ABSTRACT
Melanie Klein’s early research found a link between sadism and the quest for knowledge about one’s objects. The more Melanie Klein reviewed her clinical work with children, the more she noticed strong conflicts regarding curiosity and knowledge. Through her work, she postulated an unconscious, innate knowledge of the parental relationship, the penis, the breast, and vagina, as well as the idea of the primal scene that included a combined parental object. The unconscious knowledge of the object, as the result of internalization, leads to internal states of loving and hating and the desire to know and be known. Dumping unwanted knowledge of the self and one’s objects is often found alongside a reluctance to receive or cultivate any new knowledge. Knowledge gained and then aborted or knowledge received but then projected and rejected is different than insight. Knowledge means facing and emotionally owning guilt, loss, aggression, disappointment, and many other painful realities.
