Kleinian theory has sometimes been understood to convey an understanding of emotional growth as development beyond the splitting and part-object functioning of the paranoid-schizoid position to the ambivalence and whole-object functioning of the depressive position (Ps→D). In this view, Ps functioning is regarded as primitive in contrast to the maturity of D. But this perspective is itself a manifestation of splitting, viewing Ps as all-bad and D as all-good. A dialectical model capable of recognizing both the good as well as the bad in Ps and the bad as well as the good in D and that seeks to synthesize what is creative and life-enhancing in both must be evolved. Bion's shift from writing Ps→D to writing Ps←→D fails to do this, as does Britton's amplification of Bion's model.