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The process of differentiation of the object derives particular significance from the fact that infantile dependence is characterised not only by identification, but also by an oral attitude of incorporation. In virtue of this fact the object with which the individual is identified becomes equivalent to an incorporated object, or, to put the matter in a more arresting fashion, the object in which the individual is incorporated is incorporated in the individual. This strange psychological anomaly may well prove the key to many metaphysical puzzles. Be that as it may, however, it is common to find in dreams a remarkable equivalence between being inside an object and having the object inside … Such then being the situation, the task of differentiating the object tends to resolve itself into a problem of expelling an incorporated object, i.e., to become a problem of expelling contents.
The aim of this chapter is to study, in a female patient whom I will call Maria Cristina, some aspects of her dependence and her development in psychoanalytic treatment.
Between total dependence as the starting point, and independence or mature dependence, there is a very long period that may last a lifetime; Fairbairn calls it the ‘transitional period’, when features of infantile dependence intermingle, co-exist and alternate with those of mature independence and reaction formation to the dependence.
In my patient, development toward mature dependence was blocked by a modification of the process of projection-introjection, giving rise as a
result to phenomena of autism and symbiosis that tended to stabilize or balance the fluctuations. More specifically, I develop in this chapter two conclusions or basic theses very closely related to the works of Fairbairn and the Kleinian school:
Disturbances of the process of projection-introjection are at the root of conflicts of dependence-independence;
The patient's analysis required the study of the formation of