ABSTRACT
The psychopathology of the earliest phase of development is, not surprisingly, the most obscure and difficult problem in psycho-analytical research. Under unfavourable conditions in the paranoid-schizoid position projective identification is used differently from the way it is used in normal development. The features of pathological projective identification were first described by Dr. W. R. Bion. The schizoid infant lives in a world very different from that of a normal child. The detailed psycho-analysis of schizophrenic patients of all ages, including psychotic children, throws some light on the dynamics of psychological disturbances in early infancy. When anxiety and hostile and envious impulses are intense, however, projective identification happens differently. The attack on reality by projective identification is connected with another process characteristic of the paranoid-schizoid position, also described by Bion, namely the attacks on linking: any function or organ that is perceived by the infant to link objects together is violently attacked.
