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The central points of this paper are clear: First, all individuals have early modes of reacting in which there is faulty differentiation between the self and a key other person and in which dangerous, painful, or otherwise distressing impulses and attitudes are attributed to the outer environment; second, when these primitive modes are mobilized in the psychoanalytic relationship, they must be dealt with, because otherwise they act as premises distorting and largely vitiating all the more mature and rational layers of communication which may coexist with them.
I applaud Dr. Kurth's emphasis on these important principles. I endorse his ideal of making them clear to the patient “with a cartographer's persistence and preciseness,” and I support his assertion that to do so requires not only patience but fortitude, for the task places an extraordinary strain on the attitudes and resources of the therapist.
Having said that, let me make some critical remarks. It is ironic, though scarcely paradoxical, that few of those able to grasp the most archaic strata of psychic functioning have a comparable ability to formulate them in language which is precise and unambiguous. Among those few, Greenson, Winnicott, Bertram Lewin pre-eminently, and some of the giants outside of psychoanalysis, such as Piaget and Cassirer, have a place in my personal pantheon. I would have to exclude the present paper, for it leaves me with too many questions.
First of all, it covers a vast terrain. Projective identification, analyzability, and hate include much of the entire realm of pregenital psychology and raise a plethora of questions about technique and about the whole problem of the origins of human destructiveness. Furthermore, “projective identification” and “violent projective identification” are not clearly delineated. Reference to Melzer's work does not provide self-evident clarification. The author implies that projective identification
is always present in the early phases of development