You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Dear Sirs,
Dr. Alexander provides some interesting comments on Grotstein (2005), in which I re-examine the concept of projective identification and propose an additional concept, ‘projective transidentification,’ to address both the inclusion of the operation of projective identification proper and to address the mystery of how the external object becomes affected in the transaction with the subject. I agree both with Dr. Alexander and his citation of Bion that changes in theory may be less justifiable than creations of and changes in models of mind. Along that line, it was my impression that my contribution recertified Klein's omnipotent, intrapsychic model and, at the same time, offered an additional model of how the object became realistically affected.
One of the red threads running through my contribution is the premise that one had to distinguish between the phenomenological and the metapsychological perspectives when considering the action of projective identification. In terms of