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klein-archive · 2 months

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Patient H: An acute worry about urination

7th March 2024

I have resumed my explorations in the Melanie Klein archive this month after a short time away. My latest find comes from the B files, which contain Klein’s clinical notes on both adult and child patients. Here I'm sharing some excerpts from file B.69, which contains notes on a male patient, ‘H’, from 1940. The file is fairly large, running to some 67 pages, so I am picking out some particularly thought-provoking fragments here. If you want to read more of this material, you can do so at PP/KLE/B.69 on the Wellcome Library website.

The file opens with Klein describing patient H’s ‘acute worry about urination’, which is connected to fears he has about his penis. She writes,

‘…from an analysis many years ago, he knows much about castration fear, and has evidently stabilised himself in localising his fears in this way.’ [image 3/67]

Klein writes that H’s worry about his penis and about urination is connected to a fear of ‘internal trouble’ or disease, and of cancer specifically. She links these preoccupations to a concern that arose during H’s adolescence, related to his enthusiasm for collecting butterflies and insects: namely, a presentiment that the cabinets in which the creatures were displayed would become disarranged. Klein describes the rituals by which H tried to ensure the cabinets were not tampered with, and records that he could eventually no longer bear the strain of his anxieties and gave up collecting altogether.

She writes, ‘his fears about internal disaster…actually, the fears about the inside, the cabinets, and the penis, are alternating…,’ and also that his, ‘fear about the penis [is] obviously over-emphasised in order to keep away from these internal fears’. [image 4/67]

‘Abundant dream material’ follows from Klein’s connection of these things, and she records that,

‘the butterfly, a very much admired and loved object to begin with, in a dream changed into another insect with mutilated wings, much less good, and also much less attractive, and then into the insect which paralyses another insect.’ [image 4/67]

Klein’s notes show her interpreting H’s dream in light of his dread of homosexuality, which he feels ‘would be somehow disastrous for his penis’. H associates to catching a butterfly with a white net, and Klein says this highlights H’s longing for a good penis, and that the net represents, ‘the mouth by which he took in the penis of the father, a good object, [which] changes instantly into a more and more dangerous one as soon as it is inside.’ In association, H recalls,

‘…feelings of being insincere towards his mother, who seemed to think that he was a paragon of virtue, beyond temptation, as it were, and he knew, when she said something of the kind…that he was interested in other boys’ penises. This interest was quite conscious. He took it that it was mainly to compare them with his own, which, in childhood he had felt to be inferior and damaged. He feels also that in his frequent urination the penis has shrunk, and he must see it and make sure that it is still there. That is one of his conscious feelings about the obsession to urinate.’ [image 5/67]

Feelings of insincerity follow, Klein writes, from H’s sense that he has robbed his mother of father’s good penis, represented by the butterfly he tries to catch.

H’s father, Klein notes, is a frightening figure felt to be violent and dangerous. Whilst H recalls feeling little warmth for his mother, he does bring a memory of clinging to her bedsheets when he was terrified of going to kindergarten. Klein notes that,

‘…he was so terrified that his only help was to stand there with closed eyes, which seem[ed] to relieve some anxiety, as if he would see something awful if he opened his eyes…he feels the terror was that he left his mother behind in danger.’ [image 6/67]

H also remembers,

‘…that when his parents had not come up from the evening meal by eight o’clock – which had been a ritual – then he started to yell, so that it could be heard all over the house. If they came up by eight then it seemed to be all right. We understood that some awful danger was to happen to them at night time, and that this was shifted on to this definite hour at which he knew that the parents were at a meal with the people there as well.’ [image 6/67]

On 19th March 1940, H tells Klein that he feels peaceful. He is reluctant to admit any improvement, lest things go wrong again (Klein thinks that he is referring here to intercourse), but there are no symptoms to speak of, no indigestion or urination trouble. H then reports a dream, a fragment of which I will share here:

‘A man drove him in a very fine car to someplace which he thinks must have been a scientific meeting. (This man has been a very important person in his own line of work. In the past he looked up very much to him and would also have liked this man to take notice of him and be interested in him, but that was not the case. Now of course the situation is altered. This man has retired, and H feels that he can triumph over him because he may quite easily get ahead of this man’s former work.) In the dream it seemed quite a…[word missing] that this man drove him there, but then both the man and the car seem to have gone, and H was trying hard to find them. He had already taken notice of landmarks to remember the way back…as if he himself would have to find the way.’ [image 15–16/67]

Klein tells H that the man who drove him had clearly helped him, and meant something to him. He was important too, and has a very fine car. She notes H’s great wish to have a car of his own. The situation of being driven by an important man, Klein says, ‘points to the internalised father’, and she connects H’s admiration of this man’s work to his admiration of his own father, who built a harbour in a place where they spent summer holidays. She suggests,

‘…there may have been great admiration in [the] early days for the potent father, the father who owned mother, who made children, who had skill and power, etc. Great desire and longing to be on good terms with his father, to be taught by him, to be introduced into sexuality, to share with him mother. I suggest that the fine car stands for mother.’ [image 17/67]

Klein also writes that,

‘H was in the dream trying to undo the loss of the important and good father and the mother, wishing to have the two with him and united in a good way inside him. At the same time the wish to become independent of his internal figures, the landmarks he made because he was going to find the way himself…In this hour as well as in former ones, much work about the repression of his love and admiration for his father, actually there is only one friendly memory so far, when his father had him on his knee, and offered him a chestnut, which H very much liked, but could not accept it, and told his father he could not accept it because he had to find chestnuts for himself. He thinks his father was very angry.’ [image 18-19/67]

To learn more about Klein’s work with H, readers should go to PP/KLE/B.69, and start from image 19/67, where the notes reproduced here end. I will certainly be doing this, and in my next blog post may bring more about H, or perhaps another of the patients who appear in this fascinating file. I am struck that, in the brief excerpts I have shared, Klein is once more grappling with the way in which the patient’s conception of a parental couple powerfully influences both his sense of himself and his relations with others. She clearly feels it is part of her role to help H uncover the better memories of his parents, which she perceives in his material – though often deeply buried.

#psychoanalysis #melanie klein #castration anxiety #primitive fears #unconscious phantasy

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soullessjack · 5 months

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da jacksters really liked this one

#cal.txt #spn #jack kline #cat eyes #media parallels #spn 13x01 #spn parallels #do you get it . He’s creature .#he’s so animals #I love the detail in his glowy eyes so much u don’t get it #everybody say thank you VFX artists #he so pretty #something something primitive fear response #yes I am linking the server. come join us we are funny .

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mcromwell · 1 year

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"Freeze / Fawn"

A visual representation of what fear feels like physically and emotionally.

#art #traditional art #coyote #acrylic #painting #animal art #primitive wiggles #mixed media #naive art #anthropomorphic #fear #cortisol #stress hormones #emotions #feelings #expression

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levmada · 3 months

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fuck these guys🔪

#the seraphites might be ‘’’primitive’’’#but they have the sheer fear factor #tlou 2 #the last of us 2 #the last of us part 2 #tlou game #tlou2 #kane plays

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mixtapedoh · 6 months

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amygdala by agust d. that's it. that's the post.

#writing #☀ bts #✧ min yoongi #if you don't get it you simply never can if you do get it then you are more big brained than you can possibly fathom #i have the urge to stick this in lindsay's tag but also it's so vague asdyhgfdfgh #i just know she'd get it though.#lindsay tag #SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP IT'S ABOUT HOW THE AMYGDALA IS ONE OF THE MOST PRIMITIVE PARTS OF YOUR BRAIN #YEAH THE BRAINSTEM IS FORMED FIRST IN GESTATION BUT THE AMYGDALA IS ALSO ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS TO BE FORMED AAAAAAAAAAAAA #AND IT MATURES FASTER THAN THE RATIONAL PARTS OF YOUR BRAIN AND JUST CENTERS ON BASE NEEDS AND IS SO!!!!!!!!!!!! INFLUENTIAL !!!!!!!!!!! TO #EMOTIONS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#YES IT IS AGRESSION AND IT IS FEAR AND THAT IS IMPORTANT OFC BUT ALSO IT'S ONE OF THE MORE CHILDLIKE PARTS OF YOUR BRAIN #AND ALSO RULES IN PROCESSING APPETITIVE STIMULI #IT IS ANGER AND IT IS FEAR AND IT IS CONSUMPTION AND IT IS DESIRES MOST PRIMITIVE AND IT'S SO INFLUENCED BY MEMORY #AND THEREFORE IT IS CHILDLIKE BUT ALSO IT IS ONE OF THE MORE LONGSTANDING PARTS OF YOUR BRAIN THAT HAS BEEN WITH YOU THE LONGEST AND GROWS #WITH YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT IS OLD AND IT IS YOUNG AND IT IS IRRATIONAL AND IT IS WEEPING AND YOU DON'T GET IT BUT I DOOOOOOOOOO #AND IT'S DECISION MAKING AND IT'S ATTENTION AND IT'S MEMORY AND IT'S ASDFGHJKJEWASFXCNHJYRHTERWEADSVFRHETWRAEFVNHRYHETWGRAFDSBGNHSGF #shut up i have a degree in psychology i can be annoying on one (1) saturday a month #it's just...... asking the part of you that feels the most intensely and is the most burdened by your past and your base desires to save yo #and let you rest......

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hellcatsandcars · 1 year

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i need someone to tell me if this makes any sense or if i'm just too delusional but like. bram stoker's xenophobia is very much discussed in the lines of "he used eastern europe as this fantastical place full of superstition and underdeveloped structures in opposition to britain's obvious superiority", right?

now i'm just saying this off the bat and with very little actual research done yet (looking forward to my day off for that) but like. consider. every single stereotype that stoker uses against eastern europeans, while absolutely taking nothing away from his xenophobia, is precisely the kind of stereotype used against irish people like stoker himself.

#overreligious? check. superstitious? check. believes in folklore and fears strange creatures? check. more savage and primitive? check.#like all of this has been used against ireland for centuries #i'm not suggesting that stoker was in no way xenophobic #but i am suggesting that he might have been projecting his identity as an irishman onto eastern europe bc they were both seen as lesser #idk man im tired #dracula #dracula daily #dracula by bram stoker #dracula 1897 #daniel is talking once again

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diamondstodemons · 1 year

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Parched and about to perish? Unable to drink from the waters of the circumpolar stars? Then crack open a bottle of Campari and tune in to Between Worlds…

#autechre #human mesh dance #Gas #biosphere #young American primitive #wagon christ #Luke Vibert #the shamen #timeblind #earth leakage trip #90s electronic #brain pilot #the fear ratio #SoundCloud

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1ore · 2 years

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there's some kind of animacy and technology spectrum. On one end is the shinto-practicioner who fed her computer a grain of rice every time it booted (as thanks for its labor,) and on the other is the cult mechanicus breaking out the incense every time the printer makes a weird noise. and the difference is like night and day but im struggling to articulate What that is

#something something fear vs. gratitude #there's a degree of like Yes the joke is that the mechanicus are technologically backwards or w/e for the animism #so both the framing and the construction is colored by very western perceptions of The Primitive etc #but you could say something similar (but not nearly so unfavorable)#of the shinto lady story being told from the perspective of a tech support worker #there is some secret third thing and that's STEM people themselves having playful lab superstitions and rituals #i.e. we must appease the old centrifuge with offerings of water or our samples will get centrifucked #and also the less 'silly' and more invisible lab rituals of donning PPE washing hands cleaning flasks etc #stuff you're not used to thinking of as ritualistic because the effect (being clean and safe) is empirically proven in your mind #(in much the same way that prayer ritual etc is real and empirical when you practice it)#there's something there ';s something th #listen i just think its not the animacy that should be laughed at its the way despotic regimes dress up their customs #as somehow refined and exceptional #'haha look how backwards these fools are. they think rocks can think. when we ensoul something its for real tho'#🤔🤔🤔🤔#warhammer 40k tag

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nightmarecountry-a · 2 years

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It just occurred to me that if the Corinthian is as Dream made him, he made him a very thirsty homosexual. He was like “he will eat eyeballs, and maybe fondle some others. AYO.”

GOD. Listen. There's a quote from Dream that's like "the gulf between conception and execution is wide, and many things can happen on the way" re: the Corinthian. How was he supposed to know that his nightmare would hunger for more than just eyes! These are the downsides of giving your artwork free will. It's like when you make an OC and it does shit you didn't plan for at all.

#( ooc. )#secondhandmckie #Sidenote I've been thinking about how to some degree Corinthian's form is very... primitive as nightmares go.#He's not the manifestation of your fear of failure or your past traumas.#He's a man with teeth for eyes who wants to eat yours. He's a horror movie creature.#I also don't believe he's the first ever nightmare by any means - he's certainly older than many of them. But not all.#hc.

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afieldinengland · 1 year

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#beginning to think— as always— that intimacy that doesn’t subjugate is impossible. i never want to feel certain ways again but at the end of #the day wouldn’t i have to? what if what happened to me was normal and i’ve been meditating on nothing. i don’t know #everything is about sex except sex which is about sex in a different secret way #i want to be respected. if we’re being primitive i want to be equally powerful. at what point do i stop acting like a victim #ah. well. it’s the undefinable again. what was it my flatmate said last night? i ‘defy categorisation’. which is very sweet but also close #to the bone in an unwitting sort of way. whatever #i don’t want to feel like a scared child ever again. i don’t want to be forced into things. you see when i say #it like that it sounds very rational but…. well. there’s a terror in the permeability of the body #rendering myself impermeable. always. only lonely #taking my younger self by the throat and throttling him i fear. you are not pamela the scenarios are chalk and cheese #now will you please get over yourself young man. well i’m trying

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gloombog · 1 year

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#bombed out lovers gallant red flocks of mellow seducers find eager seekers deep deep down beautiful lines from above and we're all #aglow raise her head and things get warm hold on to its leg before it flies away sunlit walks i feel no harm my primitive words match my #primitive heart it's not as easy as it may seem remember that yerself is steam and of course you don't mind chasing a bee inside a jar and #of course you don't mind chasing a bee inside a jar then like sheep led to sacrifial slaughter they don't mind but they oughta all the #time (they oughta) their pretty shells are so inviting #mind chasing a bee inside a jar and of course it don't mind chasing a bee inside a jar in a jar in a jar in a jar it's not time for the #real life sign it's not time for these fears of mine it's not time for the real life sign it's not time for these fears of mine i'm feeling #troubled i'm feeling trapped can't shake that bubble off my back it's not as easy as it may seem remember that yourself is steam it's not #as easy as it may seem remember that yourself is steam it's not time for the real life sign it's not time for these fears of mine i'm #feeling troubled i'm feeling trapped can't shake that bubble off my back i feel no harm i feel no harm feel no harm and of course you don't #mind chasing a bee inside a jar and of course you don't mind chasing a bee inside a jar in a jar in a jar in a jar it's not as easy as it #may seem remember that yerself is steam what once was lost will never be found keep spinning in circles till you break the ground!!!!!!!!!!#.#music #mercury rev

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girlzoot · 8 months

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I react badly to fear. I don't usually have the good sense to run, or hide--I just try to smash whatever it is that is making me afraid. It's a primitive sort of thing, and one I don't question too much. --Jim Butcher/Storm Front

#Jim Butcher #Storm Front #fear #primitive #smash

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midwestisolation · 10 months

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now the devil has touched both our hands theres too much blood to bite my tongue and then you try to take my rights from me like its uneven where we stand the world will teach you bittersweet feeling but wont bend to your demand oh man now here he comes an enigma head rings in hollow sound and your ideas are not your own hes had them all somehow seething and spitting neanderthal on land hes got all the makings of a primitive man feel fire burning feel fire burning

#ruby the hatchet #fear is a cruel master #primitive man #lyrics

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unidentifiedfuckingthing · 1 year

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i dont think zombies are like sexual hot to me personally but i think its an interesring idea. you know. like the whole thesis of zombies is already taking the binary of alive and conscious & dead and agency-less and proposing that the line can be blurred and therein is the juicy & interesting discussion about your own agency, having to override other peoples agency and when it feels unforgivable even when that "agency" isnt there to disagree, or when it gives you the high of enacting righteous power, the fear of potentially or imminently losing your own agency and having to accept that youll be at someone elses mercy,... and of course taking that from discussions of community safety or grief (already so emotionally charged!) into sexuality, and how real sexuality is already an act of skimming that line of giving up agency, its just very fun! theres a lot of material that comes to the surface easily that puts those real life parallels into even more gory vivid color at the same time as inverting it enough that you dont shut down at the thought. or asks you to recontextualize how you feel about those real world situations

#i loooooove zombie media in how it gives you insight to an author or a zeitgeists position on things like community safety and consent #the kind of ground zero shitty reactionary zombie media and how it uses this exclusively fictional idea of like. masses of invaders who #want to hurt you and can never communicate with you and are doing it out of primitive bloodlust and not even reasoned self interest #is included. its not like its a good viewpoint to hold but its a very clear look into how that kind of insecurity tints things #the origin of the modern zombie as the fear of eternal slavery in the restless body existing after the will to live or the consciousness is #also very interesting & poignant. and some of the same feeling as what drew me to it. the question of like if you become so wholly #unpersoned and then still have to live and let people experience you afterward without your consent is sympathetic being like #autistic & really really socially isolated as a result

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risestarkiss · 4 months

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Being Baby Blue

Rise Ramblings #313

Leonardo Hamato is…an interesting individual.

As a middle child, he doesn’t have to shoulder the responsibilities of the oldest, nor is he fawned upon or babied over like the youngest. Therefore, he ends up having more of a lackadaisical approach to life.

In his free time, instead of training like Raph, Leo can normally be found reading comic books.

And for good reason! Someone has to be up on the latest issues of Jupiter Jim and his space odysseys.

But, other than being a Jupiter Jim superfan, who is Leonardo Hamato?

If you ask Leo, he's...*takes out a list*: “Primetime,” “First,” “The Best,” “Number One,” “The Champion,” or some other iteration of all of the above.

...Huh. Anyways...

Of course, the first thing Leo would tell you is that he's the team's "Face Man."

As the "Face Man," he’s the one that turns up the charm when they need to schmooze their way out of, or into, something.

He's the face of the group! It's a very important title, right?

Well, in this scene with Hueso, we learn what Leo really feels about his place on the team.

"There's no team with just a face man." "I'm nothing without them."

Hmm. If he thinks that he is nothing without his brothers, then what's the deal with all of this "Number One" and "Champion" talk?

I believe that Leo is exhibiting a form of Reaction Formation.

Reaction Formation is a primitive defense mechanism that involves transforming one's unacceptable feelings or emotions into the opposite.

"Solicitude may be a reaction-formation against cruelty...romantic notions of chastity and purity may mask crude sexual desires, altruism may hide selfishness, and piety may conceal sinfulness."

Leo has been creating these grandiose titles and this larger-than-life persona for himself as a means to cope with his feelings of insecurity, his anxieties, and combat his self-deprecation.

Gee, forming a larger-than-life persona to counteract their suppressed feelings also reminds me of someone else we know…

But, I digress...

Behind the fabrications, his insecurities, who he pretends to be, and who he wants to be, the real Leo is still on display, starting as early as the first episode.

He's attentive, he understands the team's strengths and weaknesses, he assesses situations, he comes up with great plans on the fly, and he is a voice of reason.

These are all the characteristics of a great leader.

However, something happens when he’s actually appointed as such.

There he goes again. He's cocky, arrogant, and act's as if he's unphased even by the prospect of loosing his brothers. If this is Reaction Formation, then what is he trying to mask with these behaviors?

Previously, he was masking his insecurities, his anxieties, and his self-deprecation, but with the faces he pulls when he thinks no one can see them, I want to say the newest emotion is fear.

He is terrified of being the leader and floundering under his new responsibilities. He's scared of the consequences of his actions, and what those consequences may mean for his brothers. However, instead of voicing his insecurities, or communicating with his team, he doubles down and falls back into old habits.

The "Face Man" persona is turned up to an 11, and things get worse and worse until...

His greatest fears have been realized.

He has failed as a leader. He has failed his brothers. He has failed to stop the invasion, and they are all going to die because of his failures.

Now he's faced with the harsh reality of his own mistakes, thus he finally faces himself.

"It's scary to be responsible for the lives you protect, your team...your family. But we do it anyway because that's what it means to be a hero."

He may be speaking to Raph, but he's talking about himself.

His words are his true feelings, the same feelings that have been holding him back this entire time. By opening up, he's able to surrender to himself and let it all go.

And it's the breakthrough we all have been waiting for.

What Leo doesn't know is that through letting go, he's able to become the true face of the group he is destined to be.

He's the face of hope.

○○○○

Previous | Being Big Red

Next | Being Purple ○ Part One • Being Purple ○ Part Two • Orange, Baby!

Finale | Being Hamato Yoshi

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whats-in-a-sentence · 1 year

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When they write about their deepest fears, their handwriting often becomes more childlike and primitive.

"The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, brain and body in the transformation of trauma" - Bessel van der Kolk

#book quotes #the body keeps the score #bessel van der kolk #nonfiction #handwriting #fears #childlike #primitive #typography #letters to myself

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