ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud's discussion of the Schreber case focuses on Schreber's paranoid delusions and the role of projection in his symptom formation. Freud put considerable emphasis on projection in trying to illumine the psychodynamics of paranoid delusions. The mechanism of projection can be considered meaningfully only in the context of its correlated intrapsychic process—introjection. Melanie Klein introduces the term projective identification: Much of the hatred against parts of the self is now directed toward the mother. This leads to a particular form of identification which establishes the prototype of an aggressive object-relation. In considering post-Kleinian developments, it seems clear that most Kleinian thinkers recognize to some degree the basically psychotic character of projective identification and acknowledge the aspects of self-fragmentation, diffusion of identity, and loss of self-object differentiation that it implies. Projective identification is exemplified as a basic mechanism in the schizophrenic process and reflects the regressive reconstitution of the paranoid-schizoid position.
