ABSTRACT
Each single state of mind has an impact on the personality as a whole. The degree of impact varies according to the interplay between the particular developmental stage concerned and, within that stage, the attitude of mind which is dominant at any one time. The shift in states of mind from what psychoanalytic theory describes in terms of paranoid-schizoid to depressive—or of primarily narcissistic to object-related—is marvellously evoked in George Eliot's novel Middlemarch. Present, past and future are contained in any one state of mind. Such states flicker and change with the nuances of internal and external forces and relationships, forever shifting between egoistic and altruistic tendencies. This chapter presents two examples to clarify the complex relationship between states of mind and stages of development. They highlight the importance, both for the self and for the other, of registering which aspect of the personality is predominating at any one time.
