Introduction

Several of the themes that were to become central in Joseph’s work are evident to some extent even in her earliest papers. In an unpublished paper of 1953, for example, she stresses the importance of observing what the patient does in the transference as well as attending to what he says. In the two papers reprinted here, ‘An aspect of the repetition compulsion’ (1959) and ‘Some characteristics of the psychopathic personality’ (1960), she introduces the theme of equilibrium, balance, and the patient’s need to maintain it even when he or she consciously wants to change.