⌬ Lecture №12 | Melanie Klein [OPTIONAL!]
The first podcast lecture that focuses on the work and thought of Melanie Klein's object relations theory
Hello,
This is the second in a series of podcast lectures on Object Relations Theories. This podcast lecture, and the several that will come after it, will focus on one specific object relations thinker. I hope that this will result in several short podcast lectures that add to what your text had to say about each of these thinkers.
I also want these podcast lectures to help those of you who might want to use one of the object relations thinkers in the case study paper that you will be writing for this class.
However, I ask that you keep in mind that these podcast lectures are extremely brief summaries of some extensive theory that was developed over many years. So, if something in these lectures gets your attention, I hope you'll then go and do further reading of the thinker's work.
This specific podcast lecture will focus on the work of Melanie Klein, who is the person who I would say is...
- The thinker who really establishes object relations as a new branch of psychoanalytic thought and practice.
- And I would also go so far as to say that Melanie Klein is the "mother of psychoanalysis."
Review:
For today's review, I want to remind you about something we have covered before in other podcast lectures. I want to remind you of it because it is such an important concept for how object relations theories think about human relationships.
The concept is Transference.
After talking about transference, I want to introduce a new but related idea: Phantasy.
- You will recall in the previous podcast lecture; I talked about how the relationships we have with our parents or whoever our primary caretakers are, for better or for worse, form the blueprint we use to develop all other subsequent relationships.
- I hope this will remind you of what I said about transference even earlier in the semester. Transference is when we transfer in what? The power differential that existed between ourselves and our parents, or early primary caretakers, into current relationships.
- Another way we could think about transference is by calling it an effect of a phantasy (spelled with a ph as opposed to with an f). A phantasy is another term used by Melanie Klein, who we will talk about in a moment, to signify a powerful unconscious assumption about the world (meaning the social world) and how we fit into the world. Even though it is called a phantasy, it is important to note that that does not mean it is wrong. Phantasies are usually the result of experiences.
Klein
First, I want to talk about something amazing that Klein did: She was one of the first people to use what we call "play therapy" nowadays, and in so doing she expanded psychoanalysis into a therapeutic modality that could be used with children.
In her work with children, Klein noticed that their play and the toys they used carried important symbolic meaning for them, and that this could be analysed much in the same way as dreams could be analysed in adults. Unlike the psychoanalytically- informed approach to the education and socialisation of children that was [practiced by other analysts working with children], Klein [...] offered her young patients something far closer to adult psychoanalysis. She saw them at set times, just like in adult analysis, and she became more and focused on their fears and anxieties as expressed in their play, and on the defences they used against them.
However, Klein did not only work with kids. She did a lot of work with kids, but she also worked with adults.
One of the many things that makes Klein's work so interesting is the way that it focused on two very common emotions that people struggle with:
- Anxiety and
- Depression.
In both instances, Klein's work grows out of Freud's insight on repressed desires. I want to start by exploring Klein's insights on anxiety.
[...] Anchoring her theoretical ideas so firmly in her clinical experience [with children and adults], Klein's work demonstrated that her psychoanalytic technique of understanding and interpreting anxieties, especially fear linked with aggressive impulses, could free up the patient and enable further exploration of their inner worlds.
In effect, Klein was able to see in children's play and adults' dreams, free associations, slips, etc., a desire to be aggressive. This desire was powerful. However, it was frequently repressed (i.e., it became unconscious). When this desire was repressed, one of the effects was that people were anxious that they might one day lose "control" or "lose their temper," and the repressed aggression would erupt.
What is significant about this is the idea that while we can be anxious about external things or scared that something bad will happen to us because of things in the external world. (Example: I'm worried my flight could get canceled because of the weather.) We can also become anxious due to our inner desire to be aggressive (e.g., dominating, controlling, winning, being the best, etc.)
The Paranoid-Schizoid Position
This idea eventually turned into the concept of the paranoid-schizoid position, which suggests that people have a tendency to see themself and others as sort of broken up into different parts.
- There is the "good part" of ourselves or others.
- Then there is the "bad part" of ourselves and others.
Klein's theory suggests that when people sense the aggressive or "bad" part of themselves or others coming to the surface, they get scared or anxious. What are they afraid of? They are scared of what they might do if they do what their id (or their "inner child," what Winnicott will call the "true self") wants to do.
Or, to put it very succinctly, people are scared they might lose control of themselves and have to see, acknowledge, and then experience the part of them that is aggressive and destructive.
Eventually, after Klein became familiar with the work of Fairbairn who we will cover in the next podcast lecture, Klein started to use the term splitting to describe the specific defense used by people who operate with the paranoid-schizoid position.
- Splitting is where people make one thing (one object) all bad
- to preserve the goodness of another thing (another object) all good
There are three things I want to point out about the paranoid-schizoid position.
First, in this position people will frequently justify their feelings of hate and aggression via a phantasy (ph) that the object (person or group of people) they direct their hatred and aggression (hostility) towards by seeing as a "bad object".
Second, I want you to remember that people in this position want to be "all good" all the time. This leads to the paranoid-schizoid position is that when people are in it they are scared of (i.e., anxious about) becoming "bad" by
- Saying or doing the wrong thing
- Making the wrong choice
- Making mistakes in general
- They are worried that "something bad will happen" if they don't do what they need to do, or what they are expected to do, and then that will be the beginning of the end for them...
And this results in them being in a sort of "fight, flight, freeze" way of relating to the world on a fairly regular basis, which is, of course, a difficult way to live!
Third, and final point is that people in the paranoid-schizoid position see the good and bad aspects of themself and others as separate! It is a sort of black/white and an either/or way of thinking about things.
Klein wanted to use psychoanalysis (psychotherapy, clinical work) to help people to move out of, and spend less time in the paranoid-schizoid position. So, if people move out of the paranoid-schizoid position, where do they go?
I'm so glad you asked!
The Depressive Position
- Capacity for guilt & therefore reconciliation (Winnicott)
- Castration is experienced acknowledged and excepted.
- Self is seen and experienced as both good and bad, something with Marit and flaws.
- People are seen as a whole (both good & bad)objects
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