ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the relationship between loss, object need, and omnipotent fantasies from a developmental perspective. Melanie Klein’s views on mourning, and its relation to manic defenses, are explored with clinical material of an adopted adult woman whose unmourned losses presented with repetitive undoing of the progress made during sessions. Disruptions in her early attachment gave form to an intersubjective analytic experience that was paradoxical, and the analytic relationship provided an opportunity to strengthen disrupted self and object representations through repetitious weaving and unweaving of relational experiences. The conclusion addresses the transition from omnipotent fantasies to idealization of the analyst as a bridge to stabilizing self and object representations.
