Table of Contents

Preface -- Introduction -- Bridges to other schools and to psychotherapy -- Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy -- The evolution of Kleinian through “post-Kleinian” to “Bionian” technique -- Contributions by Klein’s descendants -- “In search of a second opinion”: the task of psychoanalysis -- The analytic project: what is the analyst’s task? -- Some notes on the philosophy of technique -- The psychoanalytic session as a dream, as improvisational theatre, and as sacred drama -- Psychoanalytic dependency and regression -- The Kleinian conception of the unconscious -- The “once-and-forever-and-ever-evolving infant of the unconscious” -- The concept of “aloneness” and the absence and presence of the analyst -- Notes on the unconsciouses -- The overarching role of unconscious phantasy -- The ubiquitousness of object relationships -- The Kleinian version of epigenesis and development, and Klein’s theory of the positions -- Klein’s view of the death instinct -- The Kleinian view of defence mechanisms -- Psychic retreats or pathological organizations -- The negative therapeutic reaction and psychoanalytic resistance -- Transference ↔ countertransference ↔ reverie -- Infantile sexuality versus infantile dependency and the Kleinian view of the Oedipus complex -- The importance of the Kleinian concepts of greed, envy, and jealousy -- The Kleinian view of the superego -- “This house against this house”: splitting of the ego and the object -- The constellating importance of projective identification -- Projective transidentification -- Bion’s modifications and extension of Kleinian technique -- The instruments of psychoanalytic technique: the faculties the analyst must use -- The clinical instruments in Dr Bion’s treatment bag

About the Author

S. Grotstein, James

Reviews

"In these two volumes James Grotstein provides a historical account of analytic thinking from Freud, through Klein to Bion and beyond. He also gives us a survey of the Klein/Bion diaspora that currently exists and the various approaches to analytic practice to be found in it. In addition it is a personal primer on psychoanalytic technique. The breadth and depth of this is very impressive with the rigour we have come to expect from this author. But it is not only a scholarly survey it is 'at the same time' and 'on another level' a personal pilgrim's progress with Wilfred Bion as 'Pilgrim's' principal companion. It is a testimony to its author's voracious appetite for exploration and discovery and he very generously offers us his findings; an offer that should not be refused by all interested in contemporary psychoanalysis."--Ronald Britton, author of Sex, Death and the Superego and Belief and Imagination

"James Grotstein, one of the most innovative theoreticians in contemporary psychoanalysis, offers to every analyst his clinical experience. The reading of this book will determine a catastrophic but enriching change in the way of operating of all analysts. In terms of psychoanalytic technique there will be a before and after this book."--Antonino Ferro, author of Seeds of Illness, Seeds of Recovery, and In the Analyst's Consulting Room

"This is a landmark book in the development of analytic thinking on technique and the ideas upon which technique is based. It is filled with the clinical wisdom and theoretical sophistication gleaned from Grotstein's lifetime of experience as an analyst and analytic thinker. The depth, lucidity and detail of the presentation of clinical work are rare in the analytic literature. Grotstein faithfully presents how Kleinian, post-Kleinian, and Bion-informed analysts work and masterfully details the theories that inform them, and then goes on to transform them into his own unique synthesis. That final transformation is of critical importance to this book, not because Grotstein hopes that the reader will learn to practice analysis in the way he does. Quite the opposite, the book is a generous invitation to the reader to reflect upon and further develop his or her own analytic style in a way that includes a familiarity with the contributions of Klein and Bion. Analysts are never alone with their patients in the consulting room--in addition, there are always one's analyst and teachers upon whom one has relied in the course of becoming oneself as a psychotherapist or analyst. The reader will find Grotstein a welcome and invaluable addition to those already present in his or her consulting room."--Thomas H. Ogden, author of Reverie and Interpretation and The Primitive Edge of Experience

"This is both a textbook, and a personal journey. James Grotstein is an eminent writer on Kleinian ideas. With all his experience over fifty years as a practitioner, and theoretician, he reflects back on the changing faces of psychoanalysis."--R.D. Hinshelwood, author of Clinical Klein and A Dictionary of Kleinian Thought