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DEAR SIR,
I think that Dr Dorpat's book review of Grotstein's 'Splitting and Projective Identification' (1983, 64, 116–119) is somewhat unfair and incomplete.
No mention is made of Grotstein's 'dual-track' theorem. Although, admittedly, Grotstein does not specifically devote many pages to his theorem, its 'aura' pervades his book and infuses a (much-needed) real attempt to grapple with the apparent conflict between 'Mahlerian' and 'Kleinian' ideas of symbiosis and separateness. This is shirked by so many writers.
Perhaps Grotstein's attempt is less than elegant and perhaps does not devote enough space to further clarification, but he does offer some brave new connexions between some 'tired' concepts. For example: 'The phenomenon of projective identification is best understood by the application of the dual-track principle involving the symbiotic, "Siamese twin" model in which there can be two states of mind simultaneously on different levels: one of separateness and the other of fusion. Thus, the infant can go back and forth between the two states or experience both states simultaneously. At the same time, this model allows for the infant to experience identification with the projection into the object and also be able to deny it (disidentification)' (p. 214).
Grotstein's 'hint' that the 'Background Object' is important for the balancing and containment of the separation/fusion duality, in my opinion, gives us a closer, deeper look at what Bion and Bick refer to as the maternal holding and containing functions.
Grotstein is described as 'turgid' (p. 118), when Dr Dorpat cannot follow his sometimes (appropriately) complex descriptions of the patient's representational world. But not everything can be said simply.