"but At The Same Time And On Another Level...". Volume 1, Psychoanalytic Theory And Technique In The Kleinian/bionian Mode

“. . . BUT AT THE SAME TIME AND ON ANOTHER LEVEL . . .” VOLUME ONE “. . . BUT AT THE SAME TIME AND ON ANOTHER LEVEL . . .” VOLUME ONE Psychoanalytic Theory and Technique in the Kleinian/Bionian Mode VOLUME TWO Clinical Applications in the Kleinian/Bionian Mode “. . . BUT AT THE SAME TIME AND ON ANOTHER LEVEL . . .” VOLUME ONE Psychoanalytic Theory and Technique in the Kleinian/Bionian Mode James S. Grotstein KARNAC First published in 2009 by Karnac Books 118 Finchley Road London NW3 5HT Copyright © 2009 James S. Grotstein The rights of James S. Grotstein to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978–1–85575–786–8 Edited, designed, and produced by Communication Crafts Printed in Great Britain www.karnacbooks.com I dedicate this work to Wilfred Bion, Ronald Britton, Albert Mason, Thomas Ogden, and Antonino Ferro, each of whom has been inspirational to me in countless ways in writing this work. I also dedicate it to my wife, Susan, who has long and patiently endured being a “literary widow” while I was engrossed in writing it. I am profoundly grateful to my patients from across the years, to those whom I have helped and especially—but regretfully—to those I have not. It was the latter who helped push me to reflect upon myself (with four psychoanalyses and many elective supervisions) and to consult many different schools of analytic thought, until I became immersed in the Kleinian—and now post-Kleinian—as well as the Bionian, while still honouring and using the wisdom of the other schools in which I had been trained and/or to which I had been exposed. My professional journey has been an exciting one, but it is constantly informed by the need to make reparation for my failures and then rededicate myself to the psychoanalytic task once more. CONTENTS xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PREFACE xiii ABOUT THE AUTHOR xvi 1 Introduction 1 Bridges to other schools and to psychotherapy 2 Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy 18 3 The evolution of Kleinian through “post-Kleinian” to “Bionian” technique 24 4 Contributions by Klein’s descendants 42 5 “In search of a second opinion”: the task of psychoanalysis 52 The analytic project: what is the analyst’s task? 58 6 vii 7 viii CONTENTS 7 Some notes on the philosophy of technique 74 8 The psychoanalytic session as a dream, as improvisational theatre, and as sacred drama 91 9 Psychoanalytic depen