A Proposed Revision of the Psychoanalytic Concept of Primitive Mental States

A Proposed Revision of the Psychoanalytic Concept of Primitive Mental States, Part II

“…In Part I (Grotstein, 1980) I introduced the need for a newer psychoanalytic conception of the primitive infantile mental organization. My belief is that psychoanalytic theory needs a clear and precise concept of an early state of mind which is capable of mental experience so as to be capable of pathological experience.…”

“…As I adumbrated in Part I (Grotstein, 1980), the splitting into separate personalities, a finding which Rosenfeld (1965) and Kernberg (1975a) have discussed, may be foremostly a defensive posture against the confusion of ego boundaries in the borderline, as Green (1977) has pointed out. The poor development of the skin boundary frontier representation and of the Background Object of Primary Identification genetically, and the dynamic over-employment of projective identification by the hapless borderline patient who tries to evade states of danger by confusion with hidher objects, contribute in two separate ways to the poor boundary definition of these patients.…”

Projective Identification Reappraised

“…In dysfunaional families one often finds that one child, or even parent, may be unconsciously "chosen" to become the scapegoat, the fool (clown), the hero-messiah, or even the pariah. The latter constitutes the most shamefijl and incorrigible aspects of the self as well as of members of one's family, the one that seems to deserve ostra cism (Grotstein 1984a(Grotstein , 1984b. Analysts may unwittingly become scapegoated and even tran-sformed into pariahs, a phenomenon that often re sults in a negative therapeutic reaction and ultimate unsuccessful analysis.…”

Alter(ING) Potential Space: Personalization and Community in Psychoanalytic Therapy

“…In the Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing (PEP), which has over 40,000 articles and books in its database, the term " personalization " appears in 77 papers and is never clearly defi ned. Generally, the term means an object is made into one ' s own (e.g., Grotstein, 1980 ;Kumin, 1978 ;Khan, 1966 ). Winnicott also used the concept, referring to it as a process. "…”