Chapter 13. Learning from Experience

1 For effective use it is necessary to be able to regard alpha-function as constant by virtue of its status as an unknown. In so far as it is flexible its flexibility derives from the use of variables as factors that can be replaced, as I explained earlier, by theories and concepts of fixed value. The values given to the variables (the factors) must be genuinely constant so that once their value has been fixed the meaning of alpha-function is fixed. In practice even an approximation to precision is only possible in the sense that the factor must be clearly described or, in the instance of a theory, correctly quoted.1

2 As an example of an attempt at precise formulation I take alpha-function and two factors; excessive projective identification and excess of bad objects. Suppose that in the course of the analysis these two factors are obtrusive to the exclusion of other factors that the analyst has observed. If psychoanalytic theory were rationally organized it should be possible to refer to both these factors by symbols which were part of a system of reference that was applied uniformly and universally. The Kleinian theory of projective identification would be referred to by initials and a page and paragraph reference. Similarly, Freud's view of attention would be replaced by a reference. This can in fact be done, though clumsily, by reference to page and line of a standard edition even now. Such a statement could lend itself to mere manipulation, more or less ingenious, of symbols according to apparently arbitrary rules. Provided that the analyst

preserves a sense of the factual background to which such a formulation refers, there are advantages in