The Kleinian Position: Phantasy, Splitting, and the Language of Psychic Violence

In previous papers (Clarke, “Splitting”; Clarke and Bird; Clarke, “Psychoanalysis”) I have explored the Kleinian concept of projective identification and related to it the problem of racism, arguing that it is central to our understanding of the visceral and embodied nature of hatred. This paper seeks to provide a more detailed analysis of the underlying mechanisms that shape human perception and human nature from a Kleinian object relations perspective. In the first section I introduce the reader to the Kleinian inner world of Phantasy and argue that it is an integral part of perception, the source of persecution on the one hand and stability on the other. Phantasy enables the ego to perform its most basic operation: the establishment of object relations. I then go on to discuss splitting as a mechanism of defense. Splitting for Klein is the most primitive form of controlling danger: separating good and bad. Splitting ranges from biological impulses to social constructions. The distinction between endangered and endangering is a biological impulse which enables us to flee, to separate ourselves from danger, but splitting is also part of the social organization and functioning of political systems. We therefore have the notion of a mechanism which originates in our primitive biology, and which has become synthesized within everyday interaction at a socio-political and group level.

The final section of this paper addresses the Kleinian position. The notions of position and projective identification are probably the most important contributions Klein has made to psychoanalytic theory and practice. Kleins notion of a position is crucial to her understanding of the development of the child. Her focus is the first year of life, in which we learn to deal with anxiety, terror, love and hate. I conclude by arguing that Melanie Klein's work addresses the harsh, cruel, and terrifying side of human nature (as well as the good), which some may call the reality of lif