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John Steiner is perhaps best known in the U.S. for his first book, Psychic Retreats. “Psychic retreat” is the name Steiner gave to a system of
complex defenses used to master anxieties related to separateness, envy, and various persecutory fantasies regarding early objects. A combination of complex defensive operations gives rise to the creation of a pathological organization. Steiner has argued that the retreat functions as a psychic haven for narcissistically vulnerable patients. It affords a protective structure “where self and object are so fused, often with one inside the other, that there is insufficient separateness for either to be properly viewed” (p. 171). For Steiner such an organization defends against the very reality of object relations, because “reality involves separate objects, each with their own individual characteristics” (p. 171).
The process of exiting a psychic retreat can be perilous: The patient, fearful of being without protection, is not yet equipped with alternative ways of dealing with anxiety and mental pain. As subject and object achieve more separation within the personality, envy and/or humiliation may be pronounced. In this wonderful new book, Seeing and Being Seen, Steiner describes the many difficulties encountered by patients as they attempt to move out of a psychic retreat into greater contact with the analyst, psychic life, and the world more generally. The book's eight essays are presented in three parts, each elaborating an aspect of what occurs as patients emerge out of a pathological organization.
Part I includes an exploration of shame and humiliation, both typically downplayed in the Kleinian literature. Steiner's investigation of shame takes him into the realm of “seeing and being seen,” an area he explores with great sensitivity. Steiner's insight here is to realize how powerful the sense of exposure and attendant shame are as the patient leaves the retreat and the protection afforded by the pathological organization. V