Chapter 12 Projective Identification: The Fate of the Concept in Italy and Spain

In order to trace an outline, even though incomplete, of the fate and use of the concept of projective identification in Italian and in Spanish psychoanalysis, I have examined its literature and have benefited from the help of colleagues from these two countries. I am grateful to them, although the responsibility for anything that is missing or inaccurate, and for the general layout of this presentation, obviously falls on me.41

Some preliminary statements will be useful to help identify the problem we are dealing with. First, even when we have in mind the study of the evolution of a specific concept, it is necessary first to outline the history of the general evolution of the psychoanalytical theory in each country, and to describe the modalities for training in the psychoanalytical institutes and the general cultural orientation in the society. The acceptance of a particular concept by the psychoanalytical community is the result of many factors: some of them are exquisitely individual, for example training undergone in another

country; others are more general, for example the theoretical orientation and the traditions of the society. This outline exceeds our present capacity and, in the case of the history of psychoanalysis in Italy, we can rely on some excellent treatises.

Second, regarding the concept itself, there appears to be a certain amount of consensus within the literature around the fact that Melanie Klein, in 1946, proposes a definition of projective identification adhering to that of a typical defence mechanism in the classical sense: it seems to be linked to instinctual problems and reveals the need for the ego to defend itself. In 1955 she extends the process to normality, both in order to account for empathy as well as to consider its functions in normal