On Understanding Projective Identification in the Treatment of Psychotic States of Mind: The Publishing Cohort of H. Rosenfeld, H. Segal and W. Bion (1946–1957)

(Final version accepted 6 November 2008)

A publishing cohort of Kleinian analysts — Rosenfeld, Segal and Bion — implemented Klein's (1946) notions of projective identification and the ‘paranoid’ and ‘schizoid’ positions in the understanding of a group of psychotic disorders. The author differentiates Klein's (1946) Notes on some schizoid mechanisms paper from its revised version of 1952, maintaining that it was Rosenfeld's clinical work during this period that helped to centralize Klein's redefinition of projective identification. The stage was set for Segal's contribution in terms of ‘symbolic equations,’ where the psychotic's attack on the breast left him incarcerated in internal torment and persecution, where things-in-themselves were confused with what they symbolically represented. Segal in turn linked psychotic to normal, paranoid-schizoid to depressive positions, where by means of projective identification and symbolic imagination, the patient could arouse feelings in the analyst related to sadness, guilt and loss. Bion assumed that psychotic pathology reflected disordered thinking, when the severely disturbed used language as a mode of action. The psychotic was profoundly confused between the use of thought and action in the natural world — where thought was required, he preferred action and vice versa. Bion also drew upon projective identification in a new, broader way, so that analysis could now become more of an inter-subjective, bi-directional field of projective and communicational influence between patient and analyst. The paper concludes with the impact of the work of Rosenfeld, Segal and Bion and variations on the technique of analyzing psychotic states in terms of the patient's early history, transference and countertransference.