ABSTRACT
This chapter explores contemporary Kleinian technique in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, with particular reference to the question of historical reconstruction. It suggests that it is possible to delineate a distinctively Kleinian approach to historical reconstruction which follows from the Kleinian account of the development of mind and of its functioning. “An unconscious phantasy is a belief in the activity of concretely felt ‘internal’ objects”. At the most primitive levels, unconscious phantasy is experienced by the individual in terms of objects that are felt to be concrete and are believed to have good and bad motivations. In utilizing the concept of position, therefore, Melanie Klein was not just describing infantile development; she was outlining two characteristic groups of anxieties and defences that persist throughout life. The paranoid-schizoid position refers to a group of anxieties and defences associated with an immature ego preoccupied with the question of its own survival. The working-through of the depressive position represents a major developmental milestone.
