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27th November 1952.
Dear Money-Kyrle:
It was very good of you not only to come to the meeting at Melanie's but also to write to me. I have read what you have written a few times and I am beginning to understand your way of putting things.
Perhaps I could start off with your last paragraph, in which you do find a definite overlap of your views and mine and Mrs. Milner's. I am often thought to be talking about mothers, actual people with babies, as if they were perfect or as if they were corresponding to “the good mother” which is part of the Kleinian jargon. Actually I always talk about “the good-enough mother” or “the not good-enough mother” because in point of fact we are talking about the actual woman, we know that the best she can do is to be good enough, and the word “enough” gradually (in favourable circumstances) widens in scope according to the infant's growing ability to deal with failure by understanding, toleration of frustration, etc. “The good mother” and “the bad mother” of the Kleinian jargon are internal objects and are nothing to do with real women. The best a real woman can do with an infant is to be sensitively good enough at the beginning so that illusion is made possible to the infant at the start that this good-enough mother is “the good breast.” Similarly in analysis the analyst must always be failing; but if one is to get the full blast of the disillusionment or the hate one must first of all make contact by active and sensitive adaptation so as to become good enough, otherwise nothing happens.