ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis, Donald Meltzer said, works through holding "conversations between internal objects"—those of analyst and analysand working together to form a symbol for the idea of the current emotional experience. Meltzer saw the cultural significance of psychoanalysis as contributing a new aesthetic object—the psychoanalytic method—a way of using the transference that is a fundamental feature of human nature and that already exists and operates in other human relationships. When Meltzer came to formulate the "aesthetic conflict" for psychoanalysis, it became clear that all three of Money-Kyrle's preconceptions needed to be engaged for the "baby" in the human personality to experience the aesthetic conflict of a new idea entering the mind. The three Money-Kyrle's preconceptions are the baby link, the combined-object link, and the end of all links. The concept of the restoration of the good mother is the foundation for Stokes' declaration that successful art is a representation of "sanity" and that, likewise, sanity is "an aesthetic achievement".
