“When she lowers the passion, she lowers the value of everything, and then abandonment is so much easier”

A technical mistake played a key role in precipitating the analysis of Sophie into a crisis. This crisis lasted for several months. In the course of this period, however, new important material emerged. While discussing it, Meltzer pointed out that, as the new born leaves the placenta behind, she is driven to attach herself to the breast as an alternative object of transference. This shift may however be traumatic for the newborn. Some of the uninvited consequences of this shift may at any moment surface in the session of both child- and adult analysis. A concrete instance of this disturbing experience is shown operating in the transference in this chapter.

The struggle to integrate the combined object showed new developments. New material brings further evidence of how the mind seems to work at partobject level.

Melanie Klein and the Kleinians have made of envy the core of pathology. This concept, together with “the terrible concept of ‘negative therapeutic reaction’” are here questioned.

The key question of the music of the voice of both the analysand and the analyst, and in particular, the importance of “… interpreting in a tone of voice of sharing your thinking with her rather than interpreting to her” is emphasized.