Melanie Klein and André Green offer competing descriptions of primitive mental development. The former emphasizes the need to control internal objects through splitting and projective identification, while the latter emphasizes a narcissistic retreat from objects through progressive deadening of the self. To bridge these theoretical differences a spectrum of fantasies is proposed ranging from reanimation (bringing deadness back to life) to reparation (healing damage caused by paranoid attack). Clinically, alternations between these two defensive patterns occur, acting together to avoid painful anxieties. The interplay of these defenses is illustrated by a dream drawn from clinical practice, from the life of James Barrie, and from his fictional creation Peter Pan.
AlperovitzS. (2014). Moments of loneliness: A shared experience of learning from impasse in couple therapy. Couple & Family Psychoanalysis4:69–85.
2.
BarrieJ.M. (1897). Margaret Ogilvy. New York: Scribner.
3.
BarrieJ.M. (1902). The Little White Bird. New York: Scribner.
4.
BarrieJ.M. (1904). Peter Pan; or, the boy who wouldn’t grow up. In The Plays of J.M. Barrie. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1928.
5.
BarrieJ.M. (1906). Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
6.
BarrieJ.M. (1911). Peter and Wendy. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
7.
BionW.R. (1959). Attacks on linking. International Journal of Psychoanalysis40:308–315.
8.
BionW.R. (1962). Learning from Experience. London: Tavistock Publications.
9.
BirkinA. (1979). J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys. New Haven: Yale University Press.
10.
BlattS.J. (1974). Levels of object representation in anaclitic and introjective depression. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child29:107–157.
11.
BronsteinC. (2018). Delusion and reparation. Internatonal Journal of Psychoanalysis99:1057–1074.
12.
GottliebR.M. (2007). The reassembly of the body from parts: Psychoanalytic reflections on death, resurrection, and cannibalism. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association55:1217–1251.
13.
GreenA. (1975). The analyst, symbolization and absence in the analytic setting (on changes in analytic practice and analytic experience)—in memory of D.W. Winnicott. International Journal of Psychoanalysis56:1–22.
14.
GreenA. (1983). The dead mother. In Life Narcissism, Death Narcissism, transl. WellerA.London: Free Association Books, 2001, pp. 170–200.
15.
GreenA. (1999). The Work of the Negative, transl. WellerA.London: Free Association Books.
16.
GreenA. (2005). Key Ideas for a Contemporary Psychoanalysis, transl. WellerA.London: Routledge.
17.
IsaacsS. (1948). The nature and function of phantasy. International Journal of Psychoanalysis29:73–97.
18.
KleinM. (1935). A contribution to the psychogenesis of manic-depressive states. In Love, Guilt and Reparation and Other Works, 1921–1945. New York: Delacorte Press, 1975, pp. 262–289.
19.
KleinM. (1937). Love, guilt and reparation. In Love, Guilt and Reparation and Other Works,1921–1945. New York: Delacorte Press, 1975, pp. 306–343.
20.
KleinM. (1940). Mourning and its relation to manic-depressive states. In Love, Guilt and Reparation and Other Works, 1921–1945. New York: Delacorte Press, 1975, pp. 344–369.
21.
KleinM. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. In Envy and Gratitude and Other Works, 1946–1963. New York: Delacorte Press, 1975, pp. 1–24.
22.
KleinM. (1957). Envy and gratitude. In Envy and Gratitude and Other Works, 1946–1963. New York: Delacorte Press, 1975, pp. 176–235.
23.
KleinM. (1958). On the development of mental functioning. In Envy and Gratitude and Other Works, 1946–1963. New York: Delacorte Press, 1975, pp. 236–246.
24.
KulishN. (2000). Mourning a lost childhood: The problem of Peter Pan. In The Problem of Loss and Mourning, ed. DietrichD.ShabadP.Madison, CT: International Universities Press, pp. 83–100.
25.
O’ShaughnessyE. (1964). The absent object. Journal of Child Psychotherapy1(2):34–43.
26.
PurkissD. (2001). At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, and Other Troublesome Things. New York: NYU Press.
27.
ResnickS. (2001). The Delusional Person: Bodily Feelings in Psychosis. London: Karnac Books.
28.
SegalH. (1957). Notes on symbol formation. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 38:391–397.
29.
WinnicottD.W. (1971). Transitional objects and transitional phenomena. In Playing and Reality. New York: Basic Books, pp. 1–25.
