We—Versus I and you

This article is concerned with the subject of special alliances and feelings related to them, examined on the basis of Melanie Klein's theories regarding the paranoid and depressive positions. Their functions, of both a communicative and defensive nature, are explored in the case of a patient who takes recourse to the mechanisms of splitting, projection and later repression, in order to counter the violence and pain of her emotions. Using clinical material, the author describes, how, in splitting her intolerable emotions and projecting them on to the analyst, the whole personality of the patient, organized in order to counter intense feelings and anxiety, is displaced on to the external object, the analyst, instead of being dealt with in the patient herself. By evoking feelings in the analyst, the ego of the patient tries to transform the analyst into an adequate container. Although the feelings of loss and loneliness brought about by projection impel the patient to try to recover the projected elements of her personality, and although this search constitutes a primitive form of communication, nevertheless, as a consequence serious problems arise both for the patient as well as the analyst, as far as the analytic work is concerned. The patient tries to enter into an alliance with the analyst, in order to prevent her from fulfilling her function.

Firstly, the author considers the sado-masochistic and delinquent alliance which the patient tries to establish by threatening and seductive behaviour. Secondly, as she becomes concerned for the analyst—as well as for her inner world and its good objects—and this concern is experienced as persecution and dread, she tries to turn the analyst into a co-delinquent; then she tries to enter into an omnipotent alliance founded on the conviction that the capacities of the analyst are her own. Thirdly, she tries to make the analyst deny the consequences of her violence. In trying to manipulate the analyst, the ego of the patient functions in a very acute way. Thus, it is of the utmost importance, that the analyst follow her own countertransference very carefully. Only if the analyst is strong enough to withstand the vehemence and anxiety which the patient is constantly projecting on to her, can she help the patient to internalize her as a good containing object and thus strengthen her ego. Splitting and projection recede in the moment of repression thus enabling the patient to communicate better with herself and the outer world. Although this is only a temporary