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After seven years' analysis in which the patient divested herself of much of her falsity and perversion, she developed multiple sclerosis, still in its early stages. Of her state Meltzer writes:
‘… the theory of a punitive super-ego merely gives voice to the patient's own religious and moralistic phantasy and expectation, even in a sense her wish to be punished with death, rather than to have to experience the powerful emotions of fear and love, hate and dependence, ignorance and the yearning to understand, life at the passionate level of aesthetic conflict, clinging to the rock, ravished by the beauty of the sea, terrified of being swept away. Swept away by what? The material says it clearly: swept away by the preference for mindlessness, cocooned in quiet submission to the demands of the culture of the family, seasoned by secret perversity.’ (p. 177)
This evocative passage illustrates Meltzer's style. That is relevant to consider because of the aesthetic colouring to this book. His writing, though sometimes difficult to follow, especially when he interprets dreams (though his skill and virtuosity in that direction is remarkable) is well adapted to his subject matter. This is an original and creative volume illustrating what a long way psychoanalysts have come since Freud's early drive theories, through object relations and Klein, to Bion and now Meltzer, who has digested his psychoanalytic gods in earlier volumes: The Kleinian Development and Extended Metapsychology. How thoroughly he has done that is illustrated by my quotation: its raw materials are the aesthetic object (his own addition) giving rise to + L.H.K. and then reversing to—L.H.K., or using Bion's grid, going up to the level of fantasy dream and myth, then reversing towards beta elements—all digested and put into pulsating English (there is only one technical term—superego—unless ‘aesthetic object’ be classed as another).
After reading this book once I was reminded of Helen of Troy and how her beauty led