"But at the Same Time and on Another Level...". Volume 1, Psychoanalytic Theory and Technique in the Kleinian/Bionian Mode

401 Pages·2009·1.56 MB·English

by  James S. Grotstein

“. . . BUT AT THE SAME TIME
AND ON ANOTHER LEVEL . . .”

VOLUME ONE
“. . . BUT AT THE SAME TIME AND ON ANOTHER LEVEL . . .”
VOLUME ONE
Psychoanalytic Theory and Technique in the Kleinian/Bionian Mode
VOLUME TWO
Clinical Applications in the Kleinian/Bionian Mode
“. . . BUT AT THE SAME TIME
AND ON ANOTHER LEVEL . . .”

VOLUME ONE
Psychoanalytic Theory and Technique
in the Kleinian/Bionian Mode
James S. Grotstein
KARNAC
First published in 2009 by
Karnac Books
118 Finchley Road
London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2009 James S. Grotstein
The rights of James S. Grotstein to be identified as the author of this work have
been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978–1–85575–786–8
Edited, designed, and produced by Communication Crafts
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
I dedicate this work to Wilfred Bion, Ronald Britton,
Albert Mason, Thomas Ogden, and Antonino Ferro, each of whom
has been inspirational to me in countless ways in writing this work.
I also dedicate it to my wife, Susan, who has long and patiently
endured being a “literary widow” while I was engrossed in writing it.
I am profoundly grateful to my patients from across the years, to those
whom I have helped and especially—but regretfully—to those I have
not. It was the latter who helped push me to reflect upon myself (with
four psychoanalyses and many elective supervisions) and to consult
many different schools of analytic thought, until I became immersed
in the Kleinian—and now post-Kleinian—as well as the Bionian,
while still honouring and using the wisdom of the other schools in
which I had been trained and/or to which I had been exposed. My
professional journey has been an exciting one, but it is constantly
informed by the need to make reparation for my failures and then
rededicate myself to the psychoanalytic task once more.

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi
PREFACE xiii
ABOUT THE AUTHOR xvi
Introduction 1
1 Bridges to other schools and to psychotherapy 7
2 Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy 18
3 The evolution of Kleinian through “post-Kleinian”
to “Bionian” technique 24
4 Contributions by Klein’s descendants 42
5 “In search of a second opinion”:
the task of psychoanalysis 52
6 The analytic project: what is the analyst’s task? 58
vii
viii CONTENTS
7 Some notes on the philosophy of technique 74
8 The psychoanalytic session as a dream,
as improvisational theatre, and as sacred drama 91
9 Psychoanalytic dependency and regression 100
10 The Kleinian conception of the unconscious 116
11 The “once-and-forever-and-ever-evolving infant
of the unconscious” 120
12 The concept of “aloneness”
and the absence and presence of the analyst 125
13 Notes on the unconsciouses 129
14 The overarching role of unconscious phantasy 143
15 The ubiquitousness of object relationships 155
16 The Kleinian version of epigenesis and development,
and Klein’s theory of the positions 161
17 Klein’s view of the death instinct 173
18 The Kleinian view of defence mechanisms 184
19 Psychic retreats or pathological organizations 191
20 The negative therapeutic reaction
and psychoanalytic resistance 205
21 Transference ↔ countertransference ↔ reverie 221
22 Infantile sexuality versus infantile dependency
and the Kleinian view of the Oedipus complex 240
23 The importance of the Kleinian concepts of greed,
envy, and jealousy 251
CONTENTS ix
24 The Kleinian view of the superego 256
25 “This house against this house”:
splitting of the ego and the object 264
26 The constellating importance of projective identification 267
27 Projective transidentification 286
28 Bion’s modifications and extension of Kleinian technique 302
29 The instruments of psychoanalytic technique:
the faculties the analyst must use 320
30 The clinical instruments in Dr Bion’s treatment bag 327
REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 339
INDEX 367