Kleinian theory

neurotic states

the reality of interpersonal relations is substituted by the psychic reality of childhood object relations

• hysteria

• obsessional thoughts

• phobia

psychotic states

the individual’s connection with external reality weakens or collapses, the patient becomes preoccupied with internal sensations, fantasies, and bodily experiences.

Because the capacity to compare fantasy with actual perception breaks down, primary-process thinking gains dominance, leading to hallucinations, delusional beliefs, and communication failures. Ultimately, the external world is not simply misinterpreted but replaced by the individual’s internal reality

• there is no investment of analytic relationships: psychosis (narcissistic neuroses) is not accessible to treatment

• the self becomes the target of libidinal investments

paranoid psychosis, paraphrenia, hypochondria, and megalomaniac delusions

• represent conditions in which internal reality overwhelms the capacity for reality testing

• dominance of primary-process thinking

• thoughts and fantasies are treated as equivalent to external events → omnipotence, magical thinking 

• collapse of boundaries between inner states and outer perception

delusional states

the Ego Pleasure is stronger than Reality Ego 

primary narcissism

the infant’s natural, early state where all psychic energy is invested in the self

secondary narcissism

a later regression to that state, often seen in psychosis, where libido is withdrawn from reality and reinvested in the self

normal regression to aspects of primary narcissism

non-pathological states such as illness, sleep, old age, mass ideological identification, and falling in love

• is temporary

• attention and psychic energy is turned inward without loss of reality testing

self-absorption - development

a normal developmental phase in which the infant’s attention and libido are focused on the self, forming the foundation for ego structure.

transfer of omnipotence

the child shifts their original sense of personal omnipotence onto the rescuing/soothing parent, who becomes experienced as perfect and all-powerful

Ego Ideal

the internalized, idealized image of the parent that allows the child to regain a transformed version of their original omnipotence, becoming a guiding standard within the self

Unified Libido Theory

the same psychic energy that builds and supports the Ego (narcissistic libido) also fuels investment in relationships (object libido), meaning there is no inherent conflict between self-development and object love

→ invalidates the classical dualistic drive theory

the death drive

finał aim: reinstate a condition of no tension

in psychic life: disintegrating any possible source of unity, desire, love, civilization → and promotes aggression and destructiveness

the nirvana principle (inertia principle) 

the psyche is driven toward a state of absolute tensionlessness, seeking the complete quietude and inertia of an inorganic, non-stimulated condition

the life drive

pushes the organism to reach wider units, love relationships and to erect the building of civilization that ultimately serve the purposes of survival and continuation of life

psychotic or severely obsessional children - playing habits

these children compulsively enact scenes where opposite emotions (love/hate) are represented by separate fictional characters who never show mixed feelings but appear in rigid, alternating roles

Therapist Role Induction

the therapist is pulled into enacting these extreme characters, feeling pressured to behave like the projected persecutor, rescuer, or victim

the derivative of primitive developmental viccissitudes

highly unstable internal world populated by persecutors and idealized objects

impact of internal objects on relationships

shape early object-relations and prevent the individual from realistically perceiving the actual qualities of interactions and of other people

projection

the individual attributes primitive internal objects to people in the external world, transforming them into persecutors or idealized–omnipotent figures

introjection

the individual takes in and assimilates the qualities of these projected figures, forming internal persecutory or idealized objects that constitute the primitive superego

the psychotic states

the result of the fixation to primitive stages of development

1. impossibility to integrate opposite emotional experiences

2. anguish of death (external and internal persecutors/idealized figures

3. lack of the sense of reality of the actual relationships beyond the internal world