ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author finds, in the patient, that what appeared as a precocious or premature development was 'pre-cooked'. The precocity seemed very convincingly 'as if' the patient was mature, thoughtful and cooperative. It was gradually revealed to have the pre-cooked quality of auto-analysis, 'I have done it all better already' as described by K. Abraham. Abraham understood such behaviour to be based on identification with, and weakening of, the analyst; he called auto-analysis 'a substitute for masturbation' and linked it with envy and anal sadism. The false concern, in the Kleinian sense a pseudo-depressive picture, actually impeded the development of real concern. The underlying mechanisms were schizoid; in particular very secret and concretely experienced forms of projective identification, linked with anality, as spoken of by Melanie Klein (1946) and described in detail by Herbert Rosenfeld (1964) and D. Meltzer (1966). The author also presents the problem of the vicious circle of precocious development.
