British Object Relations
September 27, 2024 @ 1:45 pm - 3:15 pm, Classroom Three
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Third Year Adult Psychoanalytic Training (APT)
2024-25, Fall Term — Fridays, 1:45-3:15pm
Matthew Brooks, LICSW, FIPA
View Whole Syllabus
September 27, 2024 — Envy and gratitude, guilt and reparation
[79 pages]
Klein’s concept of envy in early object relations remains a polarizing idea, one well worth wrestling with. In her book on envy and gratitude, reflecting years of clinical experience, she expands on the threats to psychic integrity from excessive envy and destructiveness. She also examines in detail the possibilities of the analytic situation. She asserts the centrality of transference and the need for the analyst to become an internal object (especially a bad one), and the role of envy in the development of healthy repression.
David Eng’s paper begins with a detailed examination of Klein’s concept of reparation, from both an intrapsychic and social/historical point of view. When the capacity for love and guilt have been attained, where does the capacity for violence and aggression go? He finds that reparation, far from embodying morality or altruism, can signify splitting and denial as much as any other psychic position, an argument with consequences for both psychoanalysis and any social reparation project.
Klein, M. (1957). “Envy and Gratitude” in Writings of Melanie Klein Vol. III, Envy and Gratitude and Other Works, 1946-1963. pp.176-235.
Eng, D. (2016). Colonial object relations. Social Text, 34:1, 1-19.
