ABSTRACT
Melanie Klein differentiated the wish to repair from reaction formation and sublimation, and in 1935 reparation became a key concept in her theory of a depressive position. Reparation is an impulse of Eros. If guilt and pain for hatred of primary objects can be faced and to an extent worked through and some reparation made, the depression of containing damaged objects changes to a sense of there being alive objects within. Klein charted the struggle it is to make true reparation–even as we try, there may come a recrudescence of hate and grievance. Reparation occurs in a human context, limited and conflicted, closer in some ways to the South African idea of truth and reconciliation. Manic reparation, while reparative, is too weighted with triumph over the object, which is seen with contempt and so fails to relieve guilt or to repair the object. Reparation is psychic work, a part of the journey of integration in the depressive position.
