the bad experiences at the beginning of life, with splitting judgments of good and bad, then integration of the good and bad in objects help the judgments match reality more accurately, which is the insight that humans display a variety of good and bad behaviors within the same person. Eventually a feeling of wanting to take care of imperfect people, the feeling of pity, empathy, and sadness develops, kind of like seeing the good and the bad in people, but also witnessing their weak skills and behaviors with a non-reactivity and sympathy as to their imperfect attempts at managing life. They may hurt people sometimes, but they often mean well. Even if these experiences start early in life, they are reintroduced again and again with more and more added depth and complexity found in adults. "The conclusion to be drawn from the experience that depressive anxiety arises as a result of the ego synthesizing the good and bad (loved and hated) aspects of the object led me in turn to the concept of the depressive position which reaches its climax towards the middle of the first year. It is preceded by the paranoid position, which extends over the first three or four months of life and is characterized by persecutory anxiety and splitting processes."

As Melanie advanced her theories further, by adding a lot of material from younger and younger patients, a new more independent category of analyst was beginning to dawn: Those who were eclectic and integrative enough to not care what school a theory comes from, but only care that those theories explain real situations.

The end of the German Republic

In the lead up to World War II, Melanie's idea of being in England or the United States, was starting to be a good idea for other Jewish intellectuals looking for a safe haven. Repudiation of Judaism in Germany included even secular Jews. NAZIS were socialist, in that they attacked capitalists, but they preferred public coercion of the private sector as opposed to Marxist ideas of total government ownership, though many people found not much difference in totalitarian methods because all these labels cover the same power dynamic, where a powerful group of people give orders and everyone with less power has to obey, and this included rejection and retaliation towards supposed "thought crimes." The kinds of books that were burned or banned in the German example included non-affiliated socialist books, any books that were considered decadent or perceived as undermining NAZI prerogatives. Any books that supported social justice and wanted to improve working conditions were targeted. Naturally, Jewish authors' books, like the books of Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, went up in flames. Even Ernest Hemingway's and Helen Keller's books were not spared. "The first group of German-Jewish analysts from Berlin had begun arriving in Britain in 1933 after the Reichstag fire...The passing of the monstrous Nuremberg Laws, which deprived Jews of citizenship, forbade marriage between Jews and Aryans, and barred Jews from the liberal professions, made 1935 a crucial year...Eitingon had gone to Palestine. Erich’s former analyst, Clare Happel, settled in Chicago, as did Hans’s analyst, Ernst Simmel, before moving on to California. Melitta’s original analyst, Karen Horney, had already moved to New York; and Helene Deutsch, who had always regarded Melanie as a rival, was by 1934 establishing orthodox analysis in Boston. Klein’s old enemies in Berlin, Franz Alexander and Sándor Radó, settled respectively in Chicago and New York...By 1938 one-third of the analysts in the British Society were from the Continent. A comparison of the 1937 and 1938 membership lists shows the number of new names that were added—Bibring, Eidelberg, Hitschmann, Hoffer, Isakower, Kris, Lantos, Stengel, Schur, Stross, Sachs, Straub—and of course Sigmund and Anna Freud."

Book Burning - Holocaust Encyclopedia: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/book-burning

Book Burnings in Germany - PBS: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goebbels-burnings/

With the arrival of the Freuds Melanie was in a panic that she would soon lose her cocoon. "'It will never be the same again,' Melanie Klein lamented to Winnicott. 'This is a disaster.'" After being an early champion of Melanie, Ernest Jones was already beginning to retreat into an ambivalence between the two schools of psychoanalysis, especially after Anna Freud's The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence was released. Other analysts were also making their choices and aligning with more conservative views or accepting some of the updates that Melanie was proposing, like the theory of internal objects. Many others, like John Bowlby remained independent.

Those escaping fascism found English people more tolerant and they enjoyed the beautiful walkways and parks in contrast to the chaos of banishment and war, but they still suffered from confusion and homesickness after being uprooted. The Vienna and Berlin cultures were also refined up to the hilt, but now regressing to a barbarism. Even advanced societies can lose their freedoms. Both Anna and Melanie started separating their clients based on their different theories. Anna felt that those "who had been analyzed or otherwise trained by analysts holding different views would not be likely to benefit from her teaching." Sigmund Freud was very ill at this time and he gave his blessing before his death that London should now be the center of Psychoanalysis. Over time the divisions between the two schools gave way to some back and forth where the education side of the theories could reduce confusion and a synergy could develop where new analysts could pick and choose which parts of which theory they liked and discard what they didn't. Those interested in younger children, and the promise that psychoanalysis could nip any problems in the bud, so to say, would naturally be curious about Melanie's ideas, and those who felt that older children, adolescents, and adults, was where the action really took place, and because they are easier to communicate with, would prefer more orthodox methods.

Love, Guilt and Reparation: And Works 1921-1945 (The Writings of Melanie Klein, Volume 1) by Melanie Klein: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780743237659/

Envy and Gratitude and Other Works, 1946 - 1963 (2nd Edition) by Melanie Klein: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780743237758/

Melanie Klein: Her World and Her Work by Phyllis Grosskurth: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781568214450/

Freud-Klein Controversies - Pearl King, Riccardo Steiner: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780415082747/

Melanie Klein Dr Julia Segal: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780761943013/

The New Dictionary of Kleinian Thought by Elizabeth Bott Spillius, Jane E. Milton, Penelope Garvey, Cyril Couve, Deborah Steiner: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780415592598/

The Language of Psychoanalysis by Jean Laplanche, Jean-Bertrand Pontalis: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780367328139/

Psychology: http://psychreviews.org/category/psychology01/

#anna freud #castration anxiety #castrationcomplex #child psychology #creativity #depressive position #ego psychology #ernest jones #melanie klein #oedipus complex #paranoid-schizoid position #psychoanalysis #sigmund freud

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