ABSTRACT
Bion’s thoughts about intrauterine life are based on Freud’s initial thinking about the continuity between intrauterine and postnatal life yet are Kleinian based in terms of linking different aspects of the personality with an emphasis on unconscious phantasy rather than illusion, as proposed by Freud. Freud looks in detail at the evolution of the formation of the parental representation, which focuses on the primaeval father through to the father’s actual father and exalted to an image of God: the formation of the superego and conscience. Klein’s portrayal of the two emotional positions, namely the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions, is deemed helpful for considering the possibility of the emotional content of images of God prenatally and perinatally. The possibility of the existence of a prenatal and perinatal transference is proposed, which could emerge from and be recognised through working with an analyst who is open to the prenatal and perinatal phase of life.
