ABSTRACT
The model of reversible perspective reveals a complex situation. The patient detects a note of satisfaction in the analyst’s voice and responds in a tone conveying dejection. The patient detects a moral supposition in an interpretation: his response is significant for its silent rejection of the moral supposition. The debate between analysand and analyst is therefore unspoken; what the analyst says is shown to be agreed by both parties to the analysis, but – it is insignificant. The patient’s capacity for learning but not using analytic theories is a failure to match pre-conceptions with the realizations that approximate to them. The unsaturated element remains unsaturated. Melanie Klein described a situation in which the personality attacked its object with such violence that not only was the object deemed to become minutely fragmented, but the personality likewise.
