ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on Melanie Klein’s Oedipus situation in the context of her theories in general. Klein invented the theory of the paranoid–schizoid phase, when the object is split into “good” and “bad”, and splitting is a major defence mechanism used, along with other primitive defence mechanisms such as projective identification. In projective identification, the baby projects a feeling into the object that is unbearable and really feels and takes on the projection, he does something that awakens the “re-action” in the recipient, so that the object cannot but collude with the projection. The aim of the child or the paranoid–schizoid adult neurotic is to work towards what Klein names as the depressive position. Donald Winnicott considered that the concept of the depressive position was Klein’s most important contribution to psychoanalysis, and “ranks with Freud’s concept of the Oedipus complex”.