ABSTRACT
Certain contradictions and confusions must be considered even though present knowledge may be inadequate for their resolution. This chapter reviews the genetic axis in the light of the aspect of projective identification. Melanie Klein's discoveries of the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions required a theory that in certain situations apparently unrelated elements, associated with feelings of persecution, come together as an integrated whole associated with feelings of depression. The chapter employs this theory together with the term 'Selected Fact', borrowed from Poincare. The search for satisfaction of incompatible desires would lead to frustration, but successful surmounting of the problem of frustration involves being reasonable, and a phrase such as 'the dictates of reason' may enshrine the expression of primitive emotional reaction to a function intended to satisfy, not frustrate.
