ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines some of the Freudian and Kleinian theories that have found useful when thinking clinical care in mental health settings, whether in direct work with patients or in teaching and supervising frontline staff. It provides vignettes to illustrate the theory in clinical practice. In consultation and supervision, the skill is to introduce theory in a way that is relevant to mental health professionals’ work. S. Freud first described the term “countertransference” to denote the patient’s impact upon the therapist’s unconscious mind. M. Klein also recognized that guilt and depression can lead to a regression into a manic state of mind, in which the infant tries to deny its dependence upon the object by denigrating the object and employing mechanisms of triumph. Klein used the term “projective identification” to describe a mental process in which the person gets rid of unwanted psychological knowledge or perceptions, while putting pressure on objects to conform to his omnipotent view of the world.
