Some Reflections on Kleinian Clinical Technique in Post-War Britain: The Question of Psychosis

This paper undertakes a return to a key moment in the development of Kleinian psychoanalysis in post-war Britain, focusing on the Kleinian clinic of psychosis during the period. Through a reconsideration of a seminal paper by Hanna Segal, it seeks to address the following question: given the originality of Klein and her colleagues at that time, why did they adopt such a rigid approach to innovation in the clinical treatment, if not the theorization, of the psychoses? By focusing on some of the ways in which extra-clinical factors, especially the institutional politics from within which the Kleinian clinical orientation was forged, this paper hopes to contribute to a broader understanding of certain factors influencing the emergence of distinctive theoretical and clinical cultures. Making use of insights from philosopher of science Ian Hacking in conjunction with Segal's own notion of ‘symbolic equations’, it is argued that there is a ‘symbolic equation’ in the Kleinian failure, at the time, to metaphorize or interpret Freud's technical prescriptions for psychoanalysis, resulting in a symbolic equation between their clinical technique and the hypothesized symbolic equations of their patients.