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Dear Sirs,
Grotstein (2005) attempts to justify the addition of a new theory and a new terminology (projective transidentification) to deal with a problem that Bion had drawn attention to regarding the established notion that Klein's theory of projective identification is based on ‘an omnipotent phantasy’ (Bion, 1974, p. 105). However, this formulation, Bion points out, must be incomplete, since, when carried out by the patient, the analyst is often adversely affected in a very real way, for example the analyst may ‘have feelings of persecution or anxiety’ (p. 106). In other words, something beyond just ‘an omnipotent phantasy’ must be in the works.
With regard to these remarks, this phenomenon was of interest to Bion earlier (1961, p. 149), where he describes experiencing a sense of ‘being manipulated’ by the group leader and its members as if he were ‘playing a part in somebody else's phantasy,’ and in certain other group situations where he ends up feeling that he has made a terrible blunder and is guilty of blasphemy for his not conforming to group needs and expectations that he exercise omnipotent curative powers.
Grotstein points to Bion's comment that ‘we might consider whether there is not some other theory which would explain what the patient is able to do to the analyst’ (1974, p. 106). But Grotstein quotes incompletely, which results in his apparently not recognizing that what is being said is somewhat tongue in cheek, with Bion going on to say that ‘the trouble with [analytic] theories is that they so soon make themselves out of date,’ hence Bion prefers models over theories because models can more easily be discarded and replaced.
The point here is that even a casual reading of Bion's writings during the last 10-15 years of his life reveals his view that at its present stage of development ‘the