ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses G. Gabbard's and Melanie Klein's clinical discoveries and examines the group of patients who are essentially fixed at that place where both paranoid-schizoid and depressive anxieties combine. Gabbard states, "this feeling of being persecuted by bad objects while pining for the lost good objects is what constitutes the essence of the depressive position". The chapter presents the case study of George. With George, and many of the patients who are caught within the complex net of both depressive and paranoid experiences, their traumatic and chaotic backgrounds have left them with a narcissistic view of relationships. The brittle nature of this immature depressive/paranoid condition involves many factors including the lack of strong and resilient internalized good objects. The degree of aggressive need, oral demand and rage, and persecutory fears also influence this condition. One way this aggressive hunger for the object's blessing took over his life was in George's phantasies about cancer.
