What Do Our Terms Mean, Explorations Using Psychoanalytic Theories and Concepts - Hayman

WHAT DO OUR TERMS MEAN?
CONTROVERSIES IN PSYCHOANALYSIS SERIES

IPA Publications Committee
Gennaro Saragnano (Rome), Chair; Leticia Glocer Fiorini (Buenos
Aires), Consultant; Samuel Arbiser (Buenos Aires), Paulo Cesar Sandler
(São Paulo); Christian Seulin (Lyon); Mary Kay O’Neil (Montreal);
Gail S. Reed (New York); Rhoda Bawdekar (London), ex-officio as
Publications Officer; Paul Crake (London), ex-officio as IPA Executive
Director.
Other titles in the Series
Identity, Gender, & Sexuality: 150 Years After Freud
edited by Peter Fonagy, Rainer Krause, & Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber
The Experience of Time: Psychoanalytic Perspectives
edited by Leticia Glocer Fiorini & Jorge Canestri
Transvestism, Transsexualism in the Psychoanalytic Dimension
edited by Giovanna Ambrosio
Clinical and Theoretical Aspects of Perversion: The Illusory Bond
edited by Juan Pablo Jimenez & Rodolfo Moguillansky
WHAT DO OUR TERMS
MEAN?
Explorations using
Psychoanalytic Theories and
Concepts
Anne Hayman
Preface by Kenneth Robinson

Postface by Riccardo Steiner
Series Editor
Gennaro Saragnano
Controversies in Psychoanalysis Series

First published in 2013 by
Karnac Books Ltd
118 Finchley Road
London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2013 by Anne Hayman
The right of Anne Hayman to be identified as the authors of this work has 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-13: 978-1-78049-183-7
Typeset by V Publishing Solutions Pvt Ltd., Chennai, India
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
Dedicated to Pearl King who wanted an “Independent” book
CONTENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR ix
CONTROVERSIES IN PSYCHOANALYSIS SERIES xi
PREFACE xiii
INTRODUCTION xvii
CHAPTER ONE
Some thoughts on the inner world and the environment 1
CHAPTER TWO
Ideas stirred by “On communication: a comment on
‘Catastrophic Change’”, by W. R. Bion 19
CHAPTER THREE
What do we mean by “id”? 27
vii
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER FOUR
Muddles and metaphors: some thoughts about
psychoanalytic words 53
CHAPTER FIVE
On Marjorie Brierley 69
CHAPTER SIX
What do we mean by “phantasy”? 85
CHAPTER SEVEN
Some remarks about the “Controversial Discussions” 101
CHAPTER EIGHT
What do our terms mean? 127
CHAPTER NINE
A psychoanalyst looks at some problems concerning evidence
and motives 141
POSTFACE 149
REFERENCES 151
BIBLIOGRAPHY 157
INDEX 161
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anne Hayman, MB, Bch, FRCPsych, Mres, DPM, was a Training

Analyst and a Child-Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society,
now retired; Clinical Essay prize 1963. She is author of numerous journal
articles and also contributions to books.
ix
CONTROVERSIES IN PSYCHOANALYSIS SERIES
IPA Publications Committee
The Publications Committee of the International Psychoanalytical

Association continues, with this volume, the “Controversies in
Psychoanalysis” series, the objective of which is to reflect, within the
frame of our publishing policy, present debates and polemics in the
psychoanalytic field.
Theoretical and clinical progress in psychoanalysis continues to
develop new concepts and to reconsider old ones, often in contradiction
to each other. By confronting and opening these debates, we might find
points of convergence, but also divergences that cannot be reconciled;
the ensuing tension among these should be sustained in a pluralistic
dialogue.
The aim of this series is to focus on these complex intersections
through various thematic proposals developed by authors from within
different theoretical frameworks and from diverse geographical areas,
in order to open possibilities of generating a productive debate within
the psychoanalytic world and related professional circles.
Anne Hayman’s book What do our Terms Mean? seems to me to fit
particularly well in the IPA “Controversies in Psychoanalysis” series.
Active, attentive, and smart witness, for a long time, of the most impor-
tant theoretical and scientific debates within the British Psychoanalytical
xi
xii C O N T R OV E R S I E S I N P S Y C H OA N A LY S I S S E R I E S
Society, she has recollected, in this volume, nine of her most valuable
and historical writings, which cannot but strongly interest all those who
are passionate about the history and the development of psychoanalyti-
cal thinking. Anne Hayman’s articles range from an exhaustive discus-
sion of such fundamental concepts as “inner world”, “phantasy”, the
“id”, Bion’s “catastrophic change”, and others, to her very thoughtful
evaluation of the general issues raised by psychoanalytic words and
terms, from her memories upon Marjory Brierley and the historical
period of the Controversial Discussions, to the complicated question of
legal “evidence and motives”, discussed by her from a strictly psycho-
analytical point of view.
As the “Controversies in Psychoanalysis” series editor, I feel honoured
to enrich this series with this important volume. Special thanks are
therefore due, once again, to Karnac Books for their willingness to
publish it and their helpfulness in doing so.
Gennaro Saragnano
Series Editor
Chair, IPA Publications Committee
PREFACE
Ken Robinson
I first met Anne Hayman when I was in training and had the good
fortune to attend clinical seminars with her. I remember leaving them
with a firm impression of a remarkably acute intellect and clinical sensi-
tivity. Her comments about the patient whom I presented and my work
with her, have stayed with me to this day. Afterwards I acquainted
myself with her tribute to Marjorie Brierley and later further papers.
To my delight they were characterised by that same rigorous atten-
tion to detail that Dr. Hayman had displayed in the seminars. They
deserve to be better known and I hope that this collection of her papers
concentrating on her investigation of conceptual confusion, will make
them so.
It is said that students of the Oxford philosopher J. L. Austin would
acquire a sign from an Austin car and place it on the mantelshelf in
their rooms. It was there to remind them to be disciplined when they
were doing things with words. Students of psychoanalysis would ben-
efit equally from keeping Anne Hayman in mind as they find their way
through the confusions of current psychoanalytic terminology. They
would do well to have on their internal mantelshelf a sign reading:
“What do we mean?” Fundamental concepts have taken on differ-
ent meaning for practitioners from different schools, a fact recognised
xiii
xiv P R E FA C E
by the recent creation of the IPA “Project Committee on Conceptual

Integration” whose aim is “seeking greater coherence in psychoanalytic
theory as far as possible”. This initiative had its forerunner in the British
Psychoanalytical Society in the form of the Controversial Discussions in
1943/44, and before that in the Exchange Lectures between Vienna and
London in 1934/5. As she notes in her paper on Marjorie Brierley, it was
Brierley who formulated the question central to the Discussions:
Is a theory of mental development expressed mainly in terms of the

vicissitudes of infantile object-relationship compatible or incom-
patible, in principle or in detail, with theory in terms of instinct
vicissitude? Are such theories antithetic or complimentary?
Dr. Hayman rightly admires the clarity of this formulation, but its
clear-sightedness is also a characteristic of her own questions. Brierley
drew attention to the errors that the analyst can fall into by confusing
thinking in perceptual terms appropriate to being with the patient in
the consulting room and conceptual terms appropriate when we theo-
rise about that experience. In a similar way Dr. Hayman is concerned
not simply to clarify muddles and metaphors but to lay bare the errors
and confusions in thinking that have spawned them, as for example
in her exposition of Bion’s “failure to maintain the distinction, essen-
tial to clear reasoning, between causal and associative thinking” or in
her remarks on the danger of reification of psychoanalytic concepts in
“What do we mean by ‘id’?”.
Anne Hayman is an Independent analyst. In this book she elu-
cidates the part that the Discussions played in the eventual forma-
tion of the Independent Group, though its roots lie in a period before
either Melanie Klein or Anna Freud joined the Society. As she points
out, “the group’s aim was to try and avoid dogmatism, and to con-
sider all psychoanalytic ideas without prejudice”. It remains that for
most Independent analysts to this day, I think, as this collection bears
witness. Dr. Hayman is sceptical about more “‘directive’ models … as
to the ‘identity’ of Independent analysts”, but in their early history, at
least, I think that they might be said to subscribe to the foundations
of Freud’s metapsychology as a framework within which they are free
to explore and to incorporate later extensions of Freud. Such freedom
is evident in the larger body of Dr. Hayman’s published and unpub-
lished work. In papers not included in this volume she explores, for
P R E FA C E xv
example, not only Winnicott on infancy but the Anna Freudian territory
of developmental lines and the diagnostic profile. And throughout her
concern with what we mean by our terms she focuses undogmatically
on fundamental concepts, as had the Discussions, be they metapsycho-
logical or clinical: the id, unconscious phantasy, unconscious conflict,
the inner world, transference, the environment, and so on, all concepts,
to quote the IPA Project Committee, “near to clinical reality and which
can be directly connected to clinical observation”.
In the final paper of this collection Dr. Hayman applies her herme-
neutic skills to the relationship between legal and psychoanalytical
understanding of evidence and motives. She refers to how she man-
aged the difficulty of being subpoenaed to give evidence about an
alleged patient and her reasons for acting as she did. Her account of
this dilemma was first published in The Lancet in 1965. A copy used to
be given to every new candidate embarking on analytic training in the
British Psychoanalytical Society, not just, I suspect, because it would
focus their minds ethically on the duty of confidentiality but because
it contains a wonderfully succinct description of the analyst’s respon-
sibility to maintain a setting in which “the ever developing unravel-
ling of the unconscious conflicts of our patients” may happen. Over
the years Dr. Hayman has extended the concerns of this 1965 paper, in
“A Psychoanalyst Looks at Some Problems Concerning Evidence and
Motives” and further papers, to explore the inherent unreliability of
the patient’s utterances as “evidence” from a legal perspective and to
pose questions about criminal responsibility in the light of the degree to
which actions might be unconsciously motivated. Here, as in her analy-
sis of conceptual confusion in the language of psychoanalysis, the last-
ing impression is of a fine mind at work, sifting, elucidating, without
prejudice and with considerable panache.
These papers are, I think, inspired by the example of Marjorie
Brierley and they stand alongside contemporary British work like that
of the Hampstead Index group, especially Joseph Sandler, and papers
by Clifford Yorke and Pearl King (as well as alongside the more recent
writings of Jonathan Lear in America) as important attempts to under-
stand what we mean. The creation of the IPA’s Project Committee con-
firms their topicality.
INTRODUCTION
What do our terms mean?

Selected papers by an “Independent” psychoanalyst
The British Psychoanalytical Society (BPAS) is known to embrace more

than one body of psychoanalytic theory. While the theoretical and clini-
cal ideas of its whole membership inevitably start off from the works
of Sigmund Freud, over the years various differences in their further
development have emerged, outstandingly with the works of Melanie
Klein not only notably extending Freud’s thought and practise, but
also in specific ways differing from them. Much has been written about
the many psychoanalysts in Britain who followed her ideas enthusi-
astically, by contrast with many others who followed the thinking of
Edward Glover and Anna Freud in totally disagreeing1, leading to the
theoretical division of the Society into two “Groups”. Subsequently,
a third one was recognised as the “Middle” (latterly “Independent”)
Group2 of members variously partly agreeing with ideas of both the
other two3. Although this tripartite “Group” organisation per se was
discarded within the past decade, this did not reflect any diminution
of the diversity of psychoanalytic views within the British Society.
The papers by one Independent psychoanalyst listed below are not
all in order of publication, but start with one written rather later than
most, because it introduces the “Independent Group”. Other papers
include not only aspects of the above-mentioned much recognised
xvii
xviii INTRODUCTION
theoretical disagreement, going together with much-used technical

terms sometimes having different meanings for different analysts; but
also with another, much less recognised area of difficulty. This arises
from failure by many, adequately to distinguish between terminology
of observational data and terminology of abstract concepts, leading to
some uncertainties or differences or other difficulties in how some psy-
choanalytic terms are reliably (or unreliably) used or understood. One
way or another, unreliability of how we use and understand our termi-
nology, is the main thesis of this volume. (An obituary on a member,
generally unknown in London because of her having lived far away,
inter alia notes a distinction she made between two areas of psychoana-
lytic theory, of clinical observation and of abstract conceptualisation,
remarkably similar to the distinction noted above by this writer.) The
final paper, while departing from this theme, nonetheless considers a
possibly somewhat analogous unreliability. Written for a conference on
medical law, inter alia it explores the huge and possibly irresolvable
problem, of how unconscious functioning may jeopardise the validity
of evidence.
Some of the papers and articles in the present collection have appeared
previously in journals and reviews which necessarily employed differ-
ent referencing guidelines and criteria from current procedures in aca-
demic book publishing. Whilst every effort has been made to provide
standard referencing, due to the special and historical nature of this
work a few references may still appear incomplete.
Notes
1. See “Some remarks about the Controversial Discussions” by this author,
Chapter Seven of this volume.
2. Notable “Independent” thinkers included Michael Balint who was a
member of the group, and D. W. Winnicott, who was too independent
to “belong” to any group! (Inter alia, this volume includes a chapter
referring to nother important thinker in the BPAS—Wilfred Bion, who
belonged to the “Klein Group”).
3. Now called “The Association of Independent Psychoanalysts”.
CHAPTER ONE
Some thoughts on the inner world and

the environment*,†
T
he original version of this paper “set the scene” for a conference
held on the topic of problems of interpretation in clinical work,
concerning issues to do with the interrelation of the inner world
and the environment. To set the scene in that respect, some brief com-
ments were made, on what the concepts of “the inner world” and of
“the environment” can include, and about aspects of their interrelation-
ship. But before these points were reached, another piece of “scene-
setting” was required. The conference was presented by members of
the Group of Independent Psychoanalysts of the British Psychoana-
lytical Society, so it could have been expected that the papers would
illustrate the psychoanalytic theories specific to that Group; except that
the essence of membership of the group of Independent Psychoanalysts
is indeed “independence”. The members of that group are all psycho-
analysts, so it would be correct to call us “Freudians”, but we are not a
* International Review of Psychoanalysis, 1990, Volume 17, part 1.

†
Slightly modified version of a paper that introduced a conference on “The Inter-relation
of the Inner World and the Environment: Problems of Interpretation in Clinical Work”
given at University College, London, 9 and 10 September 1988, by members of the Group
of Independent Psychoanalysts of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.
1
2 W H AT D O O U R T E R M S M E A N ?
subgroup adhering to one particular set of psychoanalytic ideas. While

there are inevitably fashions, with people being interested and influ-
enced by powerful bodies of thought that are current at any one time,
the aim of the ”independent” psychoanalysts of the British Society is to
respect diversity of theoretical views, as an essential part of the scien-
tific attitude. Recognising the unique position of Freud’s monumental
work, we share his view that revision and reassessment of theories and
technique is called for from time to time. Later contributions to the sci-
ence and practice of psychoanalysis, from whatever source, “should be
examined and criticised reasonably, and accepted if their value seems
proved” or, it could be said, if they seem useful.
Now, it would surely be thought that this attitude of rigorous enquiry
is a habit of mind that should and would be claimed by any thinking
practitioner of repute. To understand why it is a special claim made by
one group of psychoanalysts of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and
a claim that seems to be accepted by other (equally reputable) groups of
psychoanalysts of the British Psychoanalytical Society, it is necessary to
go into some history and, in particular, the genesis of “group” organisa-
tion within the British Society. The first two “groups” were those hav-
ing diametrically opposed attitudes about the theories of Melanie Klein.
The “Independent” stance was held by those who were neither totally
committed, nor totally opposed, to the Kleinian point of view.
So I will start with some history, which means going back half a
century or more. Psychoanalysis was established in Britain by Ernest
Jones, before the First World War. By the mid-1920s it was flourishing
in London, with a clinic for treating those unable to pay private fees,
and in 1926 the first Training Committee was beginning to organise the
teaching of students. It was also in 1926 that Melanie Klein moved to
London. She wanted to leave Berlin, where her pioneer psychoanalytic
work with young children had met with considerable criticism. And
England was to be a particularly suitable choice for her, perhaps largely
because of points of near agreement between some notions of hers and
some views of Jones.
Klein’s new ideas prospered here. There were a few British psycho-
analysts who felt they were very misdirected; there were a few who
adopted them in toto. There were more who were not totally convinced,
but found them interesting, or indeed very informative about aspects
of the early stages of life. So there was considerable support for the
papers and presentations of Klein and her followers. But during the
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE INNER WORLD AND THE ENVIRONMENT 3
1930s there also began to be increasing disquiet, to some extent here

but particularly in Vienna and also Berlin, over the growing difference
between many aspects of Freud’s published views, and the views and
publications emanating from London.
When Hitler entered Austria in 1938, enormous and effortful steps
were taken (by Jones and others) to arrange for Freud, his family, and
close colleagues to move to England. They were of course deeply
grateful, not just for the rescue, but also for being welcomed as col-
leagues by the British Psychoanalytical Society, which accorded them
full recognition of their status as analysts or training analysts, so that
they could work and teach here as they had been doing in Vienna. But
heartfelt appreciation could not and did not lead the new arrivals to
abandon their own views and slavishly adopt those of some of their
hosts. As I have indicated, there were those here—notably, Edward
Glover, Barbara Low, and Melitta Schmideberg—who agreed with the
Vienna contingent and totally disagreed with Klein. When these dif-
ferent views, held so strongly, were being propounded, not across the
Channel and the Continent, but under one roof, it caused considerable
tension, with much acrimony over whether Klein’s views were valid,
or incompatible with Freud’s. Inevitably, this caused great anxiety and
dissension. A lot of it was over what should be taught to students and,
therefore, by whom, which also meant over who should be training
analysts. There were also associated arguments, over questions to do
with holding office within the Society.
It did not take long for the training problems to emerge. As early
as July 1939 (barely fourteen months after the Freuds had arrived in
England) it was apparently said on the Training Committee that “the
teaching of the two groups represented by Anna Freud and Melanie
Klein could not be amalgamated”. Had there been only the two parties
to the polarisation, the feared possibility that the Society would split
might perhaps have happened; but the majority was working and strug-
gling against it. In a letter to Glover of 23 April 1940 (General Training
Papers, 1939–1942: file S-D-02–02), James Strachey writes “if it comes
to a showdown, I’m very strongly in favour of compromise at all costs.
The trouble seems to me to be with extremism on both sides. My own
view is that Mrs K has made some highly important contributions to
psychoanalysis, but that it is absurd to make out (a) that they cover the
whole subject, or (b) that their validity is axiomatic. On the other hand,
I think it is equally ludicrous for Miss F to maintain that psychoanalysis
is a game reserve belonging to the F family and that Mrs. K’s ideas are
fatally subversive …”
After much argument and much deliberation, it was agreed (inter
alia) to hold what came to be known as “the Controversial Discus-
sions”. They were a very serious attempt to reach some consensus over
the theoretical disagreements, but the eleven meetings, held between
January 1943 and May 1944, did not resolve the differences. The format
was that four “Kleinian” papers were pre-circulated and discussed, but
by March 1944, when Klein presented the fourth of these, attendance
by her antagonists seems to have fallen away. Edward Glover, Klein’s
most vociferous critic, had actually resigned from the Society, and Anna
Freud, dismayed or offended at the way matters were being handled,
had resigned from the Training Committee.
Glover never returned to the Society, but in 1946 Anna Freud did
resume full participation, after a two-sided compromise had been
worked out. One side was concerned with training and the main point
was the agreement that all students would attend theoretical lectures
together, but that the clinical seminars would be broken into two
streams, called “A” and “B”. The “B-stream” would be taught only by
Anna Freud and her associates. This was the first step in the division
of the British Society into different theoretical groups. The other side of
the compromise was the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” (that was actually
a “ladies’ agreement” between Anna Freud, Melanie Klein and the then
President of the Society, Sylvia Payne) that the groups would have a
balanced representation on all committees of the Society. Over the years
since then, there have been changes of detail affecting the training, but
the principle of compromise has remained, enabling people to agree to
differ and to work together.
Under the guidance of Anna Freud, the views of the members of the
“B-stream” were generally homogeneous; but those of the “A-stream”
were not. It was created to represent the teaching of the British Society,
other than that being conducted by the “B-stream”; that is, more or
less as it had been before the Vienna contingent arrived. So, as well
as “A-stream” seminars given by Payne, Strachey, Brierley, Sharpe,
Rickman, Balint, Gillespie, Bowlby, Winnicott, Usher, Milner, and
A. Stephen, there were also ones given by Melanie Klein and her asso-
ciates, such as Isaacs, Heimann, Riviere, Evans, Rosenfeld, Scott, Segal,
and Money-Kyrle. Certainly, all members of the “A-stream” did agree,
at least to some extent, with Klein’s views. At the same time, there were
also those who had various reservations, and in various ways, over the
years, they were recognised for purposes of training, as having a sepa-
rate identity.
The first way this showed, concerned one aspect of the choice of peo-
ple to supervise students, in conducting analyses of cases as part of their
training. One detail of the agreement reached in 1946 was that “the first
Supervisor must be chosen from the student’s own Group, the second
from a non-Kleinian member of Course A—The Middle Group”. (It is
clear that the agreement as stated, did not cover the situation of any stu-
dent whose analyst belonged to the “Middle Group”. For whatever rea-
son, this rule was dropped late in the 1950s.) Another way came in 1948,
when the list of “practical seminars” included “two parallel seminars
for each year, designated Courses A and B, and a combined course for
the third year of seminars taken by six analysts, two from Miss Freud’s
associates, two from Mrs Klein’s, and two from the Middle Group”. But
it was not until the 1960s, in the course of major reorganisations of the
training, that this “middle group” was fully recognised as a third train-
ing entity, on a par with the A and B groups. Henceforth, this third, or
“Middle” group, was known as the Group of Independent Analysts (or
the “Independents’ Group”).
As mentioned, the group’s aim was to try and avoid dogmatism, and
to consider all psychoanalytic ideas without prejudice. This attitude was
outlined by Strachey, in 19431, when he “resisted the temptation to fol-
low the well-trimmed vistas …” of seeing psychoanalysis “as a closed
system of immutable and all-inclusive verities …” and opted, instead,
for the thornier path of having to “grope [one’s] way forward … always
ready to correct or modify its theories …”, as Freud had put it.
Of course, sharing “the thornier path” with like-minded friends and
colleagues (which almost means being “a group” by negative defini-
tion) may be less help in the difficult solitary task of being a psychoana-
lyst than sharing one or two immutable verities! And from time to time
other and sometimes more “directive” models have been offered as to
the “identity” of Independent analysts. One suggestion regards “The
Group of Independent Psychoanalysts” as being identical with what
have been called “The British Object-Relations Theorists”, but there
are certainly “Independent” analysts who would not agree. And there
have been other ideas about what we are. A recent suggestion (Rayner)
puts it that we have “a common attitude of mind, born from an often
contradictory but fruitful marriage of the Franco-German Romantic
philosophical tradition, and the British tradition of Liberal Empiricism

stemming from John Locke, whereby everything should be judged for
its truth, no matter by whose lips uttered”.
I have tried to give some idea of the professional and intellectual
background of those who presented papers at the conference. Before
these rather bare bones of the genesis of the “Independent” group are
left behind, a few of the many points of theoretical controversy that
in fact underlay the very formation of Groups within our Society, will
be noted. That will lead to the one controversial theme that was most
relevant to the Conference: namely, the Klein theory of internal objects
and part-objects … the “inner world”. This will be followed by a brief
outline of how I will be using the other term in the title—“the envi-
ronment”. I will then describe some of the arguments that were made
against the concept of the “inner world of objects”. I will follow this
with some alternative views of certain thinkers who were not opposed
to the concept, but who added certain aspects, particularly concerning
the relationship to the environment. This chapter will end with some
comments upon the affective instance of this relationship that occurs in
countertransference.
So … to go back to some details of theoretical difference argued and
noted during the Controversial Discussions and in associated memo-
randa. There were a number of Freud’s basic psychoanalytic concepts to
which Melanie Klein unquestionably subscribed. Very approximately,
they included: the existence and primitive conflictual nature of uncon-
scious mental functioning, and its high significance for pathology; the
idea of libidinal instinctual drives going through phases, progressing
from oral, through anal, and on to the phallic-genital phase, and being
associated with parallel development of object relationships, so that, for
instance, the phallic-genital phase should go together with the three-
person relationship of the Oedipus complex: the fact that under some
circumstances, especially that of object-loss, a variant or alternative to
relating to objects was introjecting and identifying with them, and that
this, among other factors, led to the formation of the internal authority,
the superego.
But Klein differed greatly from Freud over a number of issues. There
were the questions (noted by Jones in 1935) of whether the girl’s sexual-
ity starts as masculine phallic, as Freud believed, or as receptive femi-
nine; of Klein’s using the Death Instinct clinically, as Freud never did;
and whether superego emerged only after resolution of the Oedipus
complex at about age five, as Freud said, or whether it begins by the

end of the first year. (In fact, Klein initially put it as starting at about
six months, only subsequently dating to about three months.) And it
was far from being only the superego that Klein saw as emerging much
earlier than Freud had. She also believed this of the whole development
of object relationships. To Freud, they were a gradual development or
acquisition over the first years, not yet available to the tiny infant; but
to Klein they started from birth. She saw oedipal relationships as begin-
ning unconsciously in the first months, years earlier than Freud’s idea
of the conscious lustful craving for one parent and murderous rivalry
with the other. There were a number of further vital differences, for
example, in Klein’s new concepts of the two developmental posi-
tions, the paranoid-schizoid, starting from birth, with massive primi-
tive anxieties and much splitting of part-objects, and the depressive,
starting at about three months, with less splitting, whole objects, guilt,
remorse, and reparation. There were parallel differences in the concepts
of phantasy, in views about aggression, about regression, autoerotism
and narcissism, and about the theory of conflict … to name a few.
And there was of course that difference germane to the topic under
discussion—namely, different ideas about Klein’s new original concept
of internal objects and part-objects and their relation to unconscious
phantasy.
The theme appeared in the paper by Susan Isaacs which opened the
Controversial Discussions, in which she gave the Klein view of “The
nature and function of phantasy” (1943, 1952). Unconscious phantasy
was described as having various functions. One of these was to act as
“the mental representative and corollary of instinct”. This meant that
as soon as the newborn had instinctual cravings to suck, it also had
unconscious phantasies. These, Isaacs explained, would be cannibalis-
tic, with meanings such as “I want to suck mother’s nipple, to eat her
up, to keep her inside me …” and so on. She stressed that these happen-
ings were pre-verbal and sensorial, and were not experienced in such
clear definable verbal ways. The phantasies were also said to be based
on “Freud’s postulated primary introjection”. If the infant’s hunger
was satiated, then he had the unconscious phantasy that he had taken
mother’s good breast inside him; whereas if hunger raged unabated,
he had the unconscious phantasy of a bad attacking breast inside, and
wanted to get rid of it. In Klein’s view, these phantasies of “taking in”,
modelled on the act of physical ingestion, were parallel to or brought
about the mental process of introjections (and urges to get rid of, were,
likewise, “connected with” the mental process of projection). As Klein
had explained and elaborated, it was these processes of very early intro-
jections and projection (and re-introjection and re-projection) of part-
objects, particularly of breast/nipple, that laid the ground for “the inner
world”, as she described it. For example, in 1940 she wrote, “the baby,
having incorporated his parents, feels them to be live people inside his
body in the concrete way in which deep unconscious phantasies are
experienced—they are, in his mind, ‘internal’ or ‘inner’ objects, as I
have termed them. Thus, an inner world is being built up in the child’s
unconscious mind …” Certainly, her sources included all that Freud had
written about unconscious processes of internalisation of objects etc.,
but his English translations (Guttman et al., 1980) do not contain the
term “inner world”, and he never conjectured Klein’s original, creative
picture of live, active, changing internal objects and part-objects. It is in
this specific Kleinian sense that I am using the phrase “inner world”.
(I say this because the phrase is sometimes used far more generally, to
mean all, or any, aspects of people’s emotional or mental life; the way
they think, feel, remember, imagine, day-dream, and plan consciously;
and correspondingly, any part of their unconscious life. I make this
distinction to imply the existence of important aspects of unconscious
mental and emotional life that are not necessarily best understood, as
signs of happenings to do with internal objects or part-objects).
As regards the term, “environment”, I take it as having a general
meaning (Rycroft, 1968) as “the conditions existing outside an organ-
ism”, and I consider two versions of this. In the first version, “the organ-
ism” is the developing infant or child, and “the environment” is not so
much “the encircling conditions” like place, climate, general external
conditions (Compact Oxford English Dictionary, 1971), but the human
person (or persons) responsible for whatever prevailing conditions affect
the organism. I generalise and call that person and how she (or he) han-
dles the baby, “the mother” or “the environment-mother”. In the sec-
ond version, I take “the organism” as the analysand; in which case, in
certain regressed states in analysis, the analyst might be experienced as
“an environment-analyst”. These points will be elaborated a little later.
I turn now to some of the theoretical and clinical ideas that people
had then and since about ideas relating to the “inner world”, starting
with some of the criticisms voiced in the 1940s. For several reasons,
the concept was strongly resisted by Anna Freud and her associates
(such as Burlingham, Lantos, Friedlander, Low, and the Hoffers). For

one thing, it rested on the assumption of phantasy and objects existing
from birth, whereas they were convinced that it took several months for
the infant to develop from a state of primary narcissism on to the point
of having sufficient mental capacity—ego—to create mental images or
phantasies, or to recognise the desired mother’s breast as separate from
itself.
There would have been no denying that the tiny baby, urgently nuz-
zling and feeding at the breast, does seem to be relating to what the
observer knows is an external object. The question was how soon the baby
“knows” it is separate. Freud thought it took time. “There is no doubt”
he wrote in 1938, “that, to begin with, the child does not distinguish
between the breast and its own body …”; so that the first relation to the
breast was “narcissistic” rather than object-related.
For most “middle” people, including Ernest Jones, Michael Balint,
Ronald Fairbairn, Sylvia Payne, Marjorie Brierley, and Ella Sharpe, the
different view of Klein was attractive or seen as very valuable. They
conceived of, or “didn’t deny” the existence of initial or very early non-
verbal, physical experiential types of “phantasy”, and could go along
with the idea of its expressing very primitive inner relationships. Payne
saw value and the need for more study, in Klein’s “object-relations in
the narcissistic phase”.
Another objection by Anna Freud was that Klein’s theories of the
inner world were “governed by introjection and projection”. As she saw
it, these seemed to be almost the only defence mechanisms Klein ever
interpreted, and she saw Klein’s therapeutic aim as “transforming the
so-called internalised objects”. To Anna Freud, this differed from Freud,
whose therapeutic aim was “to bring more unconscious content under
the control of the ego” and whose technique was “to interpret repres-
sions, regressions” and so on. Now, there certainly was, and is, dispute
over how early projection and introjections start, as many would main-
tain that they require some recognition of the boundary between self
and other, and not everyone agrees that this is present ab initio. But there
was and is some (though not universal) agreement that, as defences, they
are more primitive than repression and regression. Was Klein’s concern
with the inner world and with projection and introjection, a focus on
the more primitive, and on events of the first year, at the expense of the
more sophisticated events of toddler and slightly later years? And if so,
did this connect with another clinical criticism?
Klein stated that, in her experience, the transference was present

from the very beginning, and permeated the whole life of the analy-
sand during the analysis. It did not consist only of conscious thought
and feelings about the analyst, but was often disguised, and had to be
uncovered. Analysts had constantly to be guided by the transference
in this wider sense. To Anna Freud, this emphasis was to the exclusion
of other topics of interpretation, such as dreams, associations, memo-
ries, and screen memories. She put it that Freud’s idea about transfer-
ence interpretations was that they were specifically relevant, at just
those times when significant memories could not be recovered because
they were preverbal. This led her to suggest that “perhaps Mrs. Klein
emphasized transference interpretations because she regarded prever-
bal memories to be of overwhelming importance, by contrast with any-
thing later”. (This seems reminiscent of the idea sometimes expressed
that the Klein view sees everything important happening in the first
months, with no really significant developmental change happening
later. In similar, if slightly different vein, Sharpe, Payne, and Brierley
felt that Klein didn’t sufficiently distinguish between the assumed
early “phantasy” events, and the later more mature conflicts like the
Oedipus, where there was ego development, recognition of real frus-
tration, symbolism, repression, and so on. The views held on these
matters would obviously influence the types of interpretation chosen,
with some analysts focusing on part-object transference relationships
with the interpretations mainly of splitting, projective and introjective
processes, while others might also see whole-object relationships when
they could interpret in terms of defences like repression, regression,
displacement, etc.).
The next point was that Anna Freud did not believe that there was
interpretable “transference” at the start of treatment, because when
Freud described the transference neurosis, it was as something that was
established gradually, as the analysand became increasingly fixated to
the analyst in terms of his unconscious conflicts. Sylvia Payne took a
very “middle” position over this. She agreed with Klein that patients
could have a powerful unconscious transference from the start; but she
disagreed with her over (always) interpreting it, as she believed that
reanimating such powerful parental images could act as a suggestion.
Rather than resolving anything, it could entrench a patient’s uncon-
scious image of the analyst as omnipotent, with mysterious and potent
powers.
So, over forty years ago, people were differing over some of the
varieties of technique, that we continue to note. We might still ask
whether interpretations always need a transference element, as insist-
ing on one can sometimes mean effortfully contriving one by maintain-
ing that everything the patient says is really about the analyst. We might
still worry (as Brierley did then) that the rush to interpret “at depth” in
terms of assumed unconscious inner part-objects, before the defensive
and more conscious levels have been negotiated, might impose upon
the patient a model that he has not understood but cannot refuse, and
which, again, could act as a suggestion.
As regards subsequent additions or modifications to the theory of
the “inner world”, for the purpose of this chapter there is too wide a
range to do more than simply choose one. There has been much psycho-
analytic debate as to how far, and in what way, the actuality of the early
environment affects the infant’s development, and the present “choice”
has been to say something about ideas, in that respect, of that other
great psychoanalytic innovator, Donald Winnicott. This theme will be
introduced with a few words about some allied thinkers noted earlier—
the so-called “British Object-Relations Theorists”.
Michael Balint, Ronald Fairbairn, and Donald Winnicott (and also
Harry Guntrip, a psychotherapist trained by Fairbairn), have been
classed together under this heading. They all believed that Freud’s
metapsychology was inadequate or insufficient to explain certain bor-
derline psychotic disturbances. They linked these with distortions in
earliest development, specifically related to the earliest environment.
Very briefly, Fairbairn believed that schizoid states derive basically from
failure of the early mother to make the infant feel loved for himself. In
his view, libido was primarily object-seeking, not pleasure-seeking as
it was for Freud, and consequently he dispensed with Freud’s “instinct
theory”. His technique included the attempt to make good the maternal
deficit by “being human”, and making patients feel valued for them-
selves. Klein’s theories, of course, also rested very heavily on the vicissi-
tudes of object relationship; but unlike Fairbairn, she modified or added
to Freud’s instinct theories, rather than abandoning them. Michael
Balint also modified or added to Freud. His belief in the primacy of
relationships from the start meant that he disagreed, not with instinct
theory in toto, but with Freud’s concept of primary narcissism. Some-
what like Fairbairn, he believed there could be lasting ill-effects of fail-
ures in the earliest “two-person relationship”, prior to the three-person
relationship of the Oedipus complex; and he postulated a “basic fault”

(1968) that was a crippling developmental lack, rather than a conflict.
(Winnicott is discussed later).
Balint was the only one of the three who actually belonged to the
Group of Independent Analysts. Fairbairn worked alone in Edinburgh,
and Winnicott was one of those (there were and are others) who was
far too independent to believe in belonging to any group! The three
acknowledged a great debt to Melanie Klein’s huge contributions, and
her emphasis on the role of inner and outer whole- and part-object rela-
tions. (Indeed, it is sometimes felt as very perplexing that there can be
a group styled “The British Object-Relations Theorists” which doesn’t
include Klein … so much so, that when people seek an analysis with a
“British Object-Relations” analyst, it can, perhaps, be quite a matter of
chance as to whether they find themselves with an Independent ana-
lyst, or with a Kleinian!).
From the clinical point of view, the object-relation theorists could cer-
tainly differ from Klein over various possible details of interpretation;
but more basically, they differed over how far those very early distur-
bances could always be reached, therapeutically, with any interpretive
words. Klein always claimed that her therapeutic tool was always and
only the making of verbal interpretations (of unconscious phantasies,
conflicts, etc.) By contrast, the others believed (though each had his dif-
ferent theoretical model) that there were situations where verbal inter-
pretations were unavailing, insufficient, or counter-productive. The
belief derived from (or went together with) their theories, that stated
that some distortions of early development stem from certain unhelp-
ful environmental influences. It was not that Klein discounted external
influences, but she saw them as almost secondary to intrapsychic hap-
penings, which they would affect quantitatively. As for the others, it
was certainly not that they discarded the intrapsychic, but in certain
ways they saw it as primarily affected by the environment. It is this point
that I want to illustrate by what I’ll describe about the developmental
view of Donald Winnicott.
In many ways, Winnicott agreed with Klein’s views of the inner
world, with its initial “paranoid- schizoid position” of part-objects, fol-
lowed by the “depressive position” of whole objects, guilt, remorse,
and reparation (though he called it “the stage of concern”). But he did
not agree that all this started straight after birth. For him, the earliest
phase was of an infant effectively without mental life, and having only
“motility phases”, including those expressing urgent hungry urges and

“sensory perceptions”, either of satiation or of distress of one sort or
another. Winnicott saw the infant of this stage as totally dependent on
the mother or mothering person, without any awareness of it. But the
baby gradually develops and begins to integrate and begins to recog-
nise his mother and recognise his need for her. He begins to be aware of
feelings, to have phantasies, dreads, and conflicts—and it is then that he
has started having the sort of inner world of the paranoid-schizoid type
that Klein described; with the difference that, unlike Klein, Winnicott
thought it was preceded by the earlier situation. In that first phase, the
infant’s well-being is totally dependent on the mother being empathi-
cally attuned to his needs and responding to them. The usual, or “ordi-
narily devoted” mother, can more or less do this, largely because she
is still very identified with him narcissistically, as she was during
pregnancy. By and large, this empathic attunement diminishes round
about the same time (they may not fit exactly) as the baby begins to
signal his needs, and so doesn’t require as much empathic attunement.
Those needs are of two sorts. On the one hand, what I’ll call “the breast-
mother” must satisfy his ravening hungers while meeting his intense
instinctual excitements. On the other hand, the “environment-mother”
must concurrently hold him, care for him, protect him from cold, from
being dropped, from loud noises, and every imaginable impingement.
Integration, guilt, the stage of concern and wish to repair, come as he
begins to recognize (at five/six months or later) that the breast-mother
whom he’s regularly, excitedly attacked, is also the deeply needed,
quietly loved “environment mother”. In Winnicott’s view, a lot has to
happen before this, while the first fragments of memory and so on are
beginning, as build-up to the inner world.
It might seem a silly question as to why it matters whether
something—the beginnings of mental life—starts at birth, or so soon
afterwards. The answer lies in what appears to take place when things
go wrong in those very earliest days. If the mother is not in tune with
the infant, so that she ignores or misreads his requirements, he is at
risk of what Winnicott called “unthinkable anxiety”. If this happens
too much the outcome can be major distortions of his budding feelings
and awareness and capacity to relate, and it can set in train a whole
sequence of maladaptive responses. There might be early withdrawal
from the object world just as it’s getting recognised; or repudiation of
feelings about it, just as they begin to emerge. There could be active
chaos and annihilation of the potential for thinking, or compliance with

what seems expected at the expense of genuine feelings. From his ana-
lytic experiences, Winnicott described a range of developmental dis-
tortions … quasi-mental defect, schizophrenia, schizoid development,
borderline or narcissistic personalities, and false-self organisation.
And here we come to the clinical outcome that he found during psy-
choanalysis of such people. It was that they might regress to a state
of re-experiencing the earliest, very preverbal stage, when things went
wrong. In such a situation, the analyst needs to be an “environment-
analyst” with the intuitive empathy the mother lacked. By contrast with
how Fairbairn and Guntrip saw it, Winnicott did not see this as rec-
ompense by the analyst for what had been missed, but as necessary in
order for the analyst to recognise and understand what is going on in
the patient, when the patient is quite unable to explain and describe the
intense privations and impingements that he’s experiencing again. The
first analytic task is to be receptive; not to try and hurry things up with
clever interpretations. (If we do that, many patients will fall into line
and comply … but we’ll miss recognising that terror of “unthinkable
anxiety” that’s waiting to be discovered). If we don’t push it, then the
patient might gradually be able to get hold of it; then, to find words to
describe it; and ultimately, according to Winnicott, to repeat the expe-
rience of the environment-mother’s failures of adaptation. (This isn’t
technical advice. We don’t have to plan to fail—we do fail!) This time,
with good fortune, the analysand might be furiously angry, instead of
being crushed by it all.
I’ve spoken about the environment-analyst’s empathic attunement
to the urgent non-verbal experience of the analysand. I could have used
a different phrase. Many people are familiar with Paula Heimann’s
(1950) paper, “On countertransference”. It had a major and, possibly,
worldwide influence on analysts’ attitudes to feelings they had about
their analysands. There had been (to quote her) “a widespread belief …
that the counter-transference is nothing but a source of trouble. [People]
are afraid and feel guilty when they become aware of feelings towards
their patients …” (p. 81). On the few occasions that Freud wrote about
the countertransference, his concern was only to neutralise it and not
be overcome by it.
Heimann’s creative contribution was in showing that “the ana-
lyst’s emotional response to his patient within the analytic situation,
represents one of the most important tools for his work” (p. 81). Since
that publication, there have been innumerable references to the way
in which the analyst’s countertransference, or affective response to the

patient (King, 1978), can convey to the analyst wordless affects that the
analysand is unconsciously purveying.
It seems worth mentioning that, much earlier, Marjorie Brierley
was laying the ground for all this. In 1937 she wrote that the transfer-
ence relationship is always affective; that successful interpretations of
impulses towards objects are always about the affect that is involved;
that if psychoanalytic cure is via permanent superego modification, this
is only possible in so far as we enable an analysand to re-feel the feelings
he originally entertained about the object he has introjected, and that
to do our work we need rapport, which we achieve through empathy,
which is an affective state. Her paper focused attention on two things:
the significance in analysis of the ongoing affective experience of the
analysand, and how the analyst absolutely needed rapport—empathy,
that is, affect stimulated by the analysand—in order to be able to work.
In a memorandum on valid technique that she submitted to the Train-
ing Committee (25.10.43), she noted that “the real work [in analysis,
seemed to be done by] unconscious inference and empathy”, which she
saw as “one of two classes of counter-transference phenomena [that’s]
essential for analytic work”; (the other being the mode which involves
the analyst’s personal unconscious and is an interference). So it’s easy
to understand why André Green (1977) regarded her as opening a new
era in the understanding of affect, leading to Paula Heimann’s demon-
stration of the role of countertransference as an affective instrument.
In so far as those unconscious affects are directed towards the ana-
lyst, the clinical position is one in which the patient’s inner world of
primitive, wordless, unconscious transference is being picked up by the
environment-analyst’s countertransference, first unconscious and then
conscious. Countertransference can thus be seen as an important tech-
nical tool, in apprehending very primitive aspects of an analysand’s
inner world. (Note here some part-correlation with Anna Freud’s com-
ment, that the re-experiences that require transference interpretations
are preverbal ones.) However, it can also be a really problematic expe-
rience, and it can be very difficult to feel satisfied that we are always
thinking clearly about it, because at times the individual experience can
seem almost mystical and perhaps therefore suspect.
However, the new findings of developmental psychology (e.g.,
Osofsky, 1987; Stern, 1985; etc.) give new and strong, if indirect “scien-
tific” support to the popular view that one person’s wordless affect can
affect others, and whether we like it or not, there seems no doubt at all
that it can happen in clinical situations. There are certainly occasions

(mainly not clinical) when we do like it. There are also certain treatment
situations when it can be extremely disturbing, which adds pressure
to the wish to explain them. A Kleinian view explains “counter-trans-
ference functioning as a delicate receiving instrument” (Money-Kyrle,
1956), by bringing in Klein’s (1946) concept of projective identification.
This was held to involve a defensive splitting process “of the early
ego”, where parts of the self are expelled and projected into external
objects, leading to a fusion of the projected part with the object. There
is certainly a lot of evidence that the inner world of many patients does
indeed include unconscious phantasies of violently projecting distress-
ing parts of their thoughts and feelings into their analysts.
It is also undoubtedly a fact that analysts may be powerfully, even
hypnotically, affected by the atmosphere that’s around when analy-
sands are involved in such projective processes. But whether this is
directly caused by the patients’ projections may be a different matter.
Given that countertransference can register affects just when the analy-
sand feels, believes, or “knows” that he’s “putting his feelings into the
analyst”, we might still question whether we consciously believe that
that is what is actually happening. Do we intellectually credit that the
primitive unconscious delusion of the patient might be objectively true?
Some (e.g., Rosenfeld, 1987) regard the primitive defence of violent
expulsion of projective identification not only as informative to the ana-
lyst, but actually as a primitive unconscious attempt by the patients to
communicate (which might be compared with Heimann (1950) regard-
ing the analyst’s countertransference as “the patient’s creation, a part of
the patient’s personality”). However, none of this automatically follows
from the good evidence that our “delicate receiving instrument” can
give us valid information. A physician learns valid information listen-
ing to a heart, but it doesn’t mean that the heart is intending to commu-
nicate. But nonetheless, whatever the explanation, it is certainly a much
reported matter that understanding can seem to arrive via the analyst’s
countertransference.
Regarding the appropriate use of countertransference, it goes with-
out saying that analysts must do all they can not to misguide and
attribute their own conflicts to their patients (or mistake their own
relieved enactments for good therapy), and sorting out the two lots can
be quite complex. I will give a brief example; not, as is often reported,
of a problematic situation of having negative feelings towards an
analysand, but the equally problematic situation of having positive

ones. I felt very chuffed once. A patient had worked through some diffi-
cult conflicts and was feeling grateful, admiring, and wanting to please
me. Very nice; the work had been going well and I did feel pleased, …
until it dawned on me that my good feeling was somewhat excessive.
Could it, I wondered, be some informative countertransference, signal-
ling the patient’s use of (genuine) positive feelings, to ward off some
other bitter resentful ones? Or, to take my own side of it, could it be
that I wanted to assure myself I deserved my patient’s admiration—just
because I had in fact missed something? In the event, it turned out to be
both these things!
Summary
Problems of interpretation concerning matters to do with the interrela-
tion between the inner world and the environment, was the subject of
a conference given by members of the Group of Independent Psycho-
analysts of the British Psychoanalytical Society. This chapter “set the
scene” by outlining the background; first, by giving an historical and
theoretical description and explanation of the “Group of Independent
Psychoanalysts”; second, by explaining how the concepts “inner world”
and “environment” are by and large understood by them; and third, by
examining some of the theoretical and clinical ideas held over the years
by various authors about their interrelationship. Emphasis was given to
Donald Winnicott’s views on the tiny infant, whose well-being is totally
dependent on the empathic attunement of a mother who, not yet rec-
ognised and related to, is effectively the infant’s protective “environ-
ment”; and on psychoanalysis of certain severely disturbed analysands
whose earliest stages had miscarried, in which the analyst might some-
times need to be an “environment-analyst” with the intuitive empathy
the mother had lacked. Finally, the correlation of this notion with that
of countertransference was discussed.
Note
1. In “Memorandum on Problems of Training, considering the
(then) current Theoretical Controversies”. Archives of the British
Psychoanalytical Society.
CHAPTER TWO
Ideas stirred by “On communication:

a comment on ‘Catastrophic change’”
by W. R. Bion*
(The essence of the “comment” below, has far less to do per se with
psychoanalytic theories propounded by Wilfred Bion, and far more
with a particular problem in certain modes of psychoanalytic com-
munication. Focussing on a paper that Bion had recently presented
to the British Psychoanalytic Society, it ran as follows:)
D
r. Bion has produced a work in which many examples are given
to support the idea that a specific pattern has meaning that is
discernible in many different situations. This pattern or con-
figuration is of a relationship of things being respectively a “container”
and the “contained”, and this is first illustrated by descriptions taken
from psychoanalytic situations, where “container” or “contained” may
be feelings, thoughts, ideas, functions, situations, people, and abstract
concepts. The same configuration is then applied to certain social or
sociological situations: and to all these areas are then applied certain
* In the Bulletin of the British Psychoanalytical Society and Institute for Psychoanalysis, 1966,
No. 5, under the title of ‘Communication as instruction or evocation …’ and reprinted
with kind permission of the British Psychoanalytic Association.
19
ideas as to a catastrophic change that occurs if this “container” fails to

contain the “contained”. It is an awe-inspiring presentation, packed with
vivid pastiches and many meaningful comments; yet as a whole, this
attractive simplification suggested by the configuration does not seem
to hold. At first sight, this may appear to be because the ramifications
of this simple pattern are by no means simple. Indeed, one is almost
overwhelmed by the mass of complex material that has to be digested
to arrive at the theme; but once this is done, what seem vital flaws in the
reasoning emerge. I think these are due to the fact that the distinction,
essential to clear reasoning, between causal and associative thinking, is
not maintained.1
Whether a chain of thinking is causal or associative will show in
the way it is verbalised. There are two sorts of intention when words
are used. In absolute terms, in the first instance they may be intended
to convey a specific conscious idea from speaker or writer to listener
or reader. In this sort of communication, which I’ve called “instruc-
tion”,2 links between sets of phenomena are worded in terms of objec-
tive causes. An explanation is offered; for example, that a man’s verbal
capacity disintegrates because he’s attempting to convey feelings too
powerful for expression. In the other sort of verbal communication,
which I’ve called “evocation”, the words are intended to evoke a nexus
of feelings and their associated ideas, and the links between sets of phe-
nomena are associative. A description is offered, for example, of the
man who is unable to speak coherently feeling as if he’s too full of emo-
tions to have room for words. The aim here is not to construct a causal
sequence, but to summon up in the listener or reader an image of all
the memories, feelings, and ideas he associates with such a presenta-
tion. If an evocative description is presented as if it is a causal explana-
tion, the result is confusing. (Feeling “too full for words” is not a causal
explanation for incoherence, even though it sounds as though it is.) The
reason for this lies in an essential difference between the two theoretical
extremes of verbal communication. At the one end of the scale, the lis-
tener or reader consciously receives exactly and only what the speaker
or writer consciously intends; at the other end, the words evoke in the
recipient a host of associatively connected memories, feelings, and
ideas. Of course, these are theoretical absolutes, and in fact verbal com-
munication falls variously between these two extremes, being nearer
one or the other end depending both on the intention and on the skill
of the speaker or writer. The intentionally evocative communication,
“ O N C O M M U N I CAT I O N : A C O M M E N T O N ‘ CATA S T R O P H I C C H A N G E ’ ” 21
like poetry or oratory, is aimed at arousing feelings and associations;

the intentionally instructive communication is aimed at imparting clear
unequivocal ideas. Each type of communication has its function. Evoca-
tive (or poetical or metaphorical) communication, in which every word
stimulates many images, is far richer in content, and therefore far more
economical, than words aimed at pedantically spelling out each idea
singly; and if the communicants have many shared experiences, much
of the feelings and images evoked may correspond closely with those
intended by the presenter. On the other hand, the hearer has no way
of discriminating those associations intended by the speaker or writer,
and though he may “recognise” the feelings, he is no step nearer to
comprehending an abstract formulation embracing the new experi-
ences. Poetical or metaphorical language is often used in scientific com-
munications. As David Beres (1965) recently pointed out, it can have
enormous heuristic value as long as we keep its metaphorical nature
in mind, and don’t treat processes so described as if they were concrete
entities. We can treat metaphor descriptively, as long as we avoid the
hazard of treating the words literally. If we don’t, we will treat evoca-
tive communication as if it were instructive, and by mixing them up,
will find ourselves doing something analogous to trying to count the
number of angels sitting on a pinpoint. I shall take a few of the points in
Dr. Bion’s paper where I think he is doing something very like this. My
first is borrowed from the instructive words of Michael Balint.3
One of Bion’s descriptions of “container and contained” takes the
analysis as the container, and he then discusses acting out in terms of
whether it is or is not “inside”. It is not very clear whether he is imply-
ing that acting out, whilst it is not being analysed, is happening “out-
side” of the container “analysis”. If he is, then it would seem that he
is taking the phrase “acting out” in a literal sense, perhaps supported
by the fact that it usually happens outside the consulting room; but
Balint points out that this term is the translation of the German word
“agieren”, meaning “acting or dramatising”, and saying nothing what-
soever about “out” or “in”. If Bion is basing the image of the “out or in”
configuration of analysis on the English phrase, the implication would
be that in this instance at any rate the configuration is based on the
literal meaning of an English metaphor, and that we would find the
configuration in analyses conducted in English but not those conducted
in German. This in itself would be a very interesting observation, but
it would point more to fascinating problems about the different images
evoked by metaphors in different languages, and their development. It

does not provide evidence for or against the persistence of the mental
and affective state in question. Of course, Bion’s “configuration” does
not rest on this example only, but the more his descriptions are scruti-
nised, the more does it seem that in far too many cases the pattern of
a “container and contained” relationship rests on what can seem to be
one, only if metaphorical phrases are taken in their literal sense. A man
may feel that being “in” analysis, “in” a bad mood, “in” trouble, and
“in” a womb, all refer to analogous relationships, but do they? The first
is our metaphorical way of describing a specific type of relationship
and the effects of it: the second is his way of describing his way of think-
ing about the way he is feeling, but there is nothing inherently “contain-
ing and contained” about it—if he spoke French, he’d say he is “of”,
not “in”, a mood. The third describes difficulties and his way of feeling
about them, but again “container and contained” is not an essential of
the experience; if he spoke French or German, he’d describe himself not
as “in” trouble, but “having” it. It is only in the fourth that the phrase
doesn’t mislead us—a material special relationship is being described
in spatial terms. The “container” relationship is frequently adventitious
and apparent only, seeming to exist only because of some colloquial-
isms. Linguistic research might indeed teach us a lot about why these
sorts of term are used colloquially; but we are offered no corroborative
evidence of this sort, and to found a serious pattern on the basis of their
sounding alike, seems to be like taking a coincidence as hard evidence
of an identity. If anyone took the indubitable fact that our hands and
feet have five digits and that some flowers have five petals, as showing
a meaningfully common pattern, I think that in the absence of more
convincing evidence, we might describe his idea as animistic, based on
primary process thinking where similarities are taken as identities.
It is indeed my suggestion that many of Dr. Bion’s descriptions
exhibit the configuration claimed for them, only if their elements are
thought about in primary process ways. Take the example “a word con-
tains a meaning; conversely, a meaning can contain a word”. Both of
these may be any person’s phantasy of the way he thinks, and as such
need not be subjected to secondary process questioning; but if they are
taken as metaphors to illustrate an abstract concept as to how words and
their meanings are put or held or belong together, then it is extremely
difficult to see how both can apply. I can think of a theory to fit either,
but not both. (This is not to say that there couldn’t be such a theory,
but just describing these imagined configurations doesn’t supply one.)

It seems as if Dr. Bion starts with a proposition that means “let’s
behave as if words and meanings had such qualities that one could be
described, metaphorically and spatially, as within the other”, and then
jumps straight into behaving as if having said this were tantamount to
showing that words and meanings in fact have those properties. The
fallacy is that he is treating suggested formulations as if they were
evidence. Saying that words contain meanings doesn’t mean that they
do. If it did, one could insist (rather like Humpty Dumpty saying that
words mean what he chooses), that anything one says is so; and could
make any conceivable pattern out of any two elements one chose … and
then find that pattern wherever one looked. It is certainly true that a lot
(though not all) of the material our analysands present us with, may be
in terms of “inside” and “outside”, which is not surprising in view of
the fact that our most important physical experiences (feeding, defecat-
ing, sex) involve this sort of pattern. Our picture of self-boundary also
uses this sort of imagery. But to say this about certain mental images,
is not the same thing as saying it about the mental processes underly-
ing the images. A man may feel that he is too full of feelings to contain
verbal capacity as well; and if the configuration is intended to apply to a
group of phantasies or mental images shaped by primary process, then
it is obviously viable. But there is no evidence for believing that affects,
like feelings, and ego functions like thinking and verbalising, are of a
similar quality, and subject to a shared quantitative limitation. We are
fully justified in observing clinical evidence of primary process think-
ing and then forming many fruitful theories about it, but we must use
secondary process thinking to do it with. Granted that this may often
be very difficult—it’s like trying to describe wordless things in words—
but if it should be that we cannot do it, then to use words as if we are
doing it, can lead only to confusion.
The other strand of Dr. Bion’s theme centres around the postulation
of “‘thinking’ without supposing a thinker to be essential”. Here again
I find a fallacy in the chain of reasoning. It is clearly valid to describe
thoughts without describing anything about the person thinking them,
but the suggested postulate is of a different order—namely, the idea
of thinking existing without there ever having been a thinker. From the
point of view of theory-making it is also valid to postulate anything
at all, and then see if it helps explain other things; but it is only useful
if the postulate is sufficiently meaningful for it to be coherently used.
I question whether this postulate passes such a test. To speak of truth that
has not been discovered although it exists is meaningful in one sense of
the word “truth”; most of us, (unless we adhere to the Berkeleian Ideal-
ist school) would accept that, for example, water probably did consist
of hydrogen and oxygen atoms even in pre-scientific days; but did the
“thinking” that water was so composed exist before anyone thought it?
Isn’t “thinking” the thing being done by the “thinker”? Dr. Bion calls
this thought-without-a-thinker “the messianic idea” when religious
“truths” are being discussed, with its counterpart “the absolute truth”,
where scientific or conceptual ideas are being considered. The essence
of his idea is that there is some “thinking” that “exists” or is “active” …
but not being thought be anybody! I think this is a philosophical mud-
dle. There are, as we know, situations where people with rare gifts—
genius, artist, mystic—manage to create or formulate something that
no-one else has thought of. Once such a new idea or creation has been
given us by the exceptionally gifted person, we can, if we like, search
out the knowledge and feelings that were consciously or unconsciously
being thought and felt by others prior to that creative act, and extract the
elements that were used in this new and startling way; and can perhaps
say that there was the basis for the new thing, and that if the particular
person hadn’t thought it, someone else might have: but until it has been
thought, that very special idea has no existence at all. All that might be
said is that theoretically the potentiality for its creation must have been
there. But a potentiality for an idea is not the idea itself—it’s a theoreti-
cal assumption that says that as the idea was formulated, then before
it was, it was about to be. If it hadn’t been thought by the outstand-
ingly exceptional person, then there would be nothing upon which to
base this assumption. Do we not grossly undervalue the genius if we
say, not that his or her remarkable qualities lie in an unique ability to
pull together the various bits of conscious knowledge and unconscious
promptings scattered among many other people, and consciously to
conceive a new idea from them, but rather that the great idea was not
of his thinking but was “somewhere” and that he “found” it (my phra-
seology)? In suggesting that thinking a thought is something other than
the functional achievement of the thinker, is not Dr. Bion saying that the
thought, by having an existence independent of the thinker, is simply
beyond understanding? And isn’t this the same sort of thinking that in
other periods would have (and did) result in personalising gods out of
qualities and activities? Certainly, any startlingly new idea may well
have the disruptive social consequences Dr. Bion so vividly describes.

(I am not versed in sociological psychology, so can give no opinion as to
whether comparing a person feeling as if he is disrupted by “the pres-
sure of things inside” him with a social disruption, is an useful analogy.
It does strike me that an individual might well identify social catastro-
phe with his own personal feelings of disruption, so that there might
be a case for saying that the analogy serves an animistic phantasy of
that individual); but to explain this disruption in terms of the highly
dubious postulate of thinkerless thinking bursting out of, or being con-
strained by, a metaphorical container, is another matter altogether.
I think this chapter highlights one of the great difficulties in being a
psychoanalyst, because unlike many people who can specialise in one
or another of the types of communication mentioned above, we have
to be experts in both. We must be able to think associatively, to have
access to the unconscious modes of primary process thinking presented
and evoked by our patients’ communications. We must also be able to
think causally, so as to evaluate these and then communicate simply and
instructively, by means of secondary process, back to them, using causal
rather than associative links. It has seemed to me that Dr. Bion’s paper
imposes a challenge to us of a very similar nature, and it is because I
(in common with others) have failed at it that I have written this, in the
hope that it may help towards arriving at a conceptual understanding
of his formulations.
Notes
1. This writer subsequently realised that the distinction between these
two classes of thinking is just about the same as that noted by Marjorie
Brierley between, “perceptual and conceptual terms”: see “On Marjory
Brierley”, this volume.
2. Note added December 2010: The word “instruction” turned out to be
unfortunate, in too easily giving the impression of meaning “directing”
or “ordering”, when the intended meaning is simply “giving or confer-
ring or communicating information”.
3. Said during the discussion of Bion’s paper.
CHAPTER THREE
What do we mean by “id”?*
T
his paper grew out of questions that arose during investigation
of a different metapsychological field. I had been asked by a
research group with which I am associated to prepare a list of
ego functions, which seemed a request for a description of a group of
clinical events, either observed or assumed from observations. My first
step had been a search through the literature for relevant quotations.
Apart from a few authors who have offered listings of ego functions,
this involved a wider search through the writings of others, to extract
from them what seemed to be “ego functions” implied though often not
so named. I knew before I started that I would find the term “ego” used
in a variety of ways, a point made by a number of writers, (for exam-
ple, Rapaport, 1959, pp. 5–17); and I knew that many, especially the
older publications, would need a lot of thought in translating what the
authors refer to when they use the term “ego”, as clarity in the defini-
tive concept of it would seem an essential prerequisite to deciding what
functions could validly be attributed to this instance. (One might put it
* From Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Volume 17, April 1969, No. 2, and
reprinted with kind permission of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
27
the other way around, and end up by offering the list of “ego functions”
as a way of defining what is meant by “ego”.) This seemed a big enough
task, but as I read and abstracted, it became clear that another problem
of definition was involved. If, as Freud states, “the id can be described
only as a contrast to the ego”, then clearly definitions of “id” and “ego”
correlate and sustain each other; so an essential problem emerging
in attempting to list functionings was where to draw the line, that is,
which “functionings” should be regarded as “id functions” and which
as “ego functions”; and this essentially involved deciding on what basis
this line was being drawn: which implied also defining “id.” Thus the
field of inquiry underwent a double shift; of subject, from “ego” to “id”;
and of aim, from description to definition.
There are many divergent views in the literature on “id”, partly
attributable to different views as to how the subject is to be approached.
Marjory Brierley (1951), tackling the problem conceptually, pointed to
a paradox in theory: “By definition, the id is an unorganized reservoir
of instinctual drives, and yet the repressed unconscious, which always
exhibits some degree of organization, is also attributed to it.” Her way
of dealing with this paradox was to say that “It would seem that we
should transfer the repressed unconscious to the primitive ego system”,
adding that “in dealing with the affects we are dealing not only with
object-impulse tensions but also with inter- and intra-ego tensions.”
Waelder (1936) implied a similar definition when he described as id
everything that impels, and assigned to ego all purposive activity.
If these definitions are accepted, then it might be correct to include
examples of extremely archaic functioning, including mechanisms such
as condensation, displacement, etc., that are accepted universally as
being elements of primary process activity, in a list of ego functions.
On the other hand, the vast majority of writers would automatically
assign “primary process” to the id, and many specifically attribute to
“the id” structure and content. This paper is an attempt toward solving
this contradiction.
In recent years there have been a number of theoretical publications
dealing with the subject. From these it is apparent that people use the
term “id” in quite a variety of ways. A discussion in 1963 (Marcovitz,
pp. 151–160) revealed considerable differences of view about the con-
cept, illustrated by questions such as whether the id should be defined
solely in terms of cathectic energy mobilisation, or in terms of function.
It was asked where the boundaries of id should be regarded as being,
W H AT D O W E M E A N B Y “ I D ” ? 29
whether or not formed elements should be included in it, whether it

is subject to maturation and change. The impression given was that
although the problem set was apparently that of clearly defining a con-
cept, and though many speakers gave their own definitions, a number
of contributors spoke as if about something named “id” that it was
agreed “existed in” the psychic organism, and as if the problem was the
ascertainment of “its” nature—whether a specific group of functions,
a process, a principle, a quantum of energy, affects, or a sort of “con-
tainer” of any of these; and on this agreement was not reached. Obvi-
ously to use so important a theoretical term so inexactly can give rise
to gross failures in communication, and there have been many attempts
to clarify what is meant by the term, but attention seems to have been
focused on what the “something” called “id” is, rather than on what is
surely a prior problem—namely, whether to treat “id” as an observed
thing to be described, or as a logically inferred concept to be formulated
and defined (Home, 1966, pp. 43–49).
Discussion of some points from the literature

I shall start by mentioning a publication by Schur, from which I extract a
few quotations. Schur comments disparagingly on the “tendency shown
by some authors to restrict the concept primary process exclusively to
an energy (economic) formulation … the next step was to reduce the id
to an energy concept … [with] no content, no structure … it would be
a seething cauldron of energies … we could no longer say, for instance,
that the ego mediates between the demands of the id and the envi-
ronment [and] could speak about instinctual danger only in terms of
quantities of energy. The whole concept ‘conflict’ would have to be
reformulated” (Schur, 1966, pp. 468–479). I will say at once that I think
that the concept “conflict” could with advantage be reformulated. This
suggestion involves abandoning neither the clinical knowledge nor the
theoretical understanding expressed by the current formulations; what
requires reconsideration is the mode of conceptualising arising from the
use of metaphors used descriptively. Metaphors are useful only as long
as they are recognised as analogies to illustrate the meaning of a spe-
cific abstract idea. Treating them as if they were the idea itself, results
in abstract concepts being approached with causal questions as if they
were concrete observational data. A similar point is argued trenchantly
by Beres (1965, pp. 53–63). He remarks that Freud himself has added to
our difficulties (of understanding abstract structural concepts). He puts

it that as a master of language, Freud has given to psychoanalysis elegant
metaphors which, if understood in their context, have unquestioned
heuristic value, but which too often have been used by others as clichés
or even jargon. “When Freud says at the end of a long chapter describ-
ing the functions of the mind and grouping them in systems ‘where the
id was ego shall be,’ we understand his meaning and the relation of
the metaphor to this theory.” Beres is more critical of the anthropomor-
phisation shown where Freud says “putting it more generally, what the
ego regards as the danger and responds to with an anxiety signal, is that
the super-ego should be angry with it or punish it, or cease to love it”
(1923, p. 19). Beres feels that this does serve a useful purpose in that it
dramatises an important clinical theory, the role of identification with
the parents in superego formation, but that this and similar metaphors
are a valuable part of our communication system (only) so long as we
keep in mind the metaphorical nature of the statement, and do not treat
ego and superego as concrete entities. He discusses some of the history
behind what is called the structural theory of psychoanalysis, and he is
at some pains to point out the danger of reification of the components
of the structural theory (id, ego, and superego); that is, the danger of
misplaced concreteness, by which abstraction is mistaken for concrete
reality. His point is to emphasise the functional basis of structure in psy-
choanalytic theory. One of his questions is whether, within the current
framework of psychoanalytic theory, we can assume any discharge, pri-
mary or secondary process, without the involvement of ego functions,
and he states that the organising function is an ego function, and at
least in the instance of unconscious fantasy, operates unconsciously. He
also discusses the assumption that the ego operates entirely according
to the secondary process, and gives his view that “we cannot equate
primary process with unconsciousness and secondary process with
consciousness.” He takes Gill (1963) to task, for referring to “primary
process structure” and “secondary process structure”, stating that this
is combining two categories which do not belong together, that is, mode
of discharge and organisation. Beres feels it is possible to offer an alter-
native conceptualisation of unconscious mental organisation without
using a “conglomerate phrase” such as “primary process structure”.
These extracts from Beres’s paper highlight some of our conceptual
confusion reflected in (and perhaps maintained by) our language. In
this connection a later comment he makes is relevant. He writes that it is
precisely the designation of mechanisms and processes as structures or
structural concepts which he questions. Primary and secondary process

refers to modes of discharge of psychic energy. How, he asks, does one
structure a mode of discharge?
There is need in the further development of the tripartite structural

theory to study the organization of the different functions which
comprise the id, ego, and superego. Whether the organization of
each function be called a structure or a substructure of the basic
systems is a matter of choice. There are, however, certain precepts
that should be followed. The new formulation should be based
on observational data. The new terminology should be carefully
defined and related to current psycho-analytic theory, whether in
accord with it or deviating from it. In the latter case the reasons for
the deviation should be meticulously supported. The new formula-
tion should have an inner consistency and especially should avoid
the error of mixed categories. (Beres, 1965)
Finally, Beres deals with what he describes as the functional point of

view, arguing in favour of this approach because of its applicability to
clinical observation (among other reasons). He points out that Freud
developed his theory step by step always ready to change it if clinical
facts demanded change, and goes on to say:
The structural theory has proved its usefulness. I have tried to

show how much the functional approach is an integral part of the
structural theory and I believe that for practical as well as for theo-
retical considerations greater emphasis on function is warranted.
I do not propose that we give up the structural theory, but I suggest
we beware of the dangers inherent in overemphasis on structure.
It may even be that a more fortunate choice of terminology to des-
ignate Freud’s tripartite division of functional systems would have
been “the Functional theory of psycho-analysis.” Of course, the
name is of secondary importance, what matters are the underlying
concepts. (Beres, 1965)
I include these lengthy extracts from this publication by Beres, because

they express with greater clarity than I can muster, part of the vein of my
thinking, much of which I owe to this illuminating paper. In the context
of the present inquiry, however, the last sentence must be questioned.
In the sense of “what’s in a name? that which we call a rose … etc.”,
the idea implied is unexceptionable; but in practice I think that the

name used is not so unimportant. Once we have given a name to a
conceptual item, we tend to treat it as if it had all the qualities that a
material object of that name would have. “Psychic structure” is a good
example of this. Although we know we do not mean something with
material qualities when we use the term, it is a great mental effort to
extend this ability to think abstractly to the components of structural
conceptualisation. This is well illustrated by the 1962 discussion of a
Panel on the concept of the id, held by the American Psychoanalytic
Association, described by Marcovitz (1963, pp. 151–160). As reported,
Sarah S. Tower spoke of affects as “the id speaking”, to illustrate her
idea of id function in a conscious state; which seems to imply defining
id as both a “place” affects are “in” and can leave, and as affects per se;
that is, as something having qualities both of “containing” something
and of being “content” capable of being experienced. If “id” is to be
regarded as a conceptual item, identifying it with an affect experienced
and recognised by inner perception is a confusion of categories, like
identifying a hot liquid with the (concept of quality) heat that makes it
hot. (If, on the other hand, “id” is used as a clinically descriptive term,
including it as an item of structural conceptualisation is similarly inap-
propriate.) Aaron Karush is described as defining id as “a collection
of the earliest percepts of internal urges and their activities as well as
those of the original objects which help reduce the tensions of a drive.”
The “content”, assumed because of clinical observation, called id here,
is of a different order from that proposed by Sarah S. Tower (and gives
rise to different queries; e.g., at what point do percepts of inner urges
cease to be “earliest” and become achievements of ego functioning?
On what basis is such a division made?). Scott was reported as having
a somewhat different view of the “content”, including primitive drive
impulses and everything unconscious which has not been repressed; he
spoke of the id being modified, as did Marcovitz, who conceptualised
changes in the id concomitant with changes in the ego.
These are some of the contributions that made it seem that, as well
an attempt at formulation of an abstract idea, a discussion of clinical
observation was in progress. “Id” seemed often to be the term used
to denote everything that is deeply unconscious, whether function,
impulse, or fantasy, in addition to things that are not unconscious at
all—that do not belong in this category—like concepts of energy and of
structure. Indeed, Beres pointed out the trouble Freud had in defining
the id: “the obscure inaccessible part of our personality that is all that
the ego is not”. If in this context ego refers to what is accessible, then
“id” would be the generic term for “the unknown and unknowable”,
which would mean that it is neither a structural term nor one that can
have any meaning definable theoretically. Every new piece of knowl-
edge would “push back the boundaries” of this “dark continent”, but
whatever is at any time “dark” is just that, and that’s all that can be said
about it. Freud, however, did say more about it in explaining how he
was using the word. He wrote of id as “a chaos, a cauldron of seething
excitement” which has “no unified will, only an impulsion to obtain
satisfaction in accordance with the pleasure principle” (1933, p. 19).
Beres consequently defined as id “that part of the mind whose func-
tion is to express instinctual drives as need.” When Schur disagreed,
saying that id is “that part of the mental apparatus whose function is
to press for gratification of wishes which are stimulated by instinctual
drive”, it might almost have sounded as if the argument with Beres
were one of nomenclature; but when Arlow asked Beres “if unconscious
fantasies are still part of ego activity, then what is the contribution of
the id to the structure of fantasy or dream?” the problem of applying
structural concepts to clinical material was well to the fore. Should the
structural term “id” be retained only for conceptual theorising, or can
it validly be applied to observational data like phantasy and dream? In
another field an analogous question could be, for example, should we
use the word “electricity” both for the concept and for observational
data to which the concept is applied? and here the answer is clear—we
don’t “see electricity” when we turn on the light; we see light powered
by something conceptualised via the word electricity. “Seeing electric-
ity” is an example of the “confusing of categories” against which Beres
so cogently warns us, and which so readily arises if we use the same
term for something in both categories. When this happens, formula-
tions using such terms become highly inexact.
I feel that in spite of its most erudite and informed discussion,
Schur’s monograph, by failing to use words clearly enough, falls into
this trap. He points out that there are indeed ambiguities in our con-
cepts of the id, but he rejects the view of Beres (and others thinking
similarly), saying that it truncates the id to an energy concept, a “seeth-
ing cauldron”, and he advances many quotations of Freud’s as support
for his own view that the id has content, and a structure, and that it
matures and develops. The view he presents is that there are no strict
delineations between id and ego, and he therefore supports the concept

of a continuum within the psychic apparatus, comparing this with the
concept of a continuum with no strict delineations between physiologi-
cal needs and their mental representations conceptualised as drives and
wishes.
The wording of this formulation presents immediate difficulties. Can
the relationship between physiological needs and their mental repre-
sentatives validly be described as a “continuum”? They are not “a con-
tinuous series of events” (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1955), but
two different aspects of the same event. The difference between them
is not in degree as it would be in a “continuum”, but in their being per-
ceived by different means so that different attributes of the event can
be ascertained, for example, the case of the person with the physiologi-
cal need for carbohydrate (ascertainable biochemically as a low blood
sugar) experiencing the mental representation of a feeling of hunger
and a wish to eat (ascertainable by inner perception). If it is this sort of
relationship that Schur infers between id and ego, then it fixes “id” as
the term for something of a different order from psychic events. One
might call it “biological” or “psychobiological”, but, unlike blood sugar,
we have no way of ascertaining it or discovering its nature; we assume
its presence because of its correlates ascertainable by inner percep-
tion. This adds nothing to our understanding. By giving the assumed
instance a name (id), all we do is imply a conceptual pattern, which we
are then obliged to elaborate, as is further discussed later. The word
“continuum”, on the other hand, describes a totally different picture.
If ego and id have the relationship between them of a continuum with
no strict delineations, then they are being conceptualised as two ends
of the same thing. Schur is at great pains to argue against what he calls
truncating the id, but if ego-id are two ends of the same thing, then the
concept of two different structures falls away, and what we are left with
is one psychic structure called “ego-id”, and the concept of a discrete
id is eliminated altogether. I do not think that this is in any sense what
Schur has had in mind, but I suggest that it follows inevitably from his
way of theorising and verbalising. What is the alternative?
Comments on some words

It is my suggestion that the alternative is not initially to attempt to
formulate new concepts, but rather to look very closely at the habit of
treating concepts and observational data as if it were appropriate to

speak about both in the same way: that is, at the ways we use words in
creating formulations. The dangers to clear thinking of reification, and
of mixing categories, to which Beres has so forcefully pointed, are per-
petuated, and possibly also engendered, by the uncertainties of mean-
ing arising from the way formulations are verbalised. The fact that so
many words have different shades of meaning often has the result that
we start out intending one meaning of a word and slip into treating it
as if it had another meaning, without noticing that our chain of reason-
ing has therefore jumped into a different field irrelevant to the one we
started with, making the confusion of categories only too easy. It would
seem appropriate, therefore, to examine ways of using some words, to
see if this sheds any light on what leads our thinking astray. The exam-
ple chosen for such examination is a very ordinary word: namely, the
definite article “the”. One dictionary definition of this word falls under
two heads: “referring to an individual object or objects” and “referring
to a term used generically” (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1955). In
the first group “the” can imply uniqueness (e.g., the earth, the Almighty,
the Shah, the preeminent, such as “the textbook on …”). Examination
shows, however, that this usage of “the” is itself of two types, because
whereas with an usage such as “the Almighty” the meaning intended
is that there is only one Almighty, with an usage such as “the Shah”,
“the” makes unique one particular Shah for the purpose of that discus-
sion. The difference here lies in what in any one instance we mean by
“Almighty” and “Shah”, and this we can determine by whether these
nouns in the use meant can also be prefixed by the indefinite article
“a” or “an”. In religious circles one would not speak of “an Almighty”;
while whether or not one can speak of “a Shah” depends on whether
by “Shah” one refers to the person with that office, or to the concept
of the office. “A Shah” is one of a group of Shahs; “the Shah” is either
the specific one of that group being discussed (e.g., holding office at
present), or a title grammatically of the same order as “the Almighty”.
It is indeed possible to make a different grouping of the uses of “the” to
that used by the dictionary, that is, whether the noun they qualify can or
cannot also be prefixed by “a”. If it can, the meaning of the noun when
prefixed by one article is frequently basically different from its meaning
when prefixed by the other.
The group using “the” for a term used generically resembles in this
sense nouns like “Shah”, but in a vital aspect it differs from the usages
in the dictionary’s first group, because although all words that can be
prefixed by “the” must be nouns, in the generic group they are abstract
nouns usually deriving their meaning from adjectives (or adverbs).
Thus one can speak of the generic group “woodwinds” or “the wood-
wind instruments”; prefix “woodwind” with “a” and it ceases to be a
generic term, and becomes an individual object. Not all abstract nouns
that can be prefixed by “the” to refer to a generic group, are so clearly
adjectival in derivation. One can also speak generically of “the body, the
soul, the mind”, but the other grammatical rule does apply. The word
“body” belongs to a totally different category of meaning in the phrase
“a body” and in one meaning of the phrase “the body”; that is, when
“the body” means the abstract concept implied in the generic use of the
article (and not one of a group of individual objects with “the” specify-
ing which particular one of that group it is).
I have examined some meanings given to words if prefixed by “the”
because we do this with our word “id”. Does the term “the id” belong to
any of the above groups of meaning? Freud’s intention might have been
to use it as a member of the abstract generic group, on a par with “the
body, mind or soul”, but there is another possibility. I understand that
in German usage “das” is often used to prefix abstract adjectival nouns
that are not prefixed by “the” in English. The English example I think
of is “electricity”. This is an abstract noun derived from the adjective
“electric”. If “the electricity” is a term used generically, then it differs
from terms like “the body, the soul, etc.” because unlike them, the noun
is not complete by itself. When we speak of “the electricity’ we are using
a shorthand version meaning, for example, “that quantum of electricity”
powering a specific circuit; “the” therefore qualifies the amount (of elec-
tricity), not “electricity”; just as the qualifies “instruments”, not “wood-
wind”, in the phrase “the woodwind instruments”. If Freud intended
the word “id” to have this class of meaning, then it is an abstract noun
derived from an adjective, and would be more meaningful to us if we had
words like “idicity” or “idness” for the abstraction, and “iddish” or
“idic” for the adjective. We would then be in less danger of treating
the word “id” as if it referred to an individual object. In the electric-
ity analogy we can speak of the electric light that is being powered by
the quantum of electricity. In our field we can conceptualise about the
concept id (referring to the abstract noun “idicity”), or could speak about
the person Smith or the mental apparatus of Smith being activated by id
(or “iddish”—in this case it is an adjective) drives. It is in these two
senses—as adjective, or as abstraction denoting the quality described

by the adjective—that I understand the word “id”,1 and the fact that
there is only one word for the two meanings lends itself to confusion.
This becomes confusion worse confounded when the word is used (“the
id”) as if it referred to “an individual object or objects”. It is then treated
as a common noun (or sometimes a proper noun) from which it is only
a tiny step to regarding it as “something” with “boundaries” within
which are “contents”, and something that can “do” things. The result
of using the word “id” in all these classes of meaning is that sentences
containing the word are highly misleading and their intended meaning
uncertain. This makes it necessary to find different, less equivocal ways
of wording the concepts concerned. It is suggested that examples which
avoid treating “id” as a noun would comply both with this need and
with the need to allow new questions to become visible.
Some suggested alternative formulations

Schur speaks inter alia of the id’s relationship to the instinctual drives,
of the concept wish which he describes as the functional unit of the id,
of its development, of primary process, and of pleasure and unpleasure
principles.
a. As regards “its relationship to the instinctual drives”, if what I have

said above is valid, then this relationship cannot be a relationship
between two structures or two substructures or two entities, or any-
thing resembling a relationship between two people or two forces, or
a spatial relationship between two objects, or anything of that sort.
The only sort of relationship is a verbal grammatical one, that is,
a descriptive one. In exactly the same way we could not say that
there is a relationship between “blue” and “coat” except the descrip-
tive one, that the adjective “blue” qualifies the noun “coat”. This
does not mean that id is a fiction as (Gill, 1963) suggested it must be
if it has no structure. “Blue” has no structure (though blue paint and
blue light have). I do not think that one would regard “the blue” as
a fiction; if not intended as a poetic metaphor, then one could regard
it only as grammatical misuse. If Gill and Schur are suggesting that
the image conjured up by the words “the id”, that is, the image
of a discreetly defined entity, becomes a fiction if the word “id” is
restricted to the energic meaning, then I think not only that they are
justified in thinking that this is so, but I also think that Schur in his
description of the continuum is really implying that this is so, as I
have illustrated above. If “id” is treated as adjectival, or adverbial,
new questions emerge. If the word is used as an adjective, to qualify,
for example, “drives” or “impulses”, then either these terms are tau-
tological, or there are also “non-id” drives or impulses, which leads
to questions relating to the wide field of energic hypotheses, which
are not dealt with in any detail in this chapter.
b. What, though, of the concept “wish”? Beres is reported (in Marcovitz,
1963) as believing that the id expresses no wishes, only needs, and
that the development of wish is the first sign of ego functioning. The
formulation I am suggesting supports the idea that the development
of a wish is a sign of ego functioning. I suggest, though, that the
formulation that “the id” expresses needs is subject to too many
misunderstandings to be helpful. That the human creature has needs,
satisfaction of which are necessary for his survival, is obvious, and
this objectively describable situation is expressed by one meaning
of the verb “to need”. However, another meaning of the verb is
“imperatively to call for or demand something” (Shorter Oxford
English Dictionary, 1955) and this conveys the picture of a sentient
organism urgently craving something (another example of a word
with different shades of meaning).
The difference has been vividly described by Clifford T. Morgan.
He states:
The term need refers to any lack or deficit that impairs the health or
the well-being of the individual. To demonstrate or infer a physi-
ological need, we must … show that some one thing—dietary com-
ponent or even environmental condition—makes a difference in
the … health [etc] of an individual … The term need should not be
confused with drive or want … drive refers to the “energy” or impe-
tus of behaviour … it is not synonymous with need, for need may
exist in the absence of drive … [though] needs frequently … give
rise to drives [which are] nature’s way of maximizing the organ-
ism’s chance of doing something [to] relieve needs; yet drives can
be reduced … without … relieving … the need that … gives rise to
tham. Wants [exist] when there is a psychological linkage between
the need and the thing that satisfies it (e.g. an organism, actively
seeking a food containing a needed dietary item). If wants were
always thus rooted in needs there might be no need to distinguish

between [them] … however, one can sometimes observe wants
without needs.
This double meaning of “need” can make it sound as if Beres’s

formulation does not differ much from Schur’s conceptually. They
sound alike in treating id as subject (grammatically) to a verb (“has”
or “expresses”), and this too easily leads to “id” being pictured as
metaphorically describable as something of the same order as the
human creature which has needs. The next step is that other quali-
ties of the literal meaning of this metaphor are taken as relevant,
and “id” is then thought of as an entity with the qualities of a thing,
the existence of which has been established because the quality (the
needfulness) the metaphor was meant to demonstrate, is established;
and we are back looking to find this “thing”. Apply the simple gram-
matical rule of using “id” only as adjectival, and the problem falls
away. We can speak of the necessities of the organism, and the quality
and direction of the impulses by which these are expressed. We can
describe their overall “direction” by the use of the terms “pleasure-
unpleasure” principle.
c. Pleasure-unpleasure principle does not refer to “things” contained
“in” anywhere; the words refer to principles which direct the
functioning of the organism. To say that every human organism is
impelled toward pleasure and away from unpleasure is only a way
of describing, of qualifying energic drives and ultimately behaviour,
and these trends are manifested in all behaviour throughout life. The
difference between the primitive manifestations and those shown in
the more mature organisation is that the latter has at its disposal ego
functioning enabling it to achieve pleasure and avoid unpleasure.
In the absence of this ego functioning the organism will presumably
have an unremitting tendency in the direction of pleasure and away
from unpleasure, but will not of itself be able to materialise the
tendency. My “electrical analogy” here would be the comparison
between the electrical apparatus that is, and the electrical apparatus
that is not, adequately wired. If it is, then the apparatus will function
adequately, and if not, then it won’t, but the electricity “exists” in
both cases to the same degree, just as pleasure-unpleasure principle
has omnipresent effects. One might correlate this principle with the
concept of energy, by saying that this is the principle shaping the
“direction” of the energy; but that is not the same as saying that
pleasure principle exists “in the id”; which is as much a misconception
as to say that “forward” is an entity which exists in a decision to
walk.
d. “Primary process” is in a different category. From the energic point
of view it can be described as a mode of discharge of energies.
But I think there is quite a wide range of phenomena subsumed
under this heading, a point made by Schur when he says “that we
must view the primary process, too, as a continuum”. Dreams, for
example, are regarded as exhibiting primary process because of the
mechanisms of condensation, displacement, etc., demonstrated in
them, the essential feature being that ideas, feelings, concepts, and so
on cannot be presented with clarity because the essential (secondary
process) verbal function of eliminating (see Schur, 1966) what is not
meant, is not available. The “primary process” that is exhibited in
dreams of adults manifests considerable sophistication of mental
processes. Take, for instance, the case of condensation. To condense
the images of two people into one, or the representation of an idea
and a word with an associative sound into one image, requires the
prior perception, integration, and retention via memory of each
of them. At a far more primitive level, one can imagine the young
infant experiencing what will later develop into functions like the
achievement of perceptions of warmth, cold, hunger, satiation, etc.
The expression of both types of psychic experience may be described
in terms of primary process; but from the earlier to the later there
must be a vast development of what one might call the raw materials
of primary process. It seems likely that prior to the development
of secondary process, perceptions are themselves of a condensed,
indiscriminate nature, discrimination being then achieved via the
“thing presentation being … linked with the word presentation”
(Freud, 1915b, p. 157). A stage in achieving this seems suggested by
the antithetical meanings of primal words (Freud, 1910); that is, that
out of the chaos of indiscriminate perceptions to which the infant is
subject, related groups may be slowly isolated and pinned with one
word to indicate a nexus of images and ideas. Only later will more
discriminating words distinguish between the items of each nexus.
Underlying this early verbalisation must surely also be a developing
maturity in achieving perception and therefore in what is remembered,
so that what may initially be registered (and retained via memory)
simply as nice or nasty, may gradually separate out into detailed

meaningful perceptions. If it is correct to say that the newborn who
cries, perhaps because of the discomfort of cold, is discharging an
energy via the primary process, and if it is also correct to say that the
dreams of adults also exhibit primary process, then there is obviously
a great difference in the levels of maturity of psychic activity that may
be involved under the heading “primary process”. This is an area in
which I would want to use the word “continuum”, but I would not
think of it as a continuum from id to ego, but a continuum embracing
at the one end the most primitive and at the other the more mature
ego functioning. This would start with some sort of very primitive
inchoate awareness, and build up, first, via developments involving
things like perception, memory, awareness of reality, differentiation
between self and other, etc, to the time when words begin to develop.
If one is thinking in terms of mental phenomena taking place either
“in the id” or “in the ego”, then presumably all of this would have
to be thought of as taking place “in the id”; (or perhaps in terms of
these phenomena being examples of ego nuclei (Glover, 1947). The
difficulty I find here is that if this occurs “in the id”, then there is
not just one sort of id, but a vast series of increasingly complicated
“ids” … which makes nonsense of the structural concept. (To use
the term “ego nuclei” rather than to speak of “archaic” or “early
ego functioning” would seem to me to be a matter of description
of detail of early ego development; of choice of term, rather than of
basic concept.) It would seem that the primary mode of discharging
energy gradually develops through many stages into what we call
the secondary mode, and I am not here proposing different terms to
describe these, but I think that the context of thinking in which Freud
introduced these terms should be remembered. He was showing that
what is experienced in dreams is meaningful because of a type of
thinking different from the type of logical thinking that we claim
when we are awake. This was a totally new idea which had to be
stated in such a way as to introduce a clear new picture. But this is no
longer necessary for us, and it does not do injustice to his great finding
to say now that there seem to be graduations within the two great
categories of primary and secondary process to which he introduced
us. Thinking in the human shows a gradual development over many
years. There is undoubtedly an enormous leap forward when words
are achieved, but this in itself is a gradual process. Recognition of
cause and effect, for example, goes through many stages. The infant
in the early months reacts as if realising a connection between the
presence of his mother with the food (cause) and the effect of his
having certain satisfactions. The words of the four-year-old may
show that he recognises that certain events are linked, without
understanding that one causes the other; he may, for example, give a
“psychological” explanation—”he laughs because he wants to catch
the apple”. A little later he might see links differently, for example, in
terms of proofs: “it’s a boat because it hasn’t any wheels”. Only by the
time he is eight or nine will he be able sometimes to verbalise causal
notions: “the window’s broken because a boy threw a stone” (Piaget,
1928). Another later development of thinking will come round about
the age of twelve when the young person becomes aware of being
aware. My suggestion is that there are not two clearly distinct modes
of thinking but a vast continuum in this line, and throughout life
people may at one time or another manifest modes of thinking more
primitive than the one that they usually use. To separate some of
the earlier developments off and call them processes “taking place
in the id” seems to me arbitrary and confusing. There is room for
a great deal of description of the development of the more mature
out of the more inchoate modes of thinking, but thinking itself, of
whatever category, remains an (ego) function. I would say something
similar of affect which acquires a mature mental representation, an
achievement of ego functioning.
e. The idea of id development has massive clinical evidence to support
it; the question is how the progression through libidinal phases is
most usefully conceptualised. The notion of “the id” promulgates
the picture of a type of organism which grows through maturational
phases in a predetermined way. While this seems an appropriate
picture when considering the human organism as a whole, it must
limit fruitful conceptual inquiry if applied to drive development.
This is not to say it is not a perfectly valid metaphor or analogy as
far as it goes; but I would suggest that adherence to it makes further
questioning more difficult. To say that instinctual drives tend to
follow a maturational pattern may sound little different from saying
that “the id” develops; but it allows for questions about how this
pattern may be shaped in a way that accepting it wholeheartedly
as a “given” prevents. It could, for instance, be asked whether the
changes in the direction and mode (involving zone, aim, and object,
etc.) of impulses seeking gratification, can in any sense be thought

of as dependent on, and thus partly attributable to developments
in ego functioning. This is not the same question as that put in the
symposium on the Mutual Influences of Ego and Id (Hartmann, 1952),
because that phraseology gives the picture of two different entities
mutually reacting with each other, as distinct from the picture of one
entity (the organism) manifesting multiple interrelated developments
and activities. With the alternative formulation, attention could be
focused on “instinctual development” as a happening rather than on
a postulated entity (instinct) to which things (development) happen.
Discoveries like those of some psychoanalysts doing work with
blind children—that is, that babies with this one perceptual deficit
show drive development not following the usual pattern, a situation
also found in some children with minimal brain dysfunction—can
then lead to questions like whether the ordinary complement of ego
activities (in the widest sense) is a prerequisite to libidinal phase
development. If this were so, it would lead to new questions about
the factors responsible for phase development that could lead right
away from ideas conceptualising “id” as an entity distinct from
the ego functions it is held to promulgate. I am not specifically
suggesting this as a formulation, but pointing it out as an example of
a question that is more easily asked with a formulation that ceases to
treat “id” as a noun. The above sorts of observations could also lead
in a different direction of thought, such as seeing the unusual libido
developments as possibly resulting from neurological damage,
which could carry the implied idea of id development being tied in
with neurological development, possibly in terms of things like rates
of myelinisation. This could make id development seem a process
analogous to those described by H. Hartmann in 1950, as autonomous
ego activities. These ideas are random and tentative; they are offered
only to show that taking the concept of “the id” out of the concept
of instinctual drive development jettisons no knowledge, but helps
toward formulating further questions.
I am attempting to present a way of describing our thinking that will

eliminate misunderstanding. I would suggest that our tendency to treat
id, ego, and superego as concrete entities, as Beres has shown we too
easily do, has shaped our thinking, leading to the sort of “find-the-id-
treasure-hunt” atmosphere given by too many inquiries in this field of
metapsychology. This is in no sense a criticism of the validity or value of

the contributions to our knowledge described in poetical or metaphori-
cal language, but only a plea to see where the language we use may
mislead us. When Gill (1963) says that if “the id” were “regarded a fic-
tion”, then the conception of the mental apparatus would be “reduced
to the ego”, his way of putting it makes it sound as if we are losing
something; but if we drop terms like “the id” and “the ego”, what we
lose is surely only an invitation to confused thinking. We do not lose the
insights given us by contributions such as The Ego and the Id by modify-
ing the formulations. As many of these writers have pointed out, Freud
replaced the topographical theory by the structural concept because
the earlier theory was not adequate to describe new observations and
ideas; that is, he was not prepared to try and fit new findings into old
terminology. But this did not mean that he abandoned the insights that
he had gained when using the earlier theory. If the advantages of modi-
fying a formulation outweigh the disadvantages, then this should be
done. Any new formulations should use language that distinguishes
clearly between causal thinking appropriate to observed or assumed
events, and logical thinking appropriate to conceptualisation about
such events. Many inconsistencies would become much more obvious
and more easily subject to revision, if ideas were thus clarified. The
above formulations are offered, not as being proof against criticism, but
as much more easily criticised and corrected than formulations based
on unassailable (and logically untenable) “givens”.
Further discussion
This chapter is an attempt to examine how we use one of our basic
terms, and to offer reasons for changing this usage. In many ways this
might be seen as an exercise in semantics, but if that were all it were, it
would still seem to me worthwhile. There will obviously be failure of
communication in any discipline unless specific meanings of terms are
universally agreed. In a subject like metapsychology, where terms refer
to abstract concepts that “exist” only in words, it is even more essential
than in a subject (e.g., zoology) where verbal concepts may be applied
to appropriate pictorial images and ideas about things, and may thus be
verifiable (or eliminated) by using external perception. However, the
major problem is not failure in interpersonal communication, but what
one might call a failure in intrapersonal communication—that is, failure
to recognise, that many words have meaning referable to descriptions

and to logical inference indiscriminately (Home, 1966), can lead to an
associative (primary process) identification between the two fields of
thinking being accepted as valid-verbal thinking is a process liable to
constant fault which is difficult to check where conceptualisation is con-
cerned. For us, thinking in words is not only the tool whereby we con-
ceive our ideas; it is also the “material” of the ideas we conceive. This
means that any error in our tool will be indistinguishable to us from an
anomaly in the “material” the tool is working on. This is a difficult idea
to explain, and I illustrate what I mean with an analogy—that of a man
checking the labelling of some artist’s colours, using only the tool of his
own vision (i.e., another situation where the tool of investigation and
the object of it are one, in this case colour vision). Suppose he sees as
green a tube labelled “red”. Using only his present vision he would have
no way of knowing whether it meant that the material was incorrectly
labelled, or that he had red-green colour blindness; similarly, if he saw
as green a tube labelled “green”, without further information he could
not know if it really was green, or if it was red and inaccurately labelled
and he was colour blind. That is, he could not know if his perception
was valid, if it was invalid because of his own perceptual failure, or
invalid because of a contradiction in the object of perception. He could
solve this problem only by recourse to other tools (like the colour vision
of others, or things like measuring light waves). But when we concep-
tualise about mental phenomena we have no tools other than our think-
ing, so we cannot know whether our concepts are valid, or invalid
because of a fault in how we are thinking or invalid because of contra-
dictions in what we think. All we can do is be as rigorous as we can to
test the tools of our thinking2 and semantic clarification of our words is
a vital step in this. (To state the corollary: once we name however faulty
a concept, we are liable to accept that name as having established an
existent entity. Thereafter, thinking about it, that should follow the lines
of logical reasoning, tends instead to follow the lines of investigation of
observed data, and unanswerable, because meaningless, questions are
posed.) These remarks do not concern the problem of communicating
our thoughts to others—that becomes relatively easy once we have
clearly verbalised for ourselves what we are thinking; the basic problem
lies in recognising and sorting out our own confusion. I take an extreme
example to illustrate how faulty conceptualising (i.e., a failure in the
tool) resulted in faulty concept formation (i.e., a faulty end result of
using the tool). In this case the fault was failure to distinguish between
clinically interpretable unconscious fantasy and concepts about psychic
structure. Many years ago, an analyst, describing material to illustrate
“introjection”, stated that qualities thus introjected went into “building
up the ego”: for example, a child introjected an image of a helpful
mother, and thus became helpful. I asked whether what was being
described was not the fantasy of what the ego was, rather than a descrip-
tion of what it actually was. The answer given was that “the ego is fan-
tasy”. Today I would word this question differently, discriminating
between object representations internalised and introjected and form-
ing part of the self-representation, and the ego functioning involved in
the mechanism of introjection. Had we had at our disposal the above
clarifying terms, the confusion would not have arisen. As long as the
term “ego” was used to describe, variously, concept of structure, and
psychic functioning, and self, and sense of self, and self-representation,
then a question directed towards asking about one of these could sound
as if it meant any of the others, resulting in failure in communication
and (in some senses of the word “ego”) a ludicrous “concept”. My sug-
gestion is that we suffer a similar tendency toward confusion when we
use the term “id”. Arlow’s question (“if unconscious fantasies are still
part of ego activity, then what is the contribution of the id to the struc-
ture of unconscious fantasy or dream?”) could, in present terms, be
understood as referring to several different areas of clinical theory—
a query about energic expression and manifestation: about examples of
primary process shown in fantasy or dream: about evidence of the per-
sistence (Sandler & Joffe, 1965) of earliest percepts of internal urges: to
name some different theoretical postulates. It could on the other hand
be a metapsychological question about correlating topographical and
structural ideas (though if the question implies, as it sounds as if it does,
that unconscious fantasy is “part of id”, this would be near to implying
that “unconscious = id”, which in structural terms contradicts the struc-
tural concept from which the concept “id” arises). The value (perhaps,
indeed, the intention) of a question phrased in this way is that it high-
lights its own circular nature—id “is” or “does” whatever it is defined
or described as being or doing. Whether “id” is taken as denoting con-
cept or datum, then determines the type of questions, and therefore the
nature of the answers that follow. Unlike the situation with perceivable
data, where further observation can enlarge and verify descriptive defi-
nitions, with a concept no amount of observation can show whether it
is true; all that can happen is that further application of it can show
whether it is more or less useful, economic, and productive in

organising and explaining observed phenomena than another concept.
Trying to establish a concept as something verifiable in the way observed
fact might be verifiable is a confused endeavour enhancing confusion,
which inevitably thwarts further clear conceptual thinking. When one
word (“id”) is used, as it often is, to denote an entity producing effects
recognisable by perception, and for an item of clinical theory, and for an
element of conceptualisation of a much higher degree of abstraction,
then statements that are meaningless because they involve confusion of
categories by treating as on a par items from different worlds of dis-
course, must result. We know from our school days that while we can
divide six by three, we cannot divide six by three apples, because we
are here trying to appose things of unlike category—symbol and mate-
rial thing. In exactly the same way “id” as concept cannot have a
relationship with the material of external perceptions and object repre-
sentations (i.e., the pressures of reality). It can only relate, that is, be
combined or compared with, another comparable concept. Similarly, id
as existent, clinical entity can relate only to like clinical entities. Schur
says correctly that if we regard the id as having no content, then we can
no longer say “that the ego mediates between the demands of the id and
environment”—if by saying he means conceptualising. We can certainly
use this phrase as a metaphor to illustrate the interplay between certain
trends assumed from clinical observation: it helps us because it is a
vivid metaphorical dramatisation of experiential data—a way of mak-
ing clinical theory come alive by personifying the elements of it. How-
ever, saying that “the id has no content” allocates the word “id” to a
nonclinical abstract frame of reference, within which the apposite topics
could be items of structural conceptualisation, but could not include
metaphorical descriptions of clinically observant conflicts. Schur seems
to imply that not using this metaphor as if it were an abstract formula-
tion means discarding the knowledge about the phenomena or the the-
orisation in connection with them that the metaphor illustrates; but
surely what is at stake is clarity of thinking, impeded by confusing cat-
egories. Such confusion is analogous to medieval thinking that regarded
observed data and items of faith as being on one plane, so that it was
apparently perfectly logical to try and work out how to count the angels
sitting on a pinpoint. We accept now that this is a meaningless endeav-
our, because it attempts to appose items from different categories; yet
we continue to use formulations discussing psychic structure in terms
of observed content, which are meaningless in an identical way. For
conceptual formulations to make a coherent picture out of data, they

too must be couched in terms denoting ideas from one category—that
is, conceptual items only. Data and concepts, being of different catego-
ries, cannot logically meet on the same plane: while primary process is
illogical, a meaningful concept cannot be. If the tendency to think and
speak of “id” as an entity being or doing something is avoided, we can
speak and think of the expression of an impulse, and its experiential
relationship to affects and ideas, as being aspects of psychic function-
ing, which would be part of a logically consistent concept. We can then,
if it adds to our understanding, proceed to qualify all psychic function-
ing with the adjective “ego” and describe the “mediation” as an ego
function3. The concept “conflict” would be described with different
words, but the revision does not seem as drastic a one as Schur sug-
gests, as Hartmann (1950) has given us a model we can use—namely,
that of intrasystemic conflict. It takes more words to speak of ego medi-
ation between (ego) mental representations of instinctual urges and
(ego) mental representations of the demands of the environment, than
to use the current phrase, but as a concept it is logical and coherent, and
allows for conceptual extension as the metaphor cannot.
Acceptance of the mode of thinking suggested has immediate
consequences, which include the need for reconsideration of the very
status of the concept denoted by “id-as-noun”. What falls away with
this thinking is not just that use of the word, but the very frame of
thinking that has led to its having been used in that way. Obviously,
if we decided only to use “‘id” adjectivally, our words could not ver-
balise the idea of “id” as “container” or “content”, nor ask questions
about where or what “it” is. What we would require is a frame of think-
ing very different from that figuring a “something” (id) as source in
a causal, pictorial-like schema describing what is felt to happen. This
would mean resisting the urge to conceptualise metapsychologically in
terms of the laws of visible physical causality, and searching the evi-
dence freely to find apposite conceptual models.
A possible step might be noticing that as “id content” or “mate-
rial” is not ascertainable except in terms of the use supposedly made
of it by ego activity, there could be as good a case for postulating, for
example, that what is ascertainable is the creation of “ego activity”, as
for postulating its prior existence. (An analogy to highlight the differ-
ence between the two statements could be that we accept that what
we normally see is objectively present because we have other means
of checking its existence: where these are totally lacking, what we see
is a hallucination. In the first case there are grounds for speaking of
external material (content) which the mental apparatus has built into
a visual picture, but in the second case the visual image is entirely
the creation of the mental apparatus.) Our insistence on the existence
of “something” forming the id material rests on our present frame of
thinking that demands a material-like causal sequence, in which effects
have their source in a traceable cause; but we have as little grounds for
insisting that this must apply in the field of metapsychological concep-
tualisation as had those who argued (to quote Bertrand Russell, 1927)
that “radiations cannot come out of nothing”. “For aught we know”,
he remarks, “an atom may consist entirely of the radiations which
come out of it … the idea that there is a little hard lump there, which
is the electron or proton, is an illegitimate intrusion of commonsense
notions derived from touch.” It is not suggested that metapsychology
can use directly notions applicable to theoretical physics; the point is
that if even that most material of physical sciences ultimately requires
thinking removed from the patterns imposed by evidence acquired by
perception, then there is no reason to insist that these form part of
the rules of logical thinking and that therefore metapsychology should
abide by them. Indeed, as it deals with the most unphysical and imma-
terial subjects, there is every reason not to try and formulate it via such
laws.
There is at present a considerable body of opinion holding the view
that some of our thinking—for example, that concerned with instinct—
requires revision. So far no applicable alternative in terms of concepts
(like principles of functioning) not derived from different worlds of
discourse, has been found acceptable, and causal or mechanistic-like
models which demand that a source be found, are still used, with the
postulated source being called “id”. But these models seem derived,
not from evidence of their applicability, but from the powerful wish or
need to create a completed picture—which is inevitably modelled on
our established causal imagery. The ever-present drive to construct a
total picture (it led, for instance, to medieval astronomers filling space
with epicycles to conform with Ptolemaic theory) (see Koestler, 1959),
seems a detail of the process of creative thinking, which appears to
follow a pattern of seeking patterns. It can lead equally to constructive
hypotheses and to irrelevant fantasies about the way things work, dis-
tinguishable only by their greater or lesser applicability.
At present we do not have the data from which to fashion a complete

conceptual metapsychology; but while we can say this, attempts to
fashion a complete pattern by forcibly filling assumed “gaps” continue.
This very assumption rests on the belief that a “gap” exists, for which
there is no firm evidence where “id” is concerned. There is only a circu-
lar argument that postulates its existence by contriving an explanatory
pattern including it to explain phenomena, and then searches phenom-
ena to find it. The prevalence of the “pattern-making” trend of thinking
poses questions about thinking itself. Is, for example, the frequent con-
fusion between causal and inductive statements only an easily resolv-
able confusion in words, or does it point to a confusion in the thinking
caused by the insistence on shaping ideas to a pattern, which is merely
illuminated by the words? A student might answer the question “Why
were you top in class?” either by saying “Because I worked hard”, or by
saying “Because I got more marks than anyone else.” The first answer is
to a causal question, the second to an inductive definitive one; yet both
adequately answer the “why” with a “because”. These answers reflect
two totally different pieces of work done by thinking, yet the questions
promoting them sound identical. Both answers reflect secondary proc-
ess thinking—they particularise items where primary process thinking
would condense and not distinguish. But the question is not clearly
particularised, because its wording condenses as if into one, two ideas
that have some similarity but are in no sense identical. Where data for
one class of answer are not readily available, an answer of the other
class might immediately be given, and the wording may make it very
difficult to notice that this was not what was meant. Of the two classes,
causal thinking is much the more easily manageable and is thus readily
resorted to. It has high utility when used for judging, anticipating, and
manipulating reality; so that we learn quite early in life that important
questions can profitably be answered by thinking about them in a cause-
and-effect pattern; and tend to apply this where it has no use. The ques-
tion here arises whether the tendency to try and find (causal) answers
is due only to a need to find answers—that is, to satisfy curiosity and
manage reality—or whether it is in fact only one (albeit a very impor-
tant one) example of the powerful need for mental pattern-making; and
the existence of pattern-making trends even when questions may not be
involved—for example, in all art forms—may suggest the latter. (Even
chimpanzees exhibit an urge to produce a “balanced” picture when
they paint, by distributing their marks approximately equally on both
sides of the canvas.) Is the need to create a complete pattern, whether an

applicable one or not, so patent in all conceptualising, part of a process
inherent in all thinking, or is the need to have no “gaps” in hypotheses
more understandable in terms of things like (castration) anxiety at the
thought of incompleteness? Whatever the answer, the prevalence of the
above-described confusion-making trend of thinking makes it neces-
sary to take account of it when considering the outcome of any con-
ceptual thinking. Physical science recognises the dangers to objectivity
of investigation arising from unconscious trends in the observer, and
guards against them by creating control experiments. We similarly rec-
ognise them, and therefore insist on personal analysis of all analysts.
Against conceptual confusion caused by not distinguishing between
causal and inductive thinking, however, this safeguard has little effect,
and all we can do is to be aware of it.
What, then, do we mean by “id”? The question cannot be answered,
as many investigators have attempted to answer it, by descriptions of
observed data, because the word does not denote any objectively describ-
able thing, as, for example, the word “string” does. We can answer a
question like “what is string?” by describing its perceived attributes,
but we cannot answer an apparently similar class of question like “how
long is a piece of string?” And “what is id?” is a question in this sort
of category. A piece of string is as long as it is, and id has no perceived
describable attributes but is a conceptual term, meaning whatever it
is defined to mean. However, we cannot answer the question “how
do we define the word ‘id’?” either. The word is at present used as if
defined to have a number of different abstract meanings, having some-
thing to do with ideas about unconscious mental activity—structural
instance, energic hypothesis, primitive mode of discharge, etc.; and
also refers generally to the “dark inaccessible part of our personality”
(Freud, 1933). This picture of something dark and inaccessible can be
a metaphor to evoke a pictorial image either of the uncomprehended,
or of the feeling we get when we consider the uncomprehended. This
feeling pervades our image of what we lump together as “id”: con-
sider it separately and thus detach it from the conglomerate picture
evoked by the word, and the cohesiveness of the various elements falls
away. It can then be seen that as these are not different attributes of an
observed entity, but a collection of abstract ideas on different planes,
the word “id”, as at present used, has no specific definable meaning as
an abstract term.
If “id” can be neither defined nor described, we might then ask

“what does it (not we) mean—that is, how does it happen, what does
it show—that our conceptual thinking so largely rests on such an inde-
terminate term?” This chapter has attempted to show that it happens
as a result of specifically confused thinking, related specifically to con-
fusions in verbalisation. While it is clear that an idea will be confus-
ingly conveyed if propounded in equivocal language, the emphasis is
given, not to failures in communicating ideas, but rather to the notion
that clear ideas cannot be conceived if the items of them are not clearly
verbalised. An idea is only as clear as the words it is thought in, and
confused verbalisation creates confused concepts.
Notes
1. Similarly with the word “ego”, which becomes grammatically
meaningful either as an abstraction, or an adjective qualifying words
like “functions, attributes, states, etc.”
2. Except, of course, where theories can be invalidated by testing against
the clinical observations, but by and large metapsychological theory is
not open to this kind of “scientific” test.
3. Though it should be added that if all psychic functioning can validly
be qualified with the adjective “ego”, the term “ego functioning” is a
tautology.
CHAPTER FOUR
Muddles and metaphors: some thoughts

about psychoanalytic words*
W
ords are a major tool in the practice of psychoanalysis,
and are just about all that is available for constructing our
background theories. It is true that Freud (1923) offered
some diagrams to illustrate his views about the “psychic apparatus”
(Sandler and Joffe (1969)—to mention two of our Members—also did
this). But overall, words are all that have been available for construct-
ing our background theories. Even though illustrations have been used,
putting into a spatial context things that were not in any sense thought
of as spatial, ultimately, all our theoretical formulations are entirely ver-
bal. When we examine them, we find that they can be as misleading
as the diagrams would be if those diagrams were taken to represent
something that does have spatial qualities. I believe this is because our
psychoanalytic theoretical formulations are neither exactly descriptive
nor truly explanatory, but illustrations achieved by a series of meta-
phorical sketches. In 1915, Freud (1895), talking about instincts, (which
he often described as “our mythology”) said, about the abstract ideas
* Bulletin of the British Psychoanalytic Society, July 1974, Amended version. Reprinted with
kind permission of the British Psychoanalytic Association.
53
“that one cannot avoid applying to the descriptions and classifications

of phenomena”, that such ideas “must at first necessarily possess some
degree of indefiniteness.” In a very real way, many of our most basic
purely abstract ideas, like those described in words like “id”, “ego”,
“superego”, remain sufficiently indefinite for the words to mean many
different and sometimes incompatible things. In a similar way, the
words we use clinically have a range of meanings that renders them
extremely inexact.
The purpose of this paper is to examine some of our ways of using
words, in terms of their inexactitude: and to try to say something about
the two different realms of psychoanalytic theory and practice—and
the muddle caused in them, by the words used. Let me say right away
that I am raising problems for which I have no solution to offer.
I once wrote a paper called “What do we mean by ‘id’” (1969,
pp. 353–380, and Chapter Three of this volume). After detailed explora-
tion and discussion of many of the ways the word is used, I concluded
that, though it’s often taken as if “id” were an item of observation, it is
in fact an item of abstract theorising: but that it is taken to mean so many
different things at so many levels of abstraction, as to have virtually no
definable meaning. I ended the paper by saying that “an idea is only as
clear as the words it is thought in; and confused verbalisation creates confused
concepts”. If I’d been less gentle and conventional, I could have called that
paper “How on earth can we rely on conceptual thinking that rests on
words that are so indeterminate?” I believe this sort of indeterminateness
of words, this confusion in conceptualising, abounds in our theories.
I was reminded of this belief when listening to some argument about
theory, that came in the discussion of some papers (by Hildebrand,
Sandler, and Meltzer) last autumn and winter. Each time I wondered
whether such disagreements might not arise at least as much from misun-
derstandings engendered by verbal confusions, as simply by differences
in ideas. My aims in this presentation are to try to show convincingly
that there are such muddles in our thinking, visible in and associated
with muddles in our words: and to stimulate ideas about this.
Outline
i. I will start by recalling the quite widely recognised problem of
what most writers call “reification of abstract concepts”. An effect
of this is the confusion between terms used for clinical description
M U D D L E S A N D M E TA P H O R S 55
and ones used for abstract concepts: and consequently, between

statements about observations that could theoretically be compared
with others and statements that are simply unverifiable assertions
that may or may not be adopted by other people.
ii. At quite a different level, I will try to distinguish two different
extremes of verbal communication, correlating differences between
clinical reports and interpretations accepted as meaningful because
they are couched in clear explanatory terms and those, equally
accepted, but because of an “affective” rather than an intellectual
“recognition”.
iii. Reasons why new ideas and information in any field are accepted
will be discussed partly in terms of whether they are understood
intellectually or affectively, also partly in terms of the sorts of
questions and answers that are used. I will suggest that our methods
of research and the nature of our findings are neither scientific, nor
humanistic, nor appertaining to the historical. They are basically
something quite different from these because they rest upon thinking
that cannot be generalised logically or mathematically, nor confirmed
and “realised” (made real) by mental or actual visualising.
iv. I conclude that the essentially metaphorical nature, not just
of illustrations of our ideas, but of the ideas themselves, puts
psychoanalytic thinking into a special class of its own; and that
this applies to our clinical as well as to our abstract thinking and
theorising.
Reification of abstract concepts

In 1965, Beres pointed out that we are “accustomed in psycho-analytic
theorizing to use certain words and phrases which on closer examina-
tion prove to be tautological, analogical or pseudo-explanatory.” His
paper was concerned with showing how, while “in the biological sci-
ences, structure refers to morphology, and function to physiological
activity, both of which can be directly observed”, this is not the case
with psycho-analytic phenomena, where “psychological structures are
not physical entities and should not be treated as such”. He adds that
“Freud has himself added to our difficulties. As a master of language
he has given to psychoanalysis elegant metaphors which, if under-
stood in their context, have unquestioned heuristic value, but which
too often have been used by others as clichés or even jargon.” When
Freud says, at the end of a long chapter describing the functions of the
mind and grouping them in systems, “where id was there ego shall
be”, we understand his meaning and the relation of the metaphor to his
theory. A more questionable use of metaphor is Freud’s formulation of
superego anxiety: “Putting it more generally, what the ego regards as
the danger and responds to with an anxiety signal, is that the super-ego
should be angry with it or punish it or cease to love it.” Beres feels that
this does serve a useful purpose “in dramatizing an important clinical
theory, the role of identification with parents in superego formation,
but that this and similar metaphors are a valuable part of our commu-
nication system (ONLY) so long as we keep in mind the metaphorical
nature of the statement, and do not treat ego and superego as concrete
entities”. Beres regarded the reification of the components of Freud’s
structural theory (id, ego, and superego) as an example of “misplaced
concreteness”, whereby “abstractions are mistaken for concrete reality”
(Whitehead, 1929).
Beres’ discussion is immediately relevant where “classical” theory is
basically accepted. Are his criticisms any less directly applicable to ana-
lytic thinking which departs from that more orthodox view? Kleinian
thinking is also often accused of misplaced concreteness, though in a
somewhat different way. Projective identification, for example, means
something like the patient’s putting a bit of himself into the analyst,
and the argument will go that no act of doing this actually occurs. The
interpretation of a piece of projective identification could most ade-
quately verbalise an important phantasy of the patient’s, and would
then unarguably be an excellent piece of clinical technique. But it would
specifically portray the mental muddle of misplaced concreteness if it
is believed to be actually observably happening; and one often gets the
impression that some Kleinians think it does actually happen, when
they speak of informative countertransference reactions in terms of the
analysand’s having, well-nigh concretely, put something—some feel-
ing perhaps—into the analyst. In this sense, the criticism of reifying is
equally, or even more, relevant.
What about W. R. D. Fairbairn (1956, 1963), who so clearly recognises
the reification danger? I think he falls into exactly the same trap which
he criticises in Freud, when he speaks of “hypostatisation” (meaning
approximately the same as reification), in that he also creates and reifies
concepts, by using ideas like “libidinal” or “anti-libidinal ego” and so
on. It is not my purpose here to criticise his theory in detail. My point
is only that mere recognition of this particular muddle of thinking is

not enough. As David Beres once said sadly (personal communication),
“we keep on doing it.” It starts as a sort of shorthand use of the words,
but in no time at all, we find that using the words merges into think-
ing with them: and confusion reigns. We confuse observable data with
the abstract concepts we’ve constructed to explain them, and talk, for
example, of conflicts between id and superego, as if these were observ-
able things like a conflict between a specific wish and antagonistic rul-
ings of conscience. But they are far from the same. One is in an abstract
category of thought while the other derives from the category of things
clearly and thoughtfully perceived.
Confusions of categories
Confusions of categories are, of course, by no means confined to psy-
choanalytic thinking. We may laugh at the medieval philosophers who
tried to work out how many angels can sit on a pinpoint. This could be
because we no longer believe in angels, but the real absurdity comes
from trying to align an externally observable item—we can see and feel
pins—with an imaginative one—no one’s seen or felt an angel. Wit or
jokes using punning are often funny just because of their using a sin-
gle word that has different meanings in different categories, as a “pri-
mary process” bridge. You know the sort of thing. A: (approvingly)
“You look in the pink” (meaning, “in excellent health”). B: “No—this
suit’s magenta.” The metaphor “in the pink” is taken literally. But pri-
mary process, invaluable for humour, has no place in clear explanatory
thinking. The use of psychoanalytic words, like “id” or “internal good
part-object”, are inevitably misleading if they are used indiscriminately,
both for observed phenomena and for items of abstract theorising. We
need different words for the items in different categories: as happens,
for example, when we use two different words in another discipline. We
don’t say we “see electricity” when we switch on the light. We say we
“see light”, powered by something mysterious to physicists, but which
they label conceptually as “electricity”. “Seeing electricity” verbalises
a confusion of categories, and we recognise this because there are dif-
ferent words for things in the different categories. Reporting on alleged
observation of ”id” functioning would also confuse categories: but our
habitual double use of such a word makes it far more difficult to see
this. Some do, but by no means everyone.
Other verbal confusions

Confusions of category are not the only ways our words mislead us.
We are all familiar with words and terms that are given all sorts of new
meanings in new theories, but are still used denoting all the other mean-
ings as well, so there’s confusion again. Outstandingly, this can happen
with “ego”. In the example I’m about to give, another is “unconscious
phantasy”. When Mrs. Klein firmly told me that “ego is phantasy”, by
“ego” she presumably meant what ego-psychology analysts might call
the various “unconscious internalised identifications that make up a
person’s self-representation”. For instance, Hartmann (1950/1964)
regarded “ego” as “defined by its functions” which would mean using
the term “ego”, for example, for the function of internalising, but not for
the result of it. When Segal (1964) calls “phantasy-forming” a “function
of the ego”, she uses the word “ego” very much as Hartmann does.
But when, two pages later, she writes of objects with which “the ego
identifies—introjective identification”—that “become assimilated
into the ego and … contribute to its growth and characteristics”, the
word “ego” no longer means its “functioning”, but is again used to
denote an inner supposed entity; that is, a result, not the function, of
internalisation.
But even if all analysts were to agree to confine the meaning of “ego”
to its “functioning”, there would still be a problem. If “ego” is short-
hand for mental functioning, then the term “ego functioning” is a tau-
tology, dangerous because it gives the picture of a “something” within
the personality that exists and then functions—a “something” called
“The Ego”. This sort of danger occurs with the use of any term like “the
ego, the id, the superego, the good object, the … whatever”.
Another word I’ve sometimes heard used in two different ways with
different types of meaning, is “repression”. To Meltzer, repression is a
phantasy, whereas to many analysts it is a function (an “ego-function”)
about which there can be phantasies, but which does actually happen. At
the end of the discussion on Meltzer’s paper (presented to the British
Society in 1974) on “Repression, Forgetting and Unfaithfulness”, the argu-
ment began to emerge as to whether repression is phantasy or function.
Had there been more time, I think we’d have reached an impasse,
because each side was using the term as if it meant something quite
different—were differently defined: but the argument could only too easily
have gone on endlessly as if people were thinking that one observation
and the conclusions deriving from it, was being challenged by another.
This was despite Stewart, in opening the discussion, regretting the lack
of consensus on meanings of our concepts.
This last example illustrates how confusions can arise (through
words having multiple meanings) not only where abstract theorising
is involved, but also at the level of clinical theory. Clinical theory dif-
fers from abstract in that it considers observed phenomena, whereas
abstract theory generally, (as Rycroft, 1968, says of instincts) concerns
unobservable “imaginary, mythological or fictitious constructs”. How-
ever many or few of us are interested in problems of abstract theory,
we are all clinicians, and absolutely need clinical theory in order to
make sense of our clinical observations. We’ve all observed effects of
repression. That we can nevertheless argue as to whether it is function
or phantasy—one might almost say “fact or fiction”—is an example of
the way in which the inexactitude of the words we all use, leads to
enormous muddles about what we mean, No one needs reminding of
the recurring situations when anyone attempts to understand in terms,
(that is, in the language) of one theoretical model, clinical material
that has been presented in terms of a different one. Not uncommonly,
alternative versions are offered in order to discredit the findings and
understanding of them, which were offered by the first description: or
at least to vary or add to them. If they don’t say it outright, people
seem to be saying something like ”if you’d seen this material as my
school of thought sees it, you’d have understood much better, far more,
than you have”. This derogation of the validity of another’s findings
and understanding also, of course, carries criticisms of technique, as
what we interpret, or when we do or don’t, is intimately related to our
favoured theory. Let me stress that different theoretical backgrounds
don’t inevitably lead to criticisms of technique. I remember a leading
Kleinian child-analyst warmly congratulating a child-analyst relying
on Anna Freud’s ideas, on the technique used in a difficult case. Their
explanations were, of course, couched in very different terms, but each
understood the other well enough, so to quite an extent the differences
could be bridged simply by translation from one language to the other.
In such circumstances, it was not difficult to understand exactly how
and where the theories and understanding did diverge, and I think this
was due to the excellent powers of both these analysts, of describing
and explaining the material in different but vividly resonant metaphors.
Far too often though, this mutual understanding, this bridging of the
theoretical gap, does not happen: and the disputants remain convinced
of the wrongheadedness or fallacious views of each other. But one sim-
ply cannot question the validity of one psychoanalytic theory in the lan-
guage and conceptual framework of another. It’s rather like trying to
criticise, let’s say, a theory advancing a correlation between height and
the onset of menstruation, by using theories connecting fibroids with
minimal pregnancies: or like trying to measure in metres the colour of a
table. It just can’t be done.
To summarise so far: our words or terms can be very misleading for
a number of reasons, including the frequency of reification of abstract
concepts, the use of the same word or term for different abstract ideas
or for an inferred abstraction, and for an item of observation; or for two
totally different ways of theorising clinically about an unchallenged
observation … (all confusions of categories.) Consequently, our words
fail repeatedly in their function of communication.
Verbal communication
There are two different extremes, two different sorts of intention,
when words are used communicatively. In the first, which I have
labelled “instruction”, theoretically the speaker conveys, and the lis-
tener receives, one unequivocal idea or group of ideas. Insofar as our
interpretations are aimed at doing just this, they could in these terms
be called “instructions”—not in the sense of giving a command, but in
the sense of presenting information1, in a clear, uncontradictory, logi-
cally ordered way. We use “secondary-process” words to explain a
“secondary-process” model of how we understand what our analysand
is currently experiencing.
In the second theoretical extreme, which I have labelled “evocation”,
words do not convey a single clear idea or ordered group of ideas.
Instead, such words are intended to call forth a whole nexus of associated
feelings and images in the listener or reader. Familiar examples are ora-
tory and poetry. I think it is obvious that free associations in analysis are
akin to this type of speaking, with the variant that the analysand is not
necessarily bent on evoking emotional responses in the analyst (though,
of course, this may be a significant transference element). Rather, the
analysand’s words reveal something of his own current wide nexus of
associated feelings, and images and ideas. Very approximately, using
the above-mentioned terms, one could say that the simple, explanatory
type of interpretation is an “instructive” communication, about the

underlying meanings of the analysand’s more “evocative” type com-
munications. Of course, “instructive” and “evocative” speech are theo-
retical absolutes, which do not exist; human speech always contains
more or less of both. The nearest to purely “instructive” communication
might be a machine emitting mathematical formulae, with music as per-
haps the nearest to purely “evocative”; neither are human verbalisings.
(In former years psychoanalysts mainly intended their interpretations
to be “instructive”; that is, unequivocally explanatory. More recently,
analysts like Winnicott, Balint, Khan, Giovaccini and quite a few others,
have recognised the enormous part played in treatment, especially of
borderline patients, of the non-verbal transactions between the analytic
pair.
And for years, we have been aware of the huge part played in every
analysis by the “evocative” aspects of the speech of both analysand and
analyst in communicating to each other, whether it’s in tone, phraseol-
ogy, quality of silence, or whatever. “Evocative” communication also
plays an inherent part in case presentations, as when clinical material
illustrates some new idea. I always remember one discussant at such
a meeting warmly approving a paper with words like “I don’t exactly
understand the speaker’s ideas about this particular analytic situation:
but I recognise it.” I thought this a wonderful way of distinguishing
between the two modes of thinking. I took “understanding” to mean
the more ordered process of understanding an explanation, aligned
with the more rational verbal communication I’ve called “instruction”:
and “recognise” to mean the much wider response appropriate to what
I’ve called “evocation.” Both types of communication are essential in
psychoanalytic practice, and inevitable in good clinical reports.
But whether we are mainly “instructing” or “evoking”, whether
we present clinical or abstract ideas, our words are neither simply
explanatory, nor simply descriptive. Essentially, they are also meta-
phorical. We describe psychological processes in terms of hydraulic
models, or spatial models, or any other model which can conjure up
a mental picture, approximately to describe the essence of what we’re
talking about. This is effective communicatively, only where the meta-
phors “resonate” (another metaphor) sufficiently similarly in speaker
and listener, in writer and reader: which, I believe, is why new abstract
models using the phraseology of sciences with which we are mostly not
familiar don’t easily catch on (an example could have been Home (1966)
using Spitz’s 1959 Genetic Field Theory). The metaphors might very
appropriately illustrate the idea; but to have meaning for us, they have
to be utterly familiar. The next point is that the problem with metaphors
describing assumed psychic phenomena, is always to tease out just
that aspect of the metaphor that is immediately relevant, and not to be
misled into thinking that everything else about the original model the
metaphor borrows, is also part of the idea the metaphor expresses. It’s
easy enough to see that using hydraulic metaphors doesn’t mean that
we regard our thoughts as wet! It’s much less easy to be clear about the
non-existence of things like “content” or “containers” or “boundaries”
when we use spatial terms metaphorically.
Many of our metaphors borrow their models from the physical sci-
ences. Indeed, Freud used, as metaphors, some of the terms he had used
literally in the “Project for a Scientific Psychology” (1895). They some-
times seem to be taken as literally as they were intended to be in the
Project. This, of course, is certainly not the only reason why analysts so
often think of our study as scientific. I think one reason is because of
the idea that “real” discovery must be scientific in order to thwart criti-
cisms that ours is a dogma—a religion. Freud, of course, always hoped
that psychoanalysis would ultimately fall within the framework of true
science. My own impression is that what he hoped for was the ultimate
working out of all the organic (largely neurological) concomitants of
each item of psychological event; rather like cortical localisations, or
like correlating EEGs, REMs, and any other biochemical, electrical, or
whatever intra-cerebral activity or function, with specific psychic phe-
nomena. I think, though, that even if we had all these scientific correla-
tions, we would still need something else to describe and understand
the experiential side; which is what we, as analysts, deal with all the
time. To give an analogy: the lab. can measure our blood sugar, and if it
is low, tell us that we lack nourishment and that perhaps that’s why we
feel hungry. But it can’t tell us anything at all about how it feels to feel
hungry, or to experience this, that, or the other affect-laden phantasy
about it. I am calling the experiential, a non-scientific field: and it is the
nub of psychoanalysis. So, is psychoanalysis a science?
Is psychoanalysis a science?
There is much argument as to what makes any subject scientific, by
excluding or invoking a number of variables. Although psychoanalysis
undoubtedly involves enormous discovery, I think far too many of our

methods are not what are usually accepted as scientific ones, for it to
be called “a science”. There’s our inability to construct any statistical or
control series. There’s our total inability to show ways of falsifying our
claims—(Hook, 1959)—that is, of invalidating them. And so on.
But the points about differences between psychoanalysis and science
that are relevant to this paper, are two particular ones, both concerning
language. Like the post-Galilean physical scientists (Rapaport, 1967),
we are involved in a revolution of ideas: but unlike them, we lack a
specific language with which to express them. They have mathematics.
I think it is correct to say that they can no more prove the existence,
let’s say, of “Black Holes”, than we can prove the existence of internal
objects or whatever: but their route to the “Black Hole” concept is via
specialist modes of conceptualising, such as the language of mathemat-
ics: whereas our route towards our basic abstract concepts is via the
language of metaphor. Simple maths is a subject with its own internal
consistency, and every stage of it can be checked and argued (all scien-
tists argue, sometimes venomously!): and, in principle, agreement on
the maths might be reached. (I’ve already given maths as the outstand-
ing example of what can be “instructively” communicated.) “Evoca-
tion” via metaphor is quite a different matter. It can do an enormous
amount that “instruction” cannot: it can make us aware of things, be
in “real touch” with others: and it is of incalculable value in commu-
nicating the feel (another metaphor!) of the things it evokes. Khan
was momentarily put out when I called him a poet, after his beautiful
paper here (in May 1974) but it was the highest compliment; all the best
analytic writers have been masters of language, one way or another.
Essentially, what Khan gave us with that paper was a new metaphor,
which expressed the “feel” of a particular situation as other ones failed
to do, and we were all very grateful. I thought this reminiscent of the
high esteem, even veneration, in which poets were held for thousands
of years. I suppose it is because they find the words which don’t only
pull with their beauty, but which also reveal inner truths of which their
listeners had been unaware, or aware only very vaguely, because they
hadn’t the words with which to harness them.
But whereas such “evocative” words can make one “recognise”
things, they go no way at all in “instructing”; that is, in helping general-
ise or explain things with a theory … which is what science is all about,
whether or not it can use maths.
Home’s route (1966) to deciding that psychoanalysis does not use

the method of science, was a different one, though in a way it was also
focussed on the words we use, and their meanings. “Science”, he says,
“asks the question how does a thing occur; and receives an answer in
terms of causes; whereas a humanistic study asks the question why, and
receives an answer in terms of reasons.” He puts it that “the essence
of psychoanalysis is concerned with the meaning of behaviour, which
requires an unscientific logical framework” (my emphases). I think
it’s a valuable paper. Hearing it all those years ago, for the first time,
I heard the clarifying word ”reification.” Another important gain was
that it showed me that one can at times question the scientific basis
of psychoanalysis—the appropriateness of causal explanations—both
fruitfully, and with no derogation at all. On the contrary, our “Emperor”
gains value, if we don’t insist he’s dressed—disguised—in scientific
garb. Honesty is one of our big talents, after all. Klauber (1968) subse-
quently also questioned whether psychoanalysis is totally scientific; he
decided that it partly uses the non-scientific methods of historians.
Discussion
Is the answer, then, to the problem we meet because of the inexactitude
of our language, to be found by using the language of the humanities
or of historians? Well—no: to quite an extent we already do this, as well
as using scientific-like terminology for many of our metaphors. As I see
it, the real problem is that our specific language, if we can call it that,
is the use of metaphor (and analogy.) We do not really have anything
more exact. Now, it is of course true, that all sciences use metaphors—in
fact, a huge amount of ordinary language is metaphor, if you look at it
closely. (There are metaphors that are more or less “worn out” (Schon,
1967), and taken more or less as part of ordinary language, as in describ-
ing a fence “running” along a boundary. It doesn’t actually run!) But I
have the idea (though I may be wrong), than when the strict sciences
use what is obviously a metaphor, it’s to illustrate, simply, something
than can also be explained in detail to scientists of their discipline, in
other, much more complicated words and, perhaps, signs or symbols.
They may talk about “time passing” or molecular “chains”; but their
theories are couched in the special language of their maths, or that of
sophisticated symbols, and so on, which are highly specific. By contrast,
our special languages (or language) are only the highly unspecific ones
of metaphor. I once hoped that we might find our own “language” that
wasn’t just metaphors, but at present, I don’t think it is possible. I think
we are stuck with the intensely evocative and, therefore, totally unspe-
cific, language of metaphor.
Tentative idea
I would like to offer a tentative idea about what I fancy might be one of
the reasons for our inability to find a more specific language with which
to express our ideas. I would, however, like to stress that it’s rather
vague so far, and it isn’t essential to my main thesis. It is this. Unlike the
sciences, the humanities, and history, and many other disciplines, what
we constantly discuss are things that we literally cannot see or visu-
alise. Yes, we can see our analysands and their muscular activity and
so on: but we cannot see, and therefore cannot visualise, their infinite
range of inner psychic “activities” and changes”; nor, indeed, our own.
Scientists can look at zebras or rocks, or magnified cells; they can look
at graphs or mathematical formulae. People working with the humani-
ties, or history and so on, can visualise relevant situations, can picture
sufficiently accurately scenes of people saying and doing the things
described. We use our metaphors to “conjure up a picture” for us. But
that “picture” is inevitably misleading, because what we are trying to
conceptualise isn’t an object of vision at all. Inherently, it just is not
visible or “visualisable”. I believe that the capacity to visualise plays an
essential part in the whole development and experience of conceptual
thinking. I don’t need to refer to the fact that dreams (or hallucina-
tions), using regressed thinking, are mainly visual. All analytic work-
ers familiar with the development of children born blind, believe that
the growth of their capacity to conceptualise is grossly interfered with
by their lifelong inability physically to see things. Space, for example,
is a totally unknown and unknowable quantity, or quality (Hayman,
1972). Wills 1973 (ref) once reported on an otherwise well-functioning
blind child. Telling some rather fragmented stories, the child spoke
of “children who were naughty and got smacked. They ate the win-
dows, ate the door, no more house”. Wills asked “Do you mean broke
the windows?”, but that was not it. The point was that the girl already
knew that doors and windows have something in common; both are
parts of houses that open and shut. But she didn’t understand the one
thing—glass—that windows and tumblers have in common, because
she couldn’t see it. Her idea of doors and windows must have been
something like flat surfaces that can be swung, keep out the cold, or
allow free passage. Her idea of a drinking vessel must have been of
a much smaller round thing, probably of a different texture, that she
would lift to her lips, and move in a certain careful way, to get milk
into her mouth. But the word “glass” apparently made her believe that
these two utterly different sorts of things, which she “knew” only by
touch, taste, sound, and smell—all far less discriminating than sight,
incidentally—must all be aspects of one single sort of thing. Can you
imagine the strange, muddled, and extremely confusing mental model
she must have imagined?
In an analogous way, we construct metaphorical models, on the basis
of things we have perceived with our external senses, for something
we can no more perceive than blind children can see the world. I am
reminded of the ten blind men standing around an elephant, each feel-
ing the part nearest him; and then trying to pool their discoveries and
build up an idea of what an elephant is really like. We do something
analogous when we try to conceptualise about psychic phenomena, as
we lack a discriminating sense for them, just as blind people lack sight—
or nearly so. We are a little better off than the blind because we can
recognsze well-constructed poetic metaphors about psychic functioning;
because they evoke an inner “feeling” (yet another metaphor): but one
which we register via none of our known five sensory modalities. We
can’t do without it. To my mind, while psychoanalysis uses some of the
ways of thinking of science and of the humanities, and of history, and
of art, it is none of these things. It is something else again that borrows
aspects of their language, but goes far beyond them. And, inherently
our language is metaphoric.
Summary and conclusion

1. I describe some of the ways in which our words are inexact and
therefore misleading. Theories couched in such terms, whether
abstract or clinical, are inevitably inexact or confusing theories.
2. I discuss two different extremes of verbal communication, calling
them “instruction” and “evocation”, trying to show how both are
used by analysts. Particularly I emphasise the invaluable nature of
evocative communication, but I also stress that inherently it lacks
the exactitude of “instruction” and is therefore capable neither of
generalisation, nor of explanatory power.

3. I discuss whether or not psychoanalysis is a science, or an humanistic
or historical study: mainly to show that the way we think—the
language we use—belongs basically to none of these disciplines,
though we borrow from them all. I didn’t ask whether psychoanalysis
is an art; but suggested that the inexact, yet essentially creative,
language of metaphor and analogy, which is the nearest we have
to a language, is very near to the art of poetry. But however much
psychoanalysis is like art, it is certainly something different, and
much more.
4. As a tentative idea, I draw an analogy between the difficulties of
the born-blind in achieving conceptual thinking, and our problem in
not being able physically to see or visualise what we are constantly
dealing with and trying to theorise about.
We desperately want to have the comfort of clear explanations of clear

causal sequences, and struggle to achieve them. But I think we cannot
have them as fully as we might wish; and that it is better to recognise
this and to go on from there.
Note
1. Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd Edition, 2003.
CHAPTER FIVE
On Marjorie Brierley*
I
t is customary in this society to hold memorial meetings when
respected colleagues have died, to describe their work and remem-
ber them. There was no such meeting after Dr. Marjorie Brierley died
on 21 April 1984, because practically no-one remembered or missed her
as a person, as she had been away from London for about thirty-five
years. But while I never met her, I asked for a meeting in her memory,
because I think her contributions should not be forgotten. What I know
about her comes from her publications, her contributions to the Contro-
versial Discussions, and some unpublished material from the archives,
for which I am much indebted to Pearl King.
Brierley started psychoanalytic training in 1927, the year before her
medical qualification. She already had a first class honours degree in
psychology from University College, and she had had four years’ anal-
ysis, two from Flugel and two from Edward Glover, between 1922 and
1927. She was “passed for practice” and appointed to the House Com-
mittee of the Clinic in 1929, while still in training. She became a full
* International Review of Psychoanalysis (1986) 13, 383–392. Read to the British Psychoana-
lytical Society on 19 February 1986.
69
Member of the Society in 1930, and a training analyst, a control analyst,

and a lecturer to students in 1933.
Between 1932 and 1947, she read thirteen papers to the Society
and published eleven, and thirty-one book reviews and twenty-four
abstracts appear in the International Journal of Psychoanalyis over her
name between 1931 and 1951, which was the year her one book was
published. She also edited one book and assisted in editing another.
By about this time she had left Reading, near London, to live in
Cumberland with her husband, Professor Brierley, who had retired.
Her original publications thereafter were limited to a discussion note in
the Psychoanalytic Forum in 1967 and an article in the fiftieth anniversary
number of the Journal in 1969, but her work for the Journal continued.
She did twenty-six book reviews between 1951 and 1967, and continued
her long-held role as assistant editor until 1978.
She was thus a practising analyst for about twenty years, and for
much of that time played a significant part in Society affairs; but for
about thirty years she operated at a distance, only occasionally visited
by a few colleagues, known by letter only to the editorial staff, and oth-
erwise only by readers of her diminishingly occasional reviews. So why
is she still important?
The first reason, well recognised at the time, was the quiet but sig-
nally effective part she played in helping achieve what resolution there
was, of the agonising conflicts besetting our Society before and during
World War Two. During the 1930’s, anxiety had begun to grow on the
Continent (and here), as it was increasingly recognised that the theo-
retical views being reported in London were differing from those held
in Vienna. This was, of course, mainly because of the influence here
of Melanie Klein, and exchange meetings held between 1935 and 1937
failed to resolve the disagreements. When the British Society opened
its doors to Freud and other analysts from Vienna and Berlin in their
escape from Nazi persecution, they were deeply grateful, but bringing
the disputants together increased awareness of their differences, and led
to much strain and acrimony here. This also related to questions about
the organisation of the Society, because of anxiety on all sides about
what should properly be taught to students, and therefore by whom,
which involved violently debated constitutional questions concerning,
for example, tenures of office. All this led to such strong feelings that
at times the Society seemed liable to split. There were eventually six
important business meetings, between February and June 1942. During
ON MARJORIE BRIERLEY 71
these, she spoke very seldom, but it was Brierley who wrote to Melanie
Klein, and then spoke to the Society, proposing “a temporary armistice”
in the battle that mixed arguments about theory, and about organisa-
tion, with acrimonious personal accusations. During this “armistice”,
everyone should observe “a self-denying ordinance against personal
vendettas”, to permit the expression of all views as long as ordinary
courtesy was observed, so there could be scientific enquiry into the the-
oretical differences. There should be an emergency council to arrange
for the scientific debate. These proposals were greeted with general
approval and accepted, and led on to the “Controversial Discussions”,
to which I will return. (It was not just her idea to hold them, but it was
she who formulated it this way.) Subsequently, as a member of the new
Training Committee that grew out of all these deliberations, Brierley
played an important part in the new arrangements dividing the train-
ing between two groups, so that the Society was able not to split.
As she was one of the progenitors of the British Society as we have
known it for the past forty years, Marjorie Brierley’s influence remains
as part of the warp and woof of our professional lives, but her legacy to
us is not confined to this. Writing with outstanding grace, she left us at
least two important original ideas; and further ones that could become
important in the future. The first was in one short paper. The others
were expanded and developed in a number of her writings.
In that one paper, on “Affects in theory and practice” (1937),
Brierley states that “in practice, we find our way only by following
the Ariadne thread of transference affect” (my italics). I wanted to bor-
row this felicitous phrase for describing her, but it doesn’t really fit,
because what guided Marjorie Brierley was not one thin thread, but
an interwoven “braid” of qualities and talents. There was the curi-
osity, open-mindedness, cool discernment, and prudent coolheaded
impartiality that Riccardo Steiner allots her in his recent (1985) paper
on the Controversial Discussions. There was education in the best
sense, with width of reading in the sciences, literature, philosophy,
history, and current affairs, as well as an impressive grasp of psy-
choanalytic literature; high intelligence, with an admirable ability to
pinpoint essentials; and what I think is an unusual combination. Her
clinical illustrations show her apprehending unconscious processes in
her patients with empathy, intuition, and sensitivity, and her gener-
alisations about our problems in assessing clinical findings, show her
inferring them in herself, with insight and humility. But at the same
time, she tackled issues of psychoanalytic theory with exceptional

intellectual rigour.
Susan Isaacs (1945) wrote of one Brierley paper, “carrying us sev-
eral steps forward in the ordering and linking of different parts of the
theory of psycho-analysis”, but she added that, “the width of ground it
covers and the wealth of detail it embraces might easily be overlooked
because of its highly condensed style”. I’ve quoted this, because it so
well describes the way Brierley wrote. She is not altogether an “easy
read”, because of the bounty of ideas in well-nigh every paragraph,
bringing together so much in the fewest possible words; which has in
fact made it very difficult to try and summarise her main contributions
in one paper. One cannot use less space than she did! But despite this
factor, she is also a pleasure to read, because her precise clarity is given
in a most elegant and fluent style, often with an engaging dry wit.
Brierley’s main scientific interests are expounded in her book, Trends
in Psycho-Analysis (1951). This repeated, modified or expanded all the
articles she had written between 1932 and 1947, with two exceptions.
These were papers (written in 1932 and 1936) on “Problems of integra-
tion of women”, and on “Specific determinants in feminine develop-
ment”. So it seems fair to assume that she herself did not feel that her
contributions to that then topical subject of much theoretical disagree-
ment, were particularly original or significant. But I think they are both
worth reading (and not simply for the places where, implicitly or explic-
itly, she disagrees with Freud). Her comprehensive discussions of the
literature, and the vivid little vignettes from her own practice, produce
an illuminating range of detailed conclusions and suggestions.
Her book, she wrote, “falls naturally into three sections: an intro-
ductory review of theory up to the year 1934, with a supplementary
chapter on affects”; a section dealing with “the work of Melanie Klein
and some issues raised by it”; and a section discussing “the essential
nature of psycho-analytic theory and certain implications from this”.
Actually, this apparent division into three equal parts is misleading, as
the last section is considerably longer than the other two put together.
However, I have chosen (as I had to choose) to focus mainly, first on
aspects of her work on affects, and then, to a greater extent, on some of
her views about the work of Melanie Klein. These include some ideas
about theory, which are elaborated in her next sections. I will spend
some time on them, as being an aspect of her thinking that has, and I
think wrongly, been little regarded.
By contrast, Brierley was accorded a notable place in the history of

the concept, by some of the main speakers on “Affects and the Psycho-
Analytic Situation”, the central theme of the International Congress in
Jerusalem in 1977. This was because of the paper, “Affects in theory
and practice”, published in the International Journal of 1937. Limentani
and King both refer to it in their papers, as an obvious source.
Abrams and Shengold (1978) describe “her wonderful 1937 paper
[which] summed up the psychoanalytic work on affects up to that time,
and contains the germ of so much subsequent thinking”. Brierley’s
stated aim in the paper was to restore affects, which had never lost their
importance in psychoanalytic practice, to their consonant place in the-
ory; because, she wrote, (that) while they had been central to Freud’s
earlier hypotheses, “framed in terms of ideas rendered dynamic by their
emotional charges, the ideo-motor terminology had lapsed into disuse
after Freud’s investigation of the repressed unconscious brought him
up against problems of instinct”. She noted that affects are accepted as
having a peculiarly intimate relation with instinct, and that while ana-
lysts tended to speak of “cathexis of objects” rather than of “emotional
charges of ideas”, they also seemed to tend to regard the two expres-
sions as synonymous, though the relation between instinct and affect
was by no means understood. Affects are essentially ego experiences.
This scholarly work of only twelve pages then proceeded to review and
discuss at depth, all the then important and changing views on affect,
ordering and clarifying each in turn. This included questions of their
variety, of the nature of primary affect, and the relation of fusion of
impulse and variations of affect to objects; and also connexions between
ego development and affect, from the earliest stages, with the ego start-
ing “as a series of sensation-egos, part-body, part-object nuclei”. Ego
differentiation, and internalisations into ego or superego, were also
reviewed, mainly in terms of the probable relevant affective charges
involved, and so on.
In the final section on “The significance of affects for psycho-analytic
technique and therapy”, she stressed that, however else we understand
it, the transference relationship is always affective, and that successful
interpretations of impulse-to-object are always about the affect that is
involved. To do our work we need rapport, which we achieve through
empathy (which is an affective state). We recognise change in analy-
sands by their affect-modifications. If, structurally, we express the proc-
ess of psychoanalytic cure as permanent superego modification, this is
only possible in so far as we enable the analysand to re-feel the feelings

he originally entertained about the objects he has introjected. “We must
have logical theory”, she stated finally, “but we do not work with the-
ory, we work with living impulses and feelings”.
As I see it, the essential originality in this paper was Brierley’s
emphasis on the experience of affect in relating. We now so take this for
granted, that it is hard to recognise the seminal nature of her contri-
bution. In his pre-published overview (1977) for the Congress (of that
year), André Green distinguished Freud’s view on affects as discharge
processes, from views since Freud. These, he felt, focus far more on
the experiences of intra-psychic communication and external relation-
ships: an emphasis he saw as largely stemming from the work of the
English school. Green shows that Brierley was the first of them “to call
the affect-discharge relationship into question”. “It is with Brierley”, he
says, “that affect will find its best advocate”. Her understanding “that
one speaks of object cathexes rather than of affective charge of ideas
underlines the inadequacy of the quantitative standpoint”. In Green’s
view, Brierley “really opened a new era in the understanding of affect”,
and he apparently sees her linking “the construction of primary affects
to their carriers”, as leading directly to Paula Heimann’s demonstration
in 1950, of “the role of countertransference as an affective instrument”.
In point of fact, Brierley did not use the term “countertransference” in
the paper, but her emphasis on the role of the analyst’s affective empa-
thy in understanding the analysand, might indeed be the forerunner
that stimulated the creation of this important clinical concept, which
would surely give Brierley a worthy place in the history of the ideas
we use. The section of Trends in Psycho-Analysis dealing with the work
of Melanie Klein, takes origin in earlier papers and is adumbrated in
Brierley’s contributions to the Controversial Discussions. These were
held in 1943/4, to try and “lift discussion” of the theoretical differences
causing the tension and anguish that I mentioned earlier, “to an objec-
tive and scientific level”. A committee of Edward Glover, Brierley, and
James Strachey organised the programme, and in July 1942, she wrote
a memorandum, proposing that the first question to be answered was
whether “a theory of mental development expressed mainly in terms
of the vicissitudes of infantile object-relationships (is) compatible (or
incompatible, in principle or in detail) with a theory in terms of instinct
vicissitude …” The format was of eleven evenings, discussing four pre-
circulated Kleinian papers (by Susan Isaacs, Paula Heimann, Isaacs and
Heimann, Melanie Klein). According to the minutes, Brierley made five

contributions to the Discussions. I had read a little of hers before, but it
was only when I studied the Discussions for some seminars, that I felt
I came to “know” and appreciate Marjorie Brierley. I’m giving quite
some time to her views on Klein, not because I think them central to
her thinking, as they are only a part of her diverse output, but because
they are the part with which I am most familiar. Most of the points she
made in the Discussions are expanded in her book, but one stringent
and reiterated criticism never reappears in any of her writings, which
is an absence I do not understand. There is nowhere anything to show
that she changed that view, and points ancillary to it were repeated,
suggesting that she did not.
This was her disagreement with the new definition, per se, of
“phantasy”, which was the theme of Susan Isaacs’ first paper. Inter alia,
Isaacs defined “phantasies” as the primary content of unconscious men-
tal processes, and as psychic reality, adding that “hallucinatory wish-
fulfilment” and “primary introjection” are the basis of phantasy life,
that phantasy is the subjective interpretation of experience, and that
phantasies become elaborated into defences, and express the specific
content of an urge, feeling, or defence.
For Brierley, this definition loses the only criterion distinguishing
phantasy “as a specific mode of imaginary gratification”, from other
forms of mental activity. She did not feel that the true value of Klein’s
work was bound up with this definition. One of Isaacs’ reasons for the
new definition was to stress the genetic continuity between the earliest
feeling-relationships of the infant and later thought processes. Brierley
appreciated the cogency of this Isaacs’ argument. She accepted the prin-
ciple of genetic continuity in mental life. “After all”, she said, “it is our
old friend, the law of psychological determinism in modern dress”. But
to her, the new definition over-simplified, and this was at the cost of
obscuring (rather than underlining) the genetic relationship of reality
thinking to primitive experience. I do not know why Brierley did not
include this particular doubt about Kleinian thinking in her book, as
she did with the other issues she raised during the Discussions. I will
now come to some of them.
Brierley sees the “Melanie Klein” section of her book, as being “as
much concerned in advocating a constructive approach to controver-
sial issues, as in examining specific problems”, though these are cer-
tainly not omitted. Writing about how the new views struck some with
the force of an illumination, and how most British analysts probably

found them stimulating and enlightening, she remarks that the “dan-
gers attendant upon enthusiasm appeared to be present, such as the
tendency to premature generalization, selective over-emphasis … and
faulty evaluation of the new in relation to the general pattern of pre-
existing theory”. As an example, she questioned the hypothesis that
aggression is inherently the fons et origo of anxiety, and illuminatingly
outlined an alternative possibility, that self-preservative fear is the basic
origin of anxiety. In true Brierley fashion, she explains that she is not
putting it that this is the case. She is illustrating one of the many “still
unresolved problems of instinct”.
It was again characteristic of Brierley’s approach, for her to start
her section of the book dealing with internal objects, by considering
“subjective difficulties” for us in thinking clearly about them. We have
to recognise that we all use introjection and projection, and frequently
have “a character preference” for one or the other, which must influ-
ence our attitudes to theory. Reception of hypotheses, she said, has
much in common with reception of interpretations. It is well known
that the clinical reversal of projections is harder than undoing repres-
sions, as when the latter happens there is (eventually) usually a phase
of relief of tension, whereas tension may be increased reversing a pro-
jection. In a similar way, it would be far harder to appreciate the “real-
ity” of internalised objects, for people habitually using more projective
mechanisms. Additionally, recognising “internalized objects” as enti-
ties contravenes the normal ego tendency towards synthesis. Brierley
was obviously offering suggestions for dealing with the inflammatory
state of accusation and counter-accusation in the Society, over theory.
She stressed that it is necessary to ban public interpretation of any
analyst’s suspected bias as an illegitimate nuisance, detrimental to
discussion, and wrote that “since the realm of ‘internal objects’ is one
in which … bias is especially prone to distort the thinker’s would-be
objectivity”, the best thing was for all workers to report and pool all
their findings.
Brierley seemed to have solved this problem for herself. Indeed,
this was an area in which she was very positive about the new ideas.
Melanie Klein, she felt, had “greatly enriched our appreciation of the
complexity of the interplay of object-relationships (internal and external,
identificatory and definitive)” which result in the decisive “pattern”
of all later development. With her “repaying vein in the gold mine of
infantile phantasy” and “of object-relations”, “Melanie Klein had made

it impossible for us to ignore the existence of animistic phantasies in
individual development”. Brierley was comfortable with the concept
of an internalised maternal object, which she saw, artificially simpli-
fied, as an unconscious phantasy gratifying the wish to have the mother
constantly present. She saw internalised object phantasies as a special
class of unconscious phantasy, consistent with Freud’s basic concepts
of psychic activity, “and not some strange new phenomenon with no
precedent in psycho-analysis”. In the Controversial Discussions, she
argued against those who dismissed the concept of an internal mater-
nal object, to account for a two-year-old’s retaining some memory of a
long-absent mother, and after outlining her own picture of its devel-
oping, she remarked, “Considering our inveterate anthropomorphism,
I do not find it difficult to conceive that animistic phantasies about
incorporated mothers can find place among these unconscious reaction
patterns”. For Brierley, “dispute centred less on their existence than on
their chronology, developmental significance and provenance”, and she
supposed that it was Klein’s stressing the enduring influence of infantile
experience, and not clearly emphasising the difference between earlier
and later economic situations, that had made some critics accuse her of
“false notions of an unchangeable enclave in the unconscious”. (This,
of course, meant Glover, who kept thundering it forth in great detail in
the Controversial Discussions, and repeated it in his 1945 article on “the
Klein system of child psychology”.)
She also discussed the view that the concept of infantile object relation-
ships attributes undue precocity to infants. She gave a detailed outline
of her assumptions about development from “simple instinctuo-motor
or sensori-motor reactions in tiny infants (‘the baby appears to be his
reactions of the moment’) to the far more intricately organized reactions
of adults”, and agreed that an apparent precocity in accounts of early
life, does come from organised words having to be used to describe
pre-verbal experience; but she puts the other side too. Because of devel-
opmental stratification (e.g., an oral theme may appear in oral-anal
form and then in a genital version), retrospective sophistication tends
to occur whenever there is conscious revival of experiences belonging
to a previous phase. A phantasy in a two-year-old may unmistakably
refer to suckling experiences, but it takes a form corresponding to the
child’s current development. “It should not be taken for granted that it
was present in that form, in the original experiences”.
She also felt that Melanie Klein perhaps failed to appreciate the role
of regression in development, and thus underrated the significance of
the classical Oedipus phase, which seemed ousted in neurosogenesis by
the idea of the “central depressive position”. But she adds that Klein’s
1945 paper (“The Oedipus complex in the light of early anxieties”) was,
in part, a response to this criticism. Formerly, Klein had referred to
the depressive position as “central … in early development”. In that
paper, Klein stated that “the core of infantile depressive feelings, i.e.,
the child’s fear of loss of loved objects, as a consequence of his hatred
and aggression, enters into his object relations and Oedipus complex
from the beginning”. Brierley felt that this revision goes some way to
diminishing the apparent precocity suggested by the earlier statements
(though perhaps “not far enough for every analyst”); as “clearly”, she
noted, “depressive feelings may be experienced long before they can
be formulated in definitive object-relational phantasies such as come to
light in the analysis of older children and adults”.
But Brierley discerned another problem over Melanie Klein’s ideas.
Her thoughts about it have not received much attention, at any rate
not here (i.e., in the BPAS); but I believe they comprise the single most
far-reaching contribution she ever made, and her later thoughts on
the subject went far beyond the Kleinian issue, to general thoughts on
theory. It is a conceptual point that is not always easy to hold on to,
as she herself acknowledges, so perhaps our failure to use it is under-
standable. But I think this is our loss. As Brierley saw it, the conceptual
issue is immediately related to a verbal one, and the relevant section
in the Klein chapter of her book is entitled, “Terminological difficulties
and related problems”. Brierley noted “a general lack of precise defini-
tion” in the way Klein presents her work, which “does not aid clear
thinking”. The word “internal”, for instance, could mean “mental”, or
“imaginary”, or “imagined as being actually inside”. For clarity, “we
must ask Melanie Klein to which type of ‘internal object’ she is referring
in any given instance”. This seems comparatively simple.
But what Brierley saw as a major difficulty “in coming to grips with
Melanie Klein’s views”, is not at all simple. This is that Klein’s “gener-
alizations tend to be expressed in perceptual rather than in conceptual
terms”. She “mixes the language of phantasy with abstract terminology”.
Brierley believed we alternately use “two different modes of thinking”
in our work, and have “two independent aspects of our theory” and
we only too readily confuse them. (She was once shown that she’d
done it herself.) In the consulting room, we understand the individual

personal subjective experience of our analysands by thinking and feel-
ing subjectively with them (by identification). When we theorise, we’re
thinking differently: objectively, in abstract generalisations, metapsy-
chologically; thinking and feeling about the patient. It might help not
to confuse the two if we avoided using the same words for both. When
we interpret, it is in “perceptual” terms, that is, we use personal pro-
nouns and ordinary words to describe what we believe the analysand
has experienced, consciously or unconsciously, and we usually avoid
using words like “ego” and “object”. We should similarly avoid using
the personal words we use in interpretations, for our objective ideas;
they “have no authentic place in general theory”. Brierley quotes a let-
ter from James Strachey, to illustrate that the issue is more than a matter
of words. A phrase like “stability of the ego” is not just the theoretical
translation of the consulting room experience of someone having the
feeling of “safety of the self”. It is also a scientific description of the
mental organisation involved in such a subjective experience. Strachey
proposes two different scientific accounts of the perceptual experience
of a patient “feeling he is falling to pieces”. If he is a schizophrenic, the
scientific account might be that “the stability of his ego is threatened”.
If he is an hysteric, the scientific account might be that “his ego stabil-
ity is not seriously threatened, despite his feelings …” A failure, says
Strachey, to distinguish the patient’s account in “perceptual” language
and the objective account in “scientific” language, is not just a linguistic
mistake. It “may result in capital confusions or errors in our view of the
real events”.
To return to Melanie Klein: when she says that a child has a phan-
tasy of persons or things literally inside its body, this is a subjective
description of the child’s (distorted) perception. To describe this
objectively, it would be formally correct to say that the “child’s ego
has introjected the object”, but it would be incorrect to add that “the
ego feels distressed” about this”. (“Ego” refers to a concept, not to
a subject.) This issue occurs with the phrase “whole object”. Klein
uses it to distinguish the “person-object” from an “organ- or part-
object”. But she also uses it to mean “undamaged or intact”, as dis-
tinct from the object which the anxious child feels to be in pieces.
Brierley fully accepts that Melanie Klein’s particular genius, to quote
Susan Isaacs, “is that she appreciates that the child’s experience is in
terms of sensation, feeling, perception …” She agrees that Klein “has
a quite exceptional gift for unearthing the ramifications of phantasy”,

but adds “for bringing to light material, from which theoretical infer-
ences could be drawn”. The material, and the inferences, are not the
same thing. “The detailed sequence of the child’s actual experiences is
something different in kind from any generalization about experience.”
She illustrates this with an analogy: that the countryside is different in
kind from the map of it. Maps are drawn according to necessary rules
and conventions. Likewise, there are conventions for theory, of logi-
cal conceptual thinking. If you mix the two—the countryside with the
map, actual experience with conceptual generalisations about it—you
get an impasse due to mixed thinking. It is quite possible to have a
phantasy of a dismembered person, but it is not possible to conceive
of a “mental object” being shattered. “You cannot take a hammer to a
mental object”, she insists; of course meaning that thinking you can is
a confusion of categories.
Was Brierley right to so insist on distinguishing between subjective
clinical theory, and metapsychology? There have been authors of simi-
lar mind. Sandler and Dare (1970), for instance, surely refer to much
the same thing, when they write of “the failure to distinguish between
descriptive and explanatory concepts” leading to “much confusion in
psycho-analysis”. But as Brierley said, there are some who question
whether we actually need to pursue objective knowledge, metapsy-
chology, seeing that our clinical work is so fully based on subjective
theory. She herself was in no doubt. As she said in the Controversial
Discussions, “we also need to be able to define mental mechanisms
objectively, as specific mental processes giving rise to specific modifica-
tions”. “If Freud had confined himself to the subjective approach”, she
said, “he might never have arrived at the concept of the Unconscious
as a psychic system, and could never have written ‘The Ego and the
Id’”; and, likewise, “we should never have understood the dynamic
effects of repressed memories, if Freud had not first provided us with
the objective concept of repression, as an explanation of the phenom-
ena of resistance”. “Indeed”, she remarks, “if we persist in equating
mental functions with our subjective interpretations of them, which is
comparable to limiting our knowledge of the outer world to percep-
tual knowledge, we forfeit our claim to be scientists and revert to the
primitive state of the Chinese peasant who interprets an eclipse as the
sun being swallowed by a dragon. His subjective logic is unanswerable,
but his explanation is erroneous.” As psychoanalysis lacks “the more
error-proof methods of verifying inferences” that are available to the

physical scientists, “it is imperative for us to aim at clear thinking about
mental function”. One way she suggests in her book, is to try and assess
new clinical hypotheses by seeing if they can be translated into meta-
psychological terms; not that this would prove an hypothesis right, but
we might “view with suspicion (one) that is completely refractory to
this”.
Brierley greatly extended her views about her two independent
aspects of psychoanalytic theory. I can give only a point or two from
the many ramifications of her thoughts about each. An incisive dis-
sertation showing links between pleasure/pain, object-relationships,
cognition and reality-adaptation in a discussion of scientific research
(“reality-testing of a high order”) led on to her belief that metapsychol-
ogy belongs to Process Theory, the then modern movement of scientific
thought, which was “a movement away from analysing into things and
towards analysing into processes”. To see metapsychology as dealing
with abstract generalisations about processes and integration, would
not modify the content of our theory, but it would, she thought, be a
useful aid in “assessing new contributions for balance or extremism”,
and would also “place” our theory in the scientific universe of dis-
course. Public relations were another of Brierley’s interests.
Regarding subjective theory, she saw it as a body of knowledge in
its own right, to be recognised as a separate branch of theory (distinct
from metapsychology). She borrowed the name for the study of sub-
jective personal development, from J. C. Smuts, whom she quotes.
“The procedure of psychology is largely and necessarily analytical
and cannot therefore do justice to Personality in its unique whole-
ness. For this a new discipline is required … called ‘Personology’.”
Metapsychology and personology are of course related; for example,
metapsychology supplies the general laws, and personology their
application. Brierley’s discussion of the nature and scope of personol-
ogy spans, inter alia, motivation, organisation, experience, relation-
ships, and integration, concluding that neo-realistic humanism is
implicit in psychoanalysis.
I can do no more than just mention the long last section of her book.
Entitled “Psychoanalysis and integrative living”, it discusses person-
ality types, methods of integration including religion and ethics, val-
ues, power control, and many other related issues. It was a revised
and expanded version of a 1947 paper dedicated to Ella Sharpe, “who
wanted this paper to be written”. It is a wide-ranging, very thoughtful

application of psychoanalytic understanding, to many agonising issues
of the relation between life affairs—the psychosocial—and personality
organisation, particularly as perceived in the immediate post-war
years. Many of the details are different today, but colleagues currently
showing interest in current affairs by working as “Psychoanalysts
Against Nuclear War”, might find many pointers to interest them in
this treatise.
In 1969, Brierley’s last paper was published. Entitled “Hardy peren-
nials and psycho-analysis”, it gives her overview of “constant or recur-
ring difficulties that beset psychoanalysis”, in conjunction with “the
changing fashions in new ideas”. I select two little points. Among the
new ideas quoted, were the works of Fairbairn and Guntrip “emphasiz-
ing personal relations … to the point of rejecting instinct theory in toto”,
and the somewhat “intellectual” ego psychology of Hartmann. Con-
fessing to finding a bewildering contrast between them, she did still
find one thing they have in common. This was a “potentially dangerous
tendency to exalt the ego”, “offering balm to the human pride so badly
wounded” by Freud’s findings.
I bring the other point because I personally found it so apposite.
Among “Hardy perennials” causing us difficulty were “problems of
terminology caused by original minds expressing themselves in their
own preferred terms”; and her “example”, in this country, was Bion.
Now, I am one of those who does not always find it easy to understand
Bion’s use of words, and I had been enchanted at benefiting from that
most attractive talent of Brierley’s, of being able to reformulate new
ideas in terms of more familiar concepts. It was only after I had read the
discussion between her and Bion about his paper “Notes on memory
and desire” (1967) that it dawned on me what Bion meant by the words
“memory” and “desire”!
How to conclude? It is so difficult to summarise without offering an
absurdly unbalanced image of this remarkable thinker. She had high
intelligence, clarity, erudition, breadth of view, theoretical ability with
creativeness, intellectual honesty, ability to discern where she agreed
and where disagreed, apparently without giving offence … the list goes
on and on … I am very aware of how little I have done justice to the
contributions of Marjorie Brierley. All I can hope for, is that this effort
will have brought her some new readers.
Summary
Although this paper was written so that the contributions of the late
Dr. Marjorie Brierley should not be forgotten, they could by no means
all be covered. Most are referred to, but more attention is given to her
work for the British Society, her seminal paper on affects, and to some
of her views about the work of Melanie Klein. Particular emphasis is
given to her important ideas clarifying the distinction between clinical
and abstract thinking, with mention of her wide-ranging further elab-
orations of what she saw as two separate branches of psychoanalytic
theory. Qualities including her personal and administrative talents, her
exceptional intellectual rigour, her breadth of knowledge and under-
standing, and the elegance, fluency, and dry wit of her writing, are all
saluted.
CHAPTER SIX
What do we mean by “phantasy”?*
P
“ hantasy”1 is a term in constant use in psychoanalysis, both in
descriptions of clinical practice and in discussions of theory.
Although it is quite often used loosely, to denote either conscious
imaginings or anything unconscious not in accord with our rational
assessment of facts, those using the word seriously usually do so as
if in no doubt that their listeners or readers will understand the word
exactly as it is meant.
However, this assumption may well not be justified, as the word
“phantasy” can mean different things to different psychoanalytic
thinkers. This chapter considers some of the differences between the
notion of “phantasy” as held by Melanie Klein and those abiding by
her theoretical models, and the notion as held by what are sometimes
called “the more orthodox psychoanalytic thinkers”. These differences
were first clearly aired during the “Controversial Discussions”, which
were conducted by the British Psychoanalytical Society during the war,
and much of what is to follow is a highly abbreviated and incomplete
selection from the minutes of those Discussions.
* International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 1989, pp. 105–114.

85
To start with a word about the historical background. It is probably

quite well known that Melanie Klein moved to London from Berlin
in 1926. She was welcomed by the British Psychoanalytical Society,
to quite an extent because the new psychoanalytic ideas she was pro-
ducing from her work with children had similarities with new ideas
being developed in London, especially by Ernest Jones, President of
the British Society. Klein’s new ideas flourished here—so much so that
by the nineteen-thirties, disquiet was increasingly felt at their growing
differences from theories propounded by Freud. Some exchange lec-
tures were arranged between about 1934 and 1937, with Jones and Joan
Riviere from London giving papers to the Vienna Psycho-Analytical
Society, and Robert Waelder from Vienna giving papers to the British
Society, but these efforts did nothing to achieve the mutual understand-
ing that was hoped for.
When Hitler entered Austria in 1938, Jones went to enormous and
arduous lengths to arrange for Freud and his family and colleagues to
move to England, and they were deeply grateful, not just for the res-
cue, but also for being welcomed as colleagues by the British Society,
which accorded them full recognition of their status as psychoanalysts,
so that they could practise and teach in London as they had been doing
in Vienna. But heartfelt appreciation could not and did not lead the new
arrivals to abandon their own views and slavishly adopt those of some
of their hosts, and there were others here who partly or totally disagreed
with Klein. Edward Glover, for example, had originally welcomed and
used her ideas, but he had become strongly opposed to them as early as
1934. When the differing ideas were being propounded within the one
Psychoanalytical Society rather than across the Continent, they caused
considerable worry, and particularly about the teaching programmes,
as the differing views were strongly held. One outcome of much delib-
eration as to what should be done about it was the decision to hold the
“Controversial Discussions”, to try and clarify the differences between
the two schools of thought and to see whether Klein’s views were
compatible or incompatible with Freud’s, whether they were valid or
important or necessary … .
The Discussions took up eleven full meetings in 1943 and 1944. Four
Kleinian papers were pre-circulated and taken as read, and the first of
these, by Susan Isaacs, was “The nature and function of phantasy”.
Given largely to explain, illustrate, and justify the then new
Kleinian definition of phantasy, Isaacs’ paper is regarded by Kleinians
W H AT D O W E M E A N B Y “ P H A N TA S Y ” ? 87
as the classic exposition of this notion. I will come to her definition in

a moment, but I will first indicate what was mainly Freud’s view of
“phantasy”.
For this, I borrow from Sandler and Nagera (1963). Inter alia, they
conclude that Freud saw phantasising as an ego function, producing
organised wish-fulfilling imaginative content in the effort to attain the
fulfilment of an unsatisfied wish through the creation of an imagined
wish-fulfilment. This can be conscious or repressed. That this view was
still extant, is shown, for example, by the 1967 definition of phantasy (or
fantasy) of Laplanche and Pontalis: “an imaginary scene in which the
subject is a protagonist, representing the fulfilment of a wish (in the last
analysis, an unconscious wish) in a manner that is distorted to a greater
or lesser extent by defensive processes”.
This notion of phantasy, as imaginatively fulfilling frustrated wishes,
is surely adhered to by all psychoanalysts, including Klein. Where Klein
differed was in extending the notion, in ways which make it sound very
different. I will show some of the differences by selecting a very small
number of quotations from the Discussions, and although they will
not at all reflect the order in which things were said, I will state who
said what, and what seemed to have been Isaacs’ responses. (She her-
self was most impressively coherent and scholarly, but it is not always
absolutely clear which point by whom she was dealing with in her two
long answers.)
The “classic” view of phantasy is noted above. For the Kleinian view,
some facets of Isaacs’ new, widened Kleinian definition will now be
given. In summary, this included seeing “phantasy” as:
a. mainly unconscious, the primary content of unconscious mental

processes;
b. the mental representative and corollary of instinctual urges, which
cannot operate in the mind without phantasy;
c. based on (or identical with) Freud’s postulated hallucinatory wish
fulfilment, and his primary introjection;
d. becoming elaborated, early on, into defences, as well as wish-
fulfilments and anxiety contents.
This widening of Freud’s notion apparently served the double pur-

pose of establishing phantasy as existing much earlier (and thus quali-
tatively different) than had hitherto been accepted, and of extending
its function. There was much argument over both of these, sometimes
about how various phenomena were to be understood, sometimes over
interpretations of theory.
I will start with some of the arguments over the timing of when
phantasy begins. No one doubted that the new-born immediately has
instinctual cravings to suck. If phantasy is “the mental representative
and corollary of instinct”, then he also immediately has phantasies. In
her paper, Isaacs gave many illustrations of, for example, the infant’s
hungry desires being experienced, that is phantasised, as things like,
“I want to suck the nipple, eat her up, keep her inside me, tear her to
bits, drown and burn her …” and so on. She also stressed that these
were sensorial happenings, certainly not experienced in such clear
definitive verbalisable ways. These “urgent sensations … are the matrix
from which distinguishable … images and feelings gradually emerge …
phantasy and image are inherent in sensations and grow out of them”.
There were a number of speakers who did not fully agree with
Klein, who did go along with the notion of extremely early experience
somewhat of this sort. For example, Ella Sharpe greatly applauding
Klein “for enriching us with details of infantile phantasy”, spoke of
the earliest stages as being “without imagery”. Sylvia Payne, similarly
appreciative, felt that the “archaic modes of expression” of conversion
symptoms were evidence supporting the idea that “before words, feel-
ings must be expressed in physical reactions”. What worried them, as
I will note later, was that the definition did not sufficiently distinguish
these experiences from the more sophisticated phantasy.
There were also, of course, those who totally disagreed with Isaacs,
and I will illustrate this with some points made against her defining
phantasy as “based on Freud’s primary introjection”. They concern the
fact that those postulated infantile instinctual phantasies were also seen
as phantasies of internal part-object relationship with the breast. The
satisfied infant feels he has taken the good breast inside, while if hun-
ger rages unabated, he feels he has a bad attacking breast inside and
wants to get rid of it. (I will return later to a theoretical corollary of
this thesis, i.e., that the phantasy of “taking the breast in”, modelled
on the act of physical ingestion, was felt to parallel or bring about the
primitive mental process of introjection, and that urges to get rid of,
modelled on physical expulsion, were felt to parallel or bring about the
mental process of projection.) For the present, I am focusing on some
arguments made against the Klein/Isaacs view of early object relations,
and of early opposing introjective and projective phantasies seen as the

elements of intense early anxiety and conflict, which soon involve guilty
feelings and remorse over destructive phantasy-impulses felt towards
what is becoming recognised as the enormously loved mother.
Anna Freud was one of those who strongly contested this view of
the infant, with, as she said, loves, hates, wishes to dismember, and
guilty and reparative urges—all towards the mother. She believed that
there is a narcissistic and autoerotic phase of several months’ duration
preceding object relationships and phantasies about them. In this view,
the tiny infant is concerned only with the experience of well-being, or its
opposite. The mother is certainly essential, as the instrument supplying
care and satisfaction, but the baby does not “know” this. It would accept
nourishment from anyone supplying it in exactly the same way as the
mother. It was put to Anna Freud that babies often refuse the bottle
from a stranger. She did not contest this, but felt that what the baby was
reacting to was a change in atmosphere. It was not distinguishing the
two people, because it had not yet developed the capacity to recognise
and relate to the mother as a separate specific “object” or part-object.
It is only after some months that the love for the recognisable mother
gradually begins to develop, until the point at which the baby might
miss and want the mother herself more than the gratification per se.
Isaacs felt that Anna Freud ignored the evidence of early object rela-
tions because of her preconceptions. She referred Anna Freud back to
a book she had written with Dorothy Burlingham. This was a report
on their “War Nurseries”, where they had cared for infants and tod-
dlers away from their parents, who lived in parts of London that were
being bombed. In it, they had written of a baby’s “ardent desires” for
a mother who had been absent when the child was aged from ten to
twenty-two months. When child and mother were reunited, the child
turned away from the mother, because of what had gone wrong with
“the mother-image (in) the child’s mind” during the absence. To Isaacs,
that clearly presupposed an intense feeling for the object at ten months,
with intense phantasies about her.
What was not in dispute was whether a young child can have strong
feelings and carry a memory for a long time. What was in dispute was
whether the memory, including memory traces from much earlier than
ten months, automatically meant that an internal object relationship
based on phantasy was the source or cause of the retained memory.
When the tiny infant behaves as if it recognises and remembers mother’s
breast (the sight, the smell, the feel), does it do so because it has an
object relationship, including phantasy, with mother or her breast? And
there is still disagreement over this point
Of course, to the observer, the nuzzling, urgently feeding infant is
obviously relating to what the observer knows is an “object”, a distinct
person, separate from the baby. But not everyone would agree that the
baby “knows” this. Many psychoanalysts would more or less go along
with the point Freud made, in 1938, when he wrote that “there is no
doubt that, to begin with, the child does not distinguish between the
breast and its own body”. On this view, it cannot relate initially to the
breast as to an object (or part-object) but relates to it “narcissistically”.
It takes time before an infant develops enough recognition of the world
and reality and how things are, to begin to think and feel “this is me,
and that isn’t”.
So there were two views: the Kleinian, more or less supported by
Sharpe, Payne, Brierley, and others, that tiny infants have the powerful
experiences they dubbed “phantasy”: not verbal, but full of meaning,
to do with oral cannibalistic urges and relationship to the object. The
other view was that the tiny infant experiences only well-being or its
opposite, and so does not have phantasies.
As there was disagreement over whether the earliest phantasies exist,
there was also disagreement over the Kleinian idea of their immediately
being in conflict and soon arousing feelings of guilt and remorse. Isaacs
described the observed responses that “were typical” of babies in the
first year-relationships: skills, play and so on. She concluded that the
degree of integration in his perception and memory of persons makes
it “probable” that by his second half-year, the baby is “becoming alive
to his own conflict of feelings of love and hate, dependence, desire and
fear. It is possible to discern the beginnings of this from five months,
when he shows hostility to strangers”.
And again, of course, Anna Freud disagreed. She noted many rea-
sons for disliking the new definition of phantasy, including that it
changed the specific content of “Freud’s unconscious”. One of the
changes was that it put “ the synthetic function” too early, that is, the
synthesis of conflict, so that the infant experiences conflicting feelings.
In her view, from the first year onwards, babies begin to “correlate”
urges with memories of external prohibition, but this does not cause
an inner conflict. It means that they might remember things they have
been scolded for and show discomfort about doing them in mother’s
presence. This state will continue in the second year, when they may
certainly exhibit contrasting feelings of love and hate, but these will
not be felt as a conflict. The Kleinian view was that the toddler who
is loving after having been naughty, is trying to make reparation for
the naughtiness because of inner conflict and guilty feelings about it.
Thus, the sixteen-month-old who played at feeding her parents brown
knobs off the furniture, was trying to make up for all the bad feelings
and conflict she had had over being encopretic and eating her faeces a
few months earlier. But to Anna Freud, the toddler who is naughty and
loving in turn is experiencing these different, ambivalent feelings one
after the other, somewhat in the way that Freud described contradic-
tory urges existing without contradiction in the unconscious. The child
does not feel them together and does not feel guilty about them. It is
only with oedipal and post-oedipal development that the urge meets an
inner prohibition, so that in mother’s absence the child will either desist
or feel guilty if it does the wrong thing.
Isaacs could not agree with this. She felt there was always some inner
conflict over instinctual urges. There were many recorded observations,
she said, of conflicts of feelings, of anxiety and guilt, showing in things
such as feeding difficulties, temper tantrums, head-knockings and
sleep disturbances, during the second year and often earlier. Of course,
no one could doubt that these things do often happen, and that a very
young child can seem very anxious, but not everyone could agree that
they are signs of inner conflict and guilt. Isaacs drew again on Anna
Freud’s own writings, feeling that the behaviour she had reported of
children in those War Nurseries supported the view that “synthesis of
instinctual life” (conflict and guilt) began much earlier than Anna Freud
allowed for. She had written of children in their second year being strict
and cruel with each other, when, for example, trying to habit-train each
other. Isaacs was sure they had not been treated cruelly by the adults,
and were copying them, and she was sure that their behaviour was the
expression of an early and severe superego.
So, the disagreements over seeing phantasy as the mental represent-
ative and corollary of instinct and as based on Freud’s primary intro-
jection, were discussed in terms of the application of these theoretical
points, that is, whether or not earliest phantasies do exist, and whether
or not infants (and even toddlers) experience inner conflict and guilt.
It should be noted that when people differed over this, it was because
of their different interpretations of the same observations. This was
very clear when speakers tried to sort out what could or could not be
regarded as satisfactory evidence for the proposed earliest phantasies.
Waelder had brought up the question long before the Discussions, in
his 1937 “exchange-visit” paper. He had noted that cannibalistic phan-
tasies can certainly be reported by children aged three to four, but he
said there was no way of ascertaining whether those phantasies had
existed in their earliest months, which had led Isaacs to think the Vienna
group did not believe any phantasy existed before age three to four.
Waelder, rather imprecisely, had attributed cannibalistic phantasies
at three or four to “fixation and regression”. Ernest Jones challenged
this. It passed his comprehension, he said, that a three- or four-year-
old should suddenly be seized, for the first time, with the desire to eat
breasts. Ascribing it to regression meant nothing at all to him, unless it
meant a reanimation of corresponding oral phantasies at the age, say,
of six months. (It would not greatly affect the point Jones was making
that, from the Kleinian view, “six months” would be quite an advanced
timing for early phantasy.)
Isaacs’ main source of “evidence for infantile phantasies” was the
clinical material gained in psychoanalysis of little children, especially
ones aged two to three. Unconscious oral-cannibalistic phantasies inter-
preted then were held to be evidence of their having existed in that
form during the earliest oral phase, and she referred people to Klein’s
writings for evidence of this.
She also felt that “behaviourist data” acted as confirmation, and
that the observed behaviour of the infant or child of up to twenty-four
months gave insight to his inner life, acting as a check “on our analytic
inferences”. For example, “it seems likely … that in his first year, the
child wishes to control … the behaviour of … the adults … because
of his dependence, desire, love, hate … [etc.] When he cannot control
them by screaming he vents his phantasies … with his playthings”. For
example, “he separates things, he hides things, he gets rid of them, or
breaks them. He gets pleasure from sucking or handling them”. In her
account, Isaacs went straight on to say that “in the symbolic language of
his play, he restores the nipple to his mouth, brings back the lost mother
or sends her away, separates her from father …”.
This “confirmatory” evidence met quite a bit of resistance, as far as
I could work out from what people said, and I think would have been
one of the subjects of objection made by Edward Glover, Isaacs’ most
vociferous critic.
He accused her of circular thought: she “thinks her theories prove the
validity of her interpretations that are based on those theories!” (That
is, she interpreted the child’s play in terms of Kleinian theory, then took
those interpretations as validating that theory.)
Anna Freud had another criticism of the validity of the early phanta-
sies Isaacs was ascribing to babies. A few times Isaacs had spoken of the
phantasies “that were found” in the clinical material of young children,
but, said Anna Freud, such phantasies are not found, they are inferred
from the play and conscious productions of the child. The inference that
phantasies involving guilt and reparation existed in infancy, would be
made only by analysts who believed—as she and her group did not—in
early synthesis of conflict. Isaacs agreed that all phantasies are inferred,
and also agreed, perhaps sadly, that inferences would indeed depend
on the theoretical preferences of the inferrer!
One justification for retrospectively inferring babyhood phanta-
sies from material of early childhood was that Freud had analogously
inferred childhood phantasy from the material of adult analyses. This
was also called into question. Melitta Schmideberg said that Freud’s
conclusions were largely based on actual recollections of his adult
patients. By contrast, children have no direct memories of infancy, and
analysts’ reconstructions of that period—their inference—were only
very interesting speculations.
Marjorie Brierley also questioned the validity of this sort of retro-
spective inference. Isaacs had pointed to the problem arising from the
fact that, as we have to use words to describe preverbal experiences, this
makes them sound more sophisticated than is intended in the descrip-
tion. Brierley agreed that, for this reason, early phantasies might sound
too precocious. It might be true, she said, that “a phantasy which can
be demonstrated in a child of two, may have unmistakable reference to
suckling or weaning experiences, and may in fact revive such experi-
ences”. But in the two-year-old, editing or retrospective sophistication
tends to occur, and his phantasy may have a form corresponding to
his current development rather than to the earliest one. “It need not be
taken for granted that it was present in that form during the original
experience”.
So, differences over seeing phantasy as “the mental representative of
instinct” and as “based on Freud’s primary introjection” were argued
from the point of view of evidence. And opposing interpretations of
observed or inferred evidence seemed only to confirm the opposing
views. In a similar way, there were opposing interpretations of items of

abstract theory, and one argument concerned defining phantasy as “the
primary content of unconscious mental processes” and as “based on
Freud’s postulated hallucinatory wish-fulfilment”.
The postulate of hallucinatory wish-fulfilment refers, of course, to a
presumed very primitive mode of gratification. If something is desired
it is temporarily felt to be there, even if it really is not. An example
might be the hungry infant who stops crying and sucks its lips, and
one postulates that it is momentarily hallucinating a satisfying feed. In
Freud’s terms, as I will show, the infant cannot yet phantasise, so in his
view this is not phantasising, and Edward Glover maintained that say-
ing it was, “confused larval origins with organized phantasy proper”.
He also said that calling it “primary”, “neglected the reality underlying
memory traces”. Freud’s sequence, he said, was “frustration leading to
tension-reducing images (hallucinations) derived from memory traces
of pleasure …” (The baby can hallucinate a feed, because he has some
memory of previous satisfying ones.) Consequently, said Glover, hal-
lucinatory wish fulfilment is a frustration product, secondary to reality
recognition, and thus cannot be “the primary content of unconscious
mental processes”.
To refute this, Isaacs quoted Freud’s notion of primary process: the
earliest, most primitive mental process, which continues to operate in
unconscious mental life. It is governed by the pleasure principle, sim-
ply seeking gratification without recognising any reality, and it oper-
ates in hallucinatory wish-fulfilment. Secondary process, which does
recognise reality, develops later. Consequently, to Isaacs, hallucinatory
wish-fulfilment could not be “secondary”, and discussing this she used
the terms “hallucinatory wish-fulfilment” and “phantasy” interchange-
ably, as if they meant identical things.
But the Freud paper she quoted (Freud, 1911) was actually one that
showed that he did not see phantasy as occurring in the earliest period,
and certainly viewed hallucinatory wish-fulfilment and phantasy as
far from identical. When Freud described “the momentous step” of the
emergence of secondary process, he noted a range of new psychical
adaptations that this involved. They included consciousness, attention,
judgement, action, thinking … and phantasising. “With the introduction
of the reality principle”, he wrote, “one species of thought activity was
split off. It was kept from reality-testing, and remained subordinated
to the pleasure principle. This activity is phantasying, which begins
already in children’s play, and later continues as daydreaming …”

(Freud, 1911, p. 222). So, in his view, phantasising is a much more com-
plex and developed process than hallucinatory wish-fulfilment, and
this applies to repressed unconscious phantasy as well as to conscious
phantasy.
So here are some theoretical differences about the notion of “phan-
tasy”; whether or not it is identical or near-identical with hallucinatory
wish-fulfilment, and whether it is or is not primary mental content.
As can be seen, there were also differences over the interpretations of
Freud’s writings! Isaacs, indeed, acknowledged several times that the
views she derived from Freud were not in fact stated by Freud. Freud
“never said” (she said) that the mental expression of instinctual urges
is the same thing as phantasy; “he does not say that the infant phanta-
sizes”, nor did he describe “primary introjection as unconscious phan-
tasy”. But she explained that she could not conceive of these processes,
other than as operating through unconscious phantasy.
To recapitulate so far. I have mainly described the two opposing
views: the Klein-Isaacs one of “early phantasy”, and views of people
such as Anna Freud and Glover, who totally disagreed with the defini-
tion and Klein’s views, and so disagreed that tiny infants have the pri-
mordial experiences Isaacs described as “phantasy”. There was also the
third body of opinion, held by people like Payne, Sharpe, and Brierley
and others, who accepted that infants probably do soon have experi-
ences somewhat of the sort Isaacs had described, but who had other
qualms over the definition. Sharpe and Payne did describe those early
experiences as “phantasy”, but they nonetheless thought that they so
differed from “phantasy in the usual sense”, that a clearer distinction
should be made. Sharpe put it that phantasies belonging to the classical
oedipal stage involved, inter alia, the recognition of reality, the defence
of repression and “Freud’s superego” which was susceptible to psycho-
analytic change: none of which applied to the earliest stages.
Isaacs accepted these differences, but she still wanted to keep the
word “phantasy” for all levels, and this was in order to stress the genetic
continuity between the earliest and the latest. The others acknowledged
genetic continuity: “it is our old friend, the law of psychological deter-
minism in modern dress”, said Brierley; “but”, said Payne, “we don’t
call a foetus ‘a man’”; but Isaacs would not concede.
So this was a different area of dispute: not over the existence of the
earliest “phantasy” experiences, but over whether they sufficiently
resembled “ordinary” phantasies, to be appropriately defined by the

same term. Unlike arguments over what infants do or do not experi-
ence, some questions over how to conceptualise that experience were
being approached. This brings me to my last and difficult section, on
conceptual disagreements.
I start with an objection made by Marjorie Brierley. She much valued
Melanie Klein’s discovery of the child’s inner world of object relation-
ships, but she felt that the definition was not only unnecessary for this;
it also ignored important distinctions. For example, it did not distin-
guish between real and imagined gratification, or between phantasy
and thinking.
Isaacs agreed that phantasy was not the same as thinking, but she
apparently felt that what she saw as their interdependence was more
significant. She not only believed that reality thinking could not operate
without unconscious phantasy; she also believed that thinking derived
from unconscious phantasy. This was because Freud (1925) ultimately
derived judgement and thinking from “the interplay of instinctual
forces”. (The first judgement the hungry infant makes is whether some-
thing is nice and to be eaten or nasty and to be spat out, and these hap-
penings are powered by the oral instinctual urge.) Of course, Freud did
not align instinct and phantasy, but Isaacs did, and she used Freud’s
deriving thinking from instinct to justify deriving it from phantasy. This
seemed to imply that it did not therefore matter that her definition did
not allow thinking and phantasy to be clearly distinguished. “Phan-
tasy” seemed to be losing its specificity of meaning (i.e., imaginary grat-
ification), and becoming generalised to include other, different classes
of mental event, and thereby it seemed to treat them all as if they were
identical. This, too, was criticized in the Discussions.
Anna Freud complained that Isaacs’ definition “obscures the singu-
larity of instinct derivatives” by grouping together all mental processes
(like perception, wishing, thinking, remembering, reality-testing, etc.,
together with phantasising)—grouping them all together as “phan-
tasy”. Glover made an analogous point when he said that Isaacs con-
fused images, ideational representatives, instinct presentations, reality
thinking, memory, and phantasy. Isaacs’ reply was that she knew of no
evidence to distinguish these in the earliest phases.
Anna Freud and Glover were surely speaking of definably differ-
ent mental processes. Isaacs’ answer surely belonged to the different
observational field—what a baby can be assumed to be experiencing
at any moment. Was she, then, confusing the two? That is, confusing
the subjective and the objective—on the one hand, what can be known
or inferred to be the subject’s conscious or unconscious experience,
and on the other hand, the objective concepts of mental functioning
devised to explain the subjective experiences? Or was she saying that
although activities such as perceiving, remembering or wishing etc. are
obviously different and distinguishable later, the fact that they might
be thought to emerge from a unitary inchoate state, means they can be
defined under one head?
I will say just a word about this second possibility later. Regarding
distinguishing the subjective from the objective, Isaacs did clearly dis-
tinguish subjective mental content, for example, the infant’s phantasy
of incorporating the breast, from objective theory of process such as
the mental function of introjection; but, as I indicated earlier, she felt
that the phantasy led to the function of introjection. The phantasy of
incorporation was thus not just the mental representative of the urge
to incorporate, it was also the source and cause of the mental function
of introjection; so Foulkes, in the Discussions, could call Isaacs’ phan-
tasies “primary motors, lords in their own right, directing energies”.
When Isaacs described a child phantasising that he had dismembered
his mother, with his mental life becoming split and disintegrated so that
he became anxious, confused, and behaved chaotically, she specified
that it was not that his mental life became disintegrated and that he
then interpreted this as having dismembered his mother, but that it was
because he wanted and imagined dismembering her, that this happened.
The phantasy operated functionally.
So Isaacs was treating the subjective content of phantasy and objec-
tive mental function (or dysfunction) as if they were of the same cat-
egory, or as if only phantasy counted.
Now, no psychoanalyst would argue against the clinical emphasis
on subjective mental content. We do not usually tell our patients our
theories about their mental mechanisms. We interpret what we think are
their unconscious phantasies and confliicts, and Melanie Klein contrib-
uted enormously with her new insights into the clinical phenomena
of primitive unconscious phantasy. But we ordinarily have a general
model at the back of our minds, of the mental functions that we pos-
tulate as the operative mental processes “behind” the phantasies, like
mechanisms of regression or projection, defending against an uncon-
scious urge to attack. Kleinian thinkers would certainly also accept that
there are functional mechanisms like repression or projection that are

“related” to unconscious phantasies, but their emphasis on phantasy
can lead to their seeing phantasies themselves as the defence mecha-
nisms, as when a manic phantasy is described as “defending against a
depressive phantasy” (Segal, 1973, 1981).
So, in these terms, phantasies do more than gratify imaginatively.
This aspect partly appeared in the definition, which stated that phan-
tasies “soon become elaborated into defences and anxiety contents, as
well as wish-fulfilments”.
Thus concentration on Klein’s valuable clinical discoveries seems to
have led to objective views about mental process, which can be gener-
alised, being expressed in the individual subjective language of phan-
tasy (as Marjorie Brierley put it). This seems to have slid into the much
contested view that the new definition of “phantasy” could properly
include various mental functions, perhaps on the grounds that they are
all indistinguishable in infancy. So, as well as disagreements over the
timing and nature of phantasy, there was also dispute over the validity
of the new theoretical conceptualisations of it.
I have tried to show some of the arguments of all those years ago,
for and against extending the meaning of phantasy: whether the term
should only denote “imagined gratification of frustrated desires”, or
whether it should additionally refer to unorganised primitive experi-
ence, and also to other mental functions. My illustrations have included
disagreements over assumptions about the earliest experiences, about
justifications and evidence for those assumptions, about interpretations
of psychoanalytic theory, and about how best to conceptualise psycho-
analytic ideas. There were thus many exciting and difficult points of
dispute then.
Some colleagues might no longer find them significant, but there are
others who believe that important divergencies have been “repressed”,
perhaps from fear of rearousing the agonising antipathies (that I have
not described) that were felt by some of the contestants. I suggest that
an unresolved controversy that is little noticed concerns the question of
what we mean by the term “phantasy”; that is, how we define and use
it (which was how Isaacs presented her ideas). There seems a wide ten-
dency, with this question unnoticed, to use the word indeterminately
to refer to just about any assumed unconscious happening or process.
It does simplify to include so much under one umbrella term, and I
sometimes think, wryly, that this might almost reflect a phantasy …
in the sense of a wish … that mental life would indeed be simple! To be

serious, I hope that I have indicated that there are problems in our ideas
about phantasy and in clear communication of them, if different people
mean different things by the one word.
Summary
The term “phantasy” may be used by psychoanalysts to mean an
imaginative fulfilment of frustrated wishes, conscious or unconscious.
This approximately condenses what is generally seen as Freud’s main
use of the term. It may also be used, inter alia, to denote the primary
content of unconscious mental processes, as the mental representative
and corollary of instinctual urges, and as based on or identical with
Freud’s postulated “hallucinatory wish-fulfilment” and his “primary
introjection”, which reflects Melanie Klein’s extension of Freud’s
concept.
The differences between the two notions were first clearly aired
during the Controversial Discussions conducted by the British Psy-
choanalytical Society during the war. This paper gives a necessarily
abbreviated and incomplete account of some of the points made then,
to give some detail of how widely the two notions differed. It then notes
how the term “phantasy” is still used for such widely differing notions:
to indicate the problems that must exist, of what we mean and of how to
communicate our ideas, if different people mean such different things
by one technical term that is in constant use.
Note
1. Whether the word should be spelled “phantasy” or “fantasy” has been
viewed differently at different times by psychoanalytic authors. In
her paper (given during the Controversial Discussions), Susan Isaacs
stated that “the English translators of Freud adopted a special spelling
of the word ‘phantasy … to differentiate it from … the word ‘fantasy’ …
[meaning] conscious day-dreams …”.
However, in at any rate the Authorised English translations of
Freud’s “Introductory Lectures” and of the “Collected Papers”, the
word “phantasy” (with “ph” not “f”) is used for conscious daydreams
as well as for unconscious phantasy. Rycroft, in his Critical Dictionary
of Psychoanalysis (1968), notes that according to the Oxford English
Dictionary, the term spelled with an “f’’ tends to be “apprehended …
in the sense of … caprice, whim” etc., while with the word spelled with
“ph” the meaning is taken as “imagination, visionary notion”. “Since
the psychoanalytic concept is more akin to imagination than whimsy”,
continues Rycroft, “English psychoanalytical writers inevitably use
phantasy not fantasy, but few, if any, American writers have followed
them in doing so”.
In recent years there appears to have been something of a fashion
whereby some but not all English writers have tended to follow this
“American” trend. In the reports on the Controversial Discussions, the
general usage was phantasy with “ph”, whether conscious or uncon-
scious phantasy was meant. In this paper, I have used “phantasy”
throughout, both to conform with the reports on the Controversial
Discussions, and to express my own (“English”) preference.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Some remarks about the “Controversial

Discussions”*,†
I
n 1943–44, the British Psychoanalytical Society held the “Controversial
Discussions” in an attempt to resolve various disagreements then
current in the theory, practice, and teaching of psychoanalysis. This
chapter selects and assesses in some detail some of the arguments that
emerged around the concepts of “unconscious phantasy” and “uncon-
scious conflict”. Inter alia, they included arguments about assumed
early events, about ways of interpreting and assessing evidence, about
modes and different levels of conceptualisation, about interpretations of
Freud and about changes in psychoanalytic theory. Attempts to achieve
mutual understanding existed side by side with total and sometimes
rancorous disagreement. Attention is given to sometimes irresolvable
communicative and conceptual difficulties that arose, from differences
* The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 1994, 75, pp. 343–358.

†
Modified version of papers presented to:
i. The Weekend Conference of the British Psychoanalytical Society for English-
Speaking Members of European Societies, October 1992: “The British Controversial
Discussions: The Issues of Conflict and Unconscious Phantasy 50 Years Later”;
ii. The Study Seminary, Phantasy and Reality in Infant Development and Clinical Work,
organised by the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, November 1992, Naples;
iii. A meeting of the Swedish Psychoanalytical Society, Stockholm, December 1992.
101
in meaning that different psychoanalytic thinkers assigned and still

assign to each of the two conceptual terms, “unconscious phantasy”
and “unconscious conflict”.
Introduction
Between January 1943 and May 1944, the British Psychoanalytical Soci-
ety held ten meetings that came to be known as the “Controversial
Discussions”. These were held for the specific purpose of attempting
to resolve some major disagreements about the theory, practice, and
teaching of psychoanalysis, that were due to the growing differences
between the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and the new theories
emanating from London, especially from the work of Melanie Klein,
who had moved there in 1926. The Discussions were an attempt to
clarify the theoretical differences between what was developing into
two schools of thought, and to assess whether Klein’s views were com-
patible or incompatible with those of Freud. They took place against a
background in which the moderation of disciplined scientific interest in
the new ideas held by many members existed side by side with increas-
ing dismissal and derogation of them by some others, leading to grow-
ing tension and indeed rancour, as has been documented and vividly
described by King & Steiner (1991) and King (1994).
After much deliberation, it was agreed that four “Kleinian” papers
(Heimann, 1943; Heimann & Isaacs, 1943; Isaacs, 1943; Klein, 1944)
would be pre-circulated and discussed by the whole Society. In the ten
meetings of these Discussions there were many theoretical disagree-
ments and attempts to bridge them. The aim of this paper is to select
and assess a small number of those that emerged around two particu-
lar concepts—“unconscious phantasy” and “unconscious conflict”—
which were chosen as the subject for the London Weekend Conference
held in October 1992. Scrutiny of some of the points illuminates certain
anomalies which will be noted later.
It had been requested that Susan Isaacs present the first paper on that
controversial new idea of Klein’s, “the role of introjection and projection
of objects in the early years of development”. Isaacs, however, felt that
before that topic could be broached she should first consider “the nature of
phantasy in general: when it develops and its relation to feeling, impulse
and external reality” (King & Steiner, 1991, p. 267). As she saw it, the
early mechanisms could not be understood without understanding the
S O M E R E M A R K S A B O U T T H E “ C O N T R OV E R S I A L D I S C U S S I O N S ” 103
phantasies which she saw as underlying them. Her paper, “The nature
and function of phantasy” (1943), was largely an extensive and scholarly
explanation of a new definition of the term, which is still regarded as a
classic exposition of the Kleinian view of phantasy.
Hitherto, phantasy had generally been seen as a conscious or uncon-
scious mode of imaginary gratification of frustrated libidinal strivings.
To a considerable extent, this view continued to be held; for example,
one part of the definition by Laplanche and Pontalis described phantasy
as an “Imaginary scene in which the subject is a protagonist, represent-
ing the fulfilment of a wish (in the last analysis, an unconscious wish)”
(1980, p. 314). Isaacs’s definition did not discard this view of phantasy,
but extended it by adding new features, in ways that made it sound very
different. She summarised her definition in eight sections, as follows:
a. Phantasies are mainly unconscious, the primary content of uncon-

scious mental processes.
b. Phantasy is psychic reality, the mental representative and corollary
of instinctual urges, which cannot operate in the mind without
phantasy.
c. Freud’s postulated “hallucinatory wish-fulfilment” and his “primary
introjection” are the basis of phantasy life.
d. Phantasy is the subjective interpretation of experience.
e. Phantasies early become elaborated into defences, as well as wish-
fulfilments.
f. Phantasies express the specific content and show the specific direction
and purpose of an urge or a feeling or a defence.
g. Phantasies exert an uninterrupted and omnipresent influence
throughout life, both in normal and neurotic people.
h. Individual and age differences lie in the mode of elaboration and
expression of the phantasies. (King & Steiner, 1991, pp. 313–314)
Many of these definitive statements will be referred to in this chapter.

Isaacs”s definition, dealing mainly with unconscious phantasy,
aimed at establishing that it appeared much earlier than was generally
accepted and that those phantasies had a profound influence on early
mental development. Although not included in the definition per se, an
additional significant point clearly made in Isaacs’s account was that
the instinctual urges exhibited in phantasies were not just libidinal, but
were also aggressive and destructive. (A new function of phantasy, also
not specified in the definition but emerging in Isaacs’s account, was that
unconscious phantasy operated as an active agent of process or change.)
Isaacs justified her conceptual enlargement as necessary, because of
“new facts and evidence”. The findings from the psychoanalysis of
very young children, as described by Melanie Klein, was one important
source; another was the literature, especially the works of Freud.
Isaacs’s “Phantasy” paper was discussed over five meetings. There
was no paper devoted specifically to “conflict”, but there was signifi-
cant disagreement about it in many of the papers, as will be mentioned
below.
In effect, the main discussants were divided into three groups: those
ardently favouring Klein’s views, those equally ardently opposing
them, and those “in the middle” or independent (possibly the majority),
who variously liked some aspects of Klein’s thought and criticised oth-
ers. As part of the description of the argumentation, some of the con-
tributors will be mentioned by name in conjunction with snippets of
their contributions.
Some of the disagreements about unconscious phantasy

The points and arguments regarding “phantasy” that have been cho-
sen for this account are a small selection from a wide range of different
ideas about its timing, nature, and functions, and irresolvable differ-
ences over ways of assessing evidence and conceptualising about it.
Timing of unconscious phantasy

The “timing” of unconscious phantasy was an immediate issue. Part of
Isaacs’s definition stated: “Phantasy is psychic reality, the mental rep-
resentative and corollary instinctual urges, which cannot operate in
the mind without phantasy”. As it would have been generally agreed
that the newborn has instinctual urges to suck, this definitive statement
meant that “phantasies” existed from birth.
Views about “phantasy from birth”

There was a considerable range of views about the idea of phantasy
starting from birth. Clifford Scott favoured it, partly because it stressed
the significance of early bodily experiences that cannot be remembered.
Ernest Jones, President of the Society, welcomed the whole of Isaacs’s

thesis, although he mentioned cannibalistic oral phantasies at, “say, six
months”. A number of those “in the middle” also agreed about very
early preverbal phantasy. Sylvia Payne, a leading independent Member
who became the next president, said she wouldn’t deny the existence of
primitive phantasy from the beginning of extra-uterine life, on what she
called the most familiar grounds of conversion hysteria. Both Freud and
Ferenczi, she said, had suggested that the hysteric uses archaic methods
of expressing feelings in physical reactions. Before there were words,
feelings would have to be expressed physically. Marjorie Brierley and
Ella Sharpe were among those who disagreed with various aspects of
Klein’s ideas, but who accepted the idea of very early phantasy.
Quite a different view was held by Anna Freud and her associates,
including Dorothy Burlingham, the Hoffers, Kate Friedlander, and
Barbara Lantos. There was also a difference between some of the views
they claimed and those initially attributed to them by Isaacs. She had
referred to a paper by Waelder (1937), in which he had contrasted the
three- or four- year old who could report phantasies, with the infant
who could not. Isaacs believed he was claiming that phantasies could
exist only at the later age, and she had at one stage thought that Anna
Freud and colleagues also thought phantasy existed only from the third
or fourth year, although she recognised this was not true (or no longer
true) when she read Anna Freud & Burlingham’s (1942) account of their
war nursery. Despite this concession, Anna Freud and her associates
felt accused of not recognising the very existence of preverbal phantasy;
and, while they did not agree that phantasy started at birth, during the
Discussions they variously described their belief that a simple form of
phantasy started at some time between six months and one year.
The nature of unconscious phantasy—some aspects

Isaacs illustrated something of the nature of those “early phantasies”
by writing, inter alia: “When [the infant] feels desires towards his
mother, he experiences these as ‘I want to suck the nipple … to eat her
up, keep her inside me …’” Aggressive and destructive phantasy was
illustrated with the “phantasy” “[I want] to bite the breast, to tear her
to bits, to drown and burn her, to throw her out of me …” Isaacs made
it clear that she in no way suggested that these primitive phantasies
were experienced in those words (King & Steiner, 1991, p. 277). They
were “sensations … the matrix from which distinguishable images and

feelings gradually emerge” (p. 372).
Anna Freud and her associates did not regard the very early simple
phantasy they accepted, as anything like the type of phantasy Isaacs was
describing. For one thing, those oral-cannibalistic phantasies seemed
much too aggressive. For Anna Freud, libido would dominate at that
stage. Michael Balint (in “the middle”) also thought them too aggres-
sive, though for the different reason that infants might display distress
etc., but not anxiety. Some contributors also objected that the complex
cannibalistic phantasies that Isaacs ascribed to the infant were much too
sophisticated. Kate Friedlander, for instance, insisted that they would
require perception, experience, and even conceptual thinking that was
beyond the infant. “To keep mother inside me” presupposed distinguish-
ing “me” from “not me”. To “tear her to bits” meant knowing mother
as a whole, and knowing that tearing can kill. “To drown and burn her”
meant knowing about fire and drowning. Isaacs thought Friedlander
overlooked “the phylogenetic sources of knowledge … the fact that
[phantasy] was inherent … in bodily impulses … the child draws mate-
rial for his sexual phantasies from his own impulses” (King & Steiner,
1991, p. 452). (The claim that the above assumption was a “fact” would
have been the subject of one of the sharp criticisms of Glover, mentioned
below.) The above extracts give a small indication of the many disagree-
ments over the timing of phantasy, and its nature as regards sophistica-
tion and as to whether it could involve aggression as well as libido.
On inferences
Some attention was given to the question of the validity of “evidence”
that was inferential. Melitta Schmideberg commented that one
(Kleinian) justification for retrospectively inferring babyhood phanta-
sies from the material of childhood was that Freud had analogously
inferred childhood phantasy from the material of adult analyses. But
she believed that Freud’s conclusions were largely based on actual rec-
ollections of adult patients, whereas children have no direct memories
of infancy. Consequently, analysts’ reconstructions of that period were
only inferences.
Anna Freud also referred to “inference” in one criticism she made of
the validity of the early phantasies Isaacs had ascribed to babies. On a
few occasions, Isaacs had spoken of the phantasies “that were found”
in the clinical material of young children; but, said Anna Freud, such
phantasies were not found, they were inferred from the play and con-
scious productions of the child. The inference that phantasies existed in
infancy would be made only by analysts who believed, as she and her
group did not, in that early development. Rather than disagreeing with
this point, Isaacs if anything extended it, pointing out that all phan-
tasies are inferred. She also agreed, perhaps sadly, that the inferences
would depend on the theoretical preferences of the inferrer.
Marjorie Brierley also questioned the validity of some sorts of retro-
spective inference. Isaacs had mentioned the problem arising from the
fact that as we have to use words to describe preverbal experiences, this
makes them sound more sophisticated than is intended in the descrip-
tion. Brierley agreed that, for this reason, early phantasies might sound
too precocious. It might be true, she said, that “a phantasy which can
be demonstrated in a child of two, may have unmistakeable reference
to suckling or weaning experiences, and may in fact revive such experi-
ences” (King & Steiner, 1991, p. 471). But in the two year old, editing or
retrospective sophistication would tend to occur, and his phantasy may
have a form corresponding to his current development rather than to
the earliest one. “It need not be taken for granted that it was present in
that form during the original experience” (p. 471).
The new definition per se

There were a number of speakers who were very positive about the
new definition per se. Ernest Jones likened the extension of the mean-
ing of “phantasy” to Freud’s extending the concept of sexuality. In psy-
choanalysis, he explained, many concepts must inevitably be widened
to give more content, as with conscience, which was formerly known
only in its conscious form but which had to be widened to add uncon-
scious significance. Michael Balint had mixed feelings; but he liked the
term “phantasy” in the definition, because it suggested meaning and
intimate individual reaction.
Early and sophisticated oedipal conflict: genetic continuity

But others were less sure about the definition. Ella Sharpe applauded
Klein for “enriching us” with all the details of early phantasy, though
she herself spoke of the earliest phantasied introjection, the infant
breast-hallucination or the original wish-psychosis, as being “without

imagery”. But she criticised the definition for not allowing for a clear
differentiation that she thought important; that is, between early “phan-
tasies” and the sophisticated, classical oedipal ones. She listed the dif-
ferences: the classical Oedipus complex required ego development and
reality recognition of frustration, repression, and the use of symbolic
substitutes, and the superego, which was inseparable from “Freud’s
Oedipus complex”, which she distinguished from what she called the
“super-id” of the primitive state.
In reply to this criticism, Isaacs thought Sharpe made too great a dis-
tinction between the earlier and the later Oedipus complex. She her-
self was more concerned to have the genetic continuity between them
stressed, by using the same term. Payne accepted genetic continuity,
but she thought there should be a different word for the earlier and the
later states. “We don’t call a foetus a man”, she said later when the argu-
ment recurred; but Isaacs would not change the new definition.
So, a further difference between the views concerned whether the
assumed urgent neonate sensations were or were not sufficiently like
conscious or unconscious adult phantasy to be described and defined
by the same term.
Changes to theory: corollary of instinct

Anna Freud had a number of objections to the changes to Freudian
theory that she felt were implicit in the new definition. From a meta-
psychological viewpoint, she believed that if phantasy was defined as
the imaginal corollary of instinct, then this displaced Freud’s view that
the main mental accompaniment of instinctual urges was the sensorial
(pleasure-pain) corollary.
Adrian Stephen disagreed with this objection. He thought that the
one view did not displace the other, because the two went together. He
gave the example of being thirsty, which might be described either as
wanting to quench the thirst to reduce instinctual tension, or as wanting
the drink of water which was the unconscious phantasy of the object.
What was really wanted was the combination—the thirst-quenching
drink. Anna Freud agreed that this combination would be true at later
stages; but she believed that in the infant’s narcissistic stage, satisfying
the instinct (“the thirst”) was of overwhelming importance, whereas
the object (“the water”) was only dimly taken into account. It was a
significant stage in development, she averred, when he began to care

about the object.
Changes to theory: introjection and object relations

But, to Anna Freud, one of the biggest differences between Klein’s view
and psychoanalysis as she understood it, was the change in theory
by which Klein connected “phantasy” with “primitive object (or part
object) relations achieved by introjection” starting from birth. This was
noted in that part of Isaacs’s definition that saw “Freud’s postulated …
primary introjection” as “a basis of phantasy life”. The primitive
phantasies Isaacs postulated, of keeping the mother inside or throw-
ing her out, illustrated Klein’s view that the early phantasies were of,
and achieved by, introjection and projection. By contrast, Anna Freud
believed that there was a “narcissistic and auto-erotic phase of several
months’ duration” during which instinct frustration or gratification
rather than object relationship was overwhelmingly important.
Sylvia Payne was doubtful about this. She was a little hesitant over
Klein’s theory of what she called “object relations in the narcissistic
phase”, thinking it valuable but full of complexities that needed care-
ful study. But when Anna Freud discounted the significance of object
relations in the early months, Payne objected that in that case the infant
wouldn’t be able to differentiate between objects, but when infants
refused the wet-nurse or a bottle from a stranger it suggested that they
could discriminate.
Anna Freud thought that what the infant reacted to in the first
six months was the change in atmosphere, not the change in person.
(Later, Melanie Klein referred to this view when she wrote in her paper
of the love and interest with which the young infant responds to the
mother’s feelings, adding (sic) “No mother who has enjoyed feeding
her children would doubt this [was an object relationship]”, p. 755.)
Anna Freud did not contest cannibalistic phantasy. What she did disa-
gree with was connecting it and, indeed, “all early mental functioning”,
with introjection.
Different interpretations
Parallel with disagreements over timing and the nature of phan-
tasy were disputes over whether the earliest months displayed vivid
complex oral-cannibalistic phantasies involving internal objects and

massive introjection and projection, or whether they were mainly nar-
cissistic and autoerotic. Just as in the case of inferences, these differences
of assumption about what infants actually experience were examples of
similar or identical observations being interpreted differently, in terms
of favoured theories. This was seen a number of times.
Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham (1942) wrote about a child
in her second year who was missing her absent mother, and used the
phrase “the mother image in the child’s mind”. Isaacs, viewing this in
terms of the Kleinian theory of internalised objects, understood this as
meaning that the child had an “internalised mother”. By contrast, to
Burlingham it meant nothing of the sort. What she and Anna Freud
referred to was a “memory image”. Neither side could use the theoreti-
cal model the other did. But Marjorie Brierley, that intelligent independ-
ent thinker whose contributions were often accepted warmly by both
sides, was able to see both sides.
Prior to the Discussions, Brierley had suggested that they should
attempt to answer the question as to whether theory of mental devel-
opment in terms of infantile object relations (Klein’s) was or was not
compatible with theory in terms of instinct vicissitude (Freud’s). At this
point, she offered a positive answer, because, in her words, she felt it
was possible to “find room in the same mind for ‘internalised objects
and memory images’” (King & Steiner, 1991, pp. 400–401). In brief, she
saw internalised objects as unconscious phantasies gratifying wishes
to have the object constantly present by having it inside, these being
built from long series of memory or experience traces. “Considering
our inveterate anthropomorphism”, she remarked memorably, “I do
not, myself, find it difficult to conceive that animistic phantasies about
incorporated mothers find place among these unconscious reaction pat-
terns” (p. 403). In the light of this formulation, she felt that she could
conceive of internal object phantasies in a way that was consistent with
Freud’s basic concepts of psychic activity. This model for integrating
the two theories was one example of a “middle view”, and of less inter-
est to those of the more extreme persuasions.
New functions for “unconscious phantasy”

In the new Klein-Isaacs view of unconscious phantasy, the changes were
not only temporal and qualitative; they also went beyond representing
and correlating with instinctual urges to embrace new functions.

According to one statement of the definition, phantasy was “the sub-
jective interpretation of experience”, and in terms of another, “as well
as wish-fulfilments” phantasies were also “elaborate[d] into defences”.
An illustration of “defence” was Isaacs’s statement: “When the tiny
infant … feels ‘my mother has gone forever’, he might have the phan-
tasy he can bring her back by stroking his genital”. Additionally, uncon-
scious phantasy was described as if it inaugurated or brought about
processes, functions, or changes.
Thus, Isaacs stated that the phantasy of incorporation led to the
process of introjection; and that when an infant aggressively phantasied
dismembering his mother, a consequence was his feeling and becoming
disintegrated. This type of thinking, of wrongly putting “phantasy”
and “process” together in one sequence as if they were of one category,
was criticised by a number of speakers, including Edward Glover
and Marjorie Brierley; in another context, Brierley spoke of confusion
between subjective and objective thinking producing a fallacy leading
to erroneous conclusions.
Abstract critique of the definition

In point of fact, Brierley found much of value in the Kleinian view. She
accepted the ideas of internal objects, very early phantasy and also
genetic continuity—which she called “our old friend the law of psy-
chological determinism in modern dress” (King & Steiner, 1991, p. 331).
But she did not see the necessity for Isaacs’s new definition, and cer-
tain reservations she had about it related to this changing of the func-
tion of “phantasy”. She objected that by so extending the meaning of
“phantasy”, the new definition oversimplified at the cost of “obscur-
ing the relationship of reality thinking to the primitive experiences”,
obscuring the difference between phantasy and thinking. Agreement
to this expansion would mean losing the only criterion adequately dis-
tinguishing phantasy from other forms of wish fulfilment. (“Phantasy”
and “thinking” could each be used as a mode for coping with frustra-
tion, but the outcome would be very different. An escape into phantasy
might successfully avoid frustration for a while; but thinking aimed
at finding an alternative gratification could by contrast afford real sat-
isfaction.) To use one term, one concept to cover both of these things,
would mask a vital difference.
Isaacs said she saw the distinction between “phantasy” and

“thinking”. However, she seemed to contradict this assertion when she
said, firstly, that she believed “reality-thinking cannot operate without
unconscious phantasies”, and then that the functions of memory, reality
testing, and judgement “arise out of and rest on the unconscious phan-
tasy of incorporation”, quoting Freud to justify this idea.
In “Negation” (1925), Freud ultimately derived judgement and
thinking from “the interplay of instinctual forces”. (The first judgement
the hungry infant makes is whether something is nice and to be eaten
or nasty and to be spat out, and this is powered by the oral instinctual
urge.) Because of her definitive statement that phantasy is the repre-
sentative and corollary of instinctual urges, to Isaacs, derivation from
instinct was apparently the same as derivation from phantasy. Unde-
terred by her awareness that to Freud they were not the same, she relied
on this Freud quotation to support her view that unconscious phantasy
underlay judgement and thinking. Effectively, therefore, in her defini-
tion she did not distinguish between “phantasy” and “thinking” in the
way that Brierley did.
Rather similarly, the definition might not have distinguished between
different levels of mentation. An illustration of this also illustrates one
way Isaacs used quotations from Freud.
Freud as evidence
Isaacs had used analytic findings as one source of “evidence” for her
ideas. Another major source derived from Freud. She chose many quo-
tations and often reinterpreted them, as indicated in the example men-
tioned above. In the Discussions there were many arguments about the
validity of the Freud quotations or about how they were used. In dis-
cussing her new definition, Isaacs wrote, “I shall endeavour to show
that certain mental phenomena that have been described [but not as
“phantasy”] do in fact imply the activity of unconscious phantasy”.
She quoted a passage where Freud (1933) “suppose[s] … that the id
takes over instinctual needs … and gives them mental expression”,
and explained that she believed that this “mental expression is phan-
tasy”. She fully acknowledged that Freud had never said it was, but she
thought he had come very near to it when he postulated the infant’s
“hallucinatory satisfaction of wishes” (1911). Very early in life, “what-
ever was desired was simply imagined in a hallucinatory form … as
in our dreams …” Isaacs believed that the infant’s capacity to hallucinate

was either identical with phantasy or a precondition for it; and this was
included in the definition.
It thus appeared that the term “phantasy” included two widely dif-
ferent types of mentation; at the more sophisticated end, judgement and
thinking, and at the other extreme, wish-fulfilling hallucination. This
was one of the many points attacked by Edward Glover, Isaacs’s most
stringent and vociferous critic, when he insisted that hallucination was
not yet organised phantasy proper, which was much more complex and
sophisticated and, according to Freud, involved the relation between
the subject, aim, and object of an instinct.
Edward Glover and the definition

As a senior member of the Society, Glover had chaired the first seven
meetings; but he also left the chair to speak more than anyone else, as
he felt very strongly that the “Klein system” was a new theory, totally
incompatible with Freud and psychoanalysis. He felt this so strongly
that, believing it was lost to psychoanalysis, he resigned from the British
Society before the Discussions were finished. His methodological, meta-
psychological, conceptual, and probably angry arguments were lengthy
and sometimes repetitious, but, although conveying ideas particular to
his persuasion and that of his theoretical allies, they did include opin-
ions akin to those of some people who were not antagonistic to Klein.
Glover attacked Isaacs in various ways. He maintained that she
believed “that Mrs Klein’s views were based on facts … and were in
any case right … but the validity of Mrs Klein’s views was just what
[they] were there to discuss” (King & Steiner, 1991, p. 325). He accused
Isaacs of using the circular argument that the new theories were proof
of the validity of the interpretations on which the theories were based.
(She interpreted a child’s play in terms of her theory, and then took
those interpretations as validating that theory). The accusation that she
confused phantasy and concepts of function was only of one very many
criticisms.
Phantasy as primary content

Only two of the many details of the new definition that Glover contested
will be mentioned here. One was that phantasy was the primary content
of unconscious mental processes. As he saw it, to regard phantasy as

primary neglected the basic significance of reality factors that were
involved in laying down memory traces of sensory experience. The
hungry infant sucking his lips and assumedly hallucinating a feed,
bases the hallucination on the memory trace of past experience of a real
feed. Glover was not alone in this argument.
Sylvia Payne, independent thinker, did not think that “phantasy in
the usual sense” could be “primary” because some reception of mental
stimulus, plus a psychophysical response, had to come first. Perhaps in
similar vein, S. H. Foulkes considered that phantasies in Isaacs’s theory
seemed like “primary motors, lords in their own rights, absorbing instinc-
tual urges and physical reality” (King & Steiner, 1991, p. 364), rather than
instincts and their reality objects being primary, as he saw it.
Isaacs chided Glover “for seriously misrepresenting Freud”. She was
certain that it was quite contrary to Freud’s views to put reality thinking
as primary. She quoted from where Freud outlined how primary proc-
ess, governed by the pleasure principle, was superseded by secondary
process, with reality functioning developing as a new principle, because
hallucination was unsatisfactory. Scrutiny of the quotation could sug-
gest a different interpretation. When Freud described the momentous
emergence of secondary process and reality testing, which involves
consciousness, attention, motility etc., one of those new features was
“phantasying … which begins already in children’s play”, which seems
to place “phantasy” firmly within a sophisticated frame. However, in
that passage, phantasy was also described as “the one thought-activity
that was split off and kept free from reality-testing …” (Freud, 1911,
pp. 219–222).
Possibly, to Isaacs, phantasy remained part of primary process
because it was “kept from reality-testing”, whereas to Glover it was
much more sophisticated because it emerged with secondary process,
and appeared in children’s play. Whatever the explanation, their defini-
tions differed and neither seemed able to understand, let alone credit
the validity of the other’s arguments.
Conceptual differences (and confusions?)

Isaacs’s attitude to Payne was different, in a way that might appear as
something of a paradox. When there was argument between Isaacs and
Glover, Anna Freud or Friedlander, the disagreement was patent; but,
occasionally, when Isaacs welcomed agreement with Payne, or Brierley,

they seem actually to have been talking about different things. The fol-
lowing is one example of this.
Although she had disagreed with Glover over that very point, Isaacs
agreed with Payne that there must be stimuli before there can be phan-
tasy. She thought she had made this clear when she had included “the
subjective interpretation of experience” as one of the items in her defini-
tion. She cited the massive stimuli of birth, the first breath and the first
feed as stimuli evoking the first phantasy.
Now, it is most probable that when Payne (as well as Foulkes and
Glover) put “experience before phantasy”, they thought of phantasy as
the imaginary gratification called upon in the presence of frustration;
and it is surely as likely that Isaacs’s view of it as “interpreting experi-
ence” had no such meaning, as it is hard to believe that she thought the
massive stimuli of birth were so gratifying that in their absence they
would be missed and conjured up imaginatively! It was rather that she
was using the term “phantasy” to cover (another) additional class of
meaning: not only imaginative substitute for gratification, and not only
the new functions of defence and of being the agent of change, but also
for a different function of something akin to registration or perception.
So, this amiable agreement almost certainly masked a conceptual dif-
ference; in fact, Brierley noticed and criticised the inclusion of this addi-
tional function when she spoke against the expansion of the meaning of
phantasy in the new definition. Of course, to Isaacs, “expansion” was
no criticism as she had aimed, in offering her new definition, at widen-
ing the meaning of the term “phantasy”: but to some of her listeners,
the widening blurred necessary distinctions, and to others it robbed
terms of their meanings.
For example, one of Anna Freud’s criticisms of “the new Kleinian
mode” was that it used the one term, “phantasy”, for a range of early
mental functioning which she would describe with different terms, such
as thinking, reality thinking, remembering, wishing, longing, and so on.
Glover put it that Isaacs confused images, ideational representatives,
instinct end-presentations, reality-thinking, phantasy, and memory. In
this exchange there was clearly a confusion of categories between the
speakers. Anna Freud and Glover were surely attempting to differenti-
ate objectively between various presumed mental functions, but Isaacs
responded as if discussing a clinical observation; she said that she knew of
no evidence to distinguish between these functions in the earliest stages.
There was another conceptual confusion when Isaacs quoted Brierley

to support this claim. Brierley had said “if we are to regard the first hal-
lucination as the first phantasy, it also ranks as the first memory”. She
was surely postulating two different functions for the first hallucina-
tion, whereas Isaacs used the quote to suggest that Brierley was equat-
ing the two functions.
Some of the disagreements about unconscious conflict

There was a range of differences and disagreements over the concept
of “unconscious conflict”, as there had been over the new definition of
phantasy. Some of these stemmed directly from the differences of view
over “unconscious phantasy”, because, as Isaacs saw it, “phantasy”, as
newly conceived, was integral to the whole of the new Kleinian theory,
which was why she had described phantasy first. In her view, all instinct,
all affects, mechanisms, and mentation (drives, love and hate, anxiety and
guilt, introjection and projection, thinking and judgement, and so on) were
experienced and could be understood only through the “phantasies”.
In so far as unconscious defence implied a conflict between an
instinctual drive and a superego-inspired defensive restriction, then
unconscious phantasy was also implicit in descriptions of unconscious
defences, as well as in descriptions of anxiety or guilt. There were con-
troversial ideas and ensuing arguments concerning “unconscious con-
flict” in all the papers.
“Unconscious conflict” in Isaacs’s paper on “phantasy”

Just as unconscious phantasy was regarded as emerging very early, so
its close link with unconscious conflict meant that conflict also emerged
very early, though two somewhat different views of early conflict were
promulgated. One, using and interpreting observations, proposed
“conflict” before six months of age; the other used a theoretical concept
to propose psychological conflict from birth. Both these concepts were
strenuously contested.
Unconscious conflict in the first year

In her paper on “Phantasy”, Isaacs reported observations that she felt
could be taken as evidence of early conflict. She quoted “behavioural”
reports of child development, accompanied with details she inferred

about the child’s “probable” mental experiences. She described the
child from six months onwards, outlining play and behaviour, and,
inter alia, proposed that by the time the child could look for lost or hid-
den objects, could show surprise and disappointment, express wishes
and dreads, and so on, it seemed probable that memory and anticipa-
tion were becoming definite. “Moreover”, she believed, “the degree of
integration in his perception and memory of persons makes it probable
that he is now becoming alive to his own conflict of feelings … of love
and hate, dependence, desire and fear” (1952, pp. 308–309).
To Isaacs, it seemed possible to discern the beginning of conflict at
five months, when the child showed hostility to strangers and intense
attachment to loved ones. She couldn’t prove it, but believed it prob-
able that frowns at strangers and so on were indications that the child
was already splitting ambivalence. She felt that Klein’s concept of the
depressive position (which implicated feelings of guilt and reparation)
took full account of these facts; this being one of many references to
Klein’s concept of early superego and early conflict.
Conflict and superego

In discussion, Anna Freud strongly contested the view of superego and
conflict as existing even in the second year, let alone in the first year.
To her, this meant that the synthetic function, which produced conflict
of feelings, would have occurred much too early. As she saw it, from
about the age of one, babies begin to correlate urges with memories
of external prohibitions and be uneasy expressing them in the pres-
ence of an adult, but this was not an internal conflict; nor were expres-
sions of contradictory urges, such as love and hate. The Klein-Isaacs
view was that the toddler who is loving after being naughty is trying
to make reparation, because of inner conflict and guilt. Isaacs described
a sixteen-month-old child who played at feeding her parents brown
knobs off the furniture, and whom Isaacs believed was trying to make
up for bad feelings she had had over being encopretic and eating her
faeces a few months earlier. But to Anna Freud, the toddler who is
naughty and loving by turns is experiencing these different feelings
successively without either influencing the other, in the way contra-
dictory feelings were thought to exist side by side in the unconscious.
There was no synthesis between the two until the development of the
Oedipus complex, superego, and guilt, for which she saw no evidence
before the third year.
Perhaps triumphantly, Isaacs wanted “Miss Freud … to acknowl-
edge Mrs. Klein as the source of ideas of reparation”, which Anna
Freud “was accepting for the first time”; and considering that in the
classic Oedipus theory “super-ego and guilt come with the passing of
the Oedipus complex” (King & Steiner, 1991, pp. 456–457), she asked
whether Miss Freud, in speaking of guilt in the third year, meant that
she thought the Oedipus complex had passed then, or whether she was
(now) recognising that guilt and superego long preceded the passing
of the classic Oedipus complex. This sharp exchange went no way at
all towards finding consensus over whether or not toddlers experience
inner conflict and guilt, and could certainly not have resolved the vast
difference that was felt about whether they existed in the first year.
The issue recurred, again without resolution, in discussion of later
papers, when the question had moved on from whether psychological
conflict was evident by five months or not until the third year, to the
question of whether, in accord with theory, it existed ab initio. The theo-
retical assumption of unconscious conflict from birth was described in
the next paper, “Some aspects of the role of introjection and projection
in early development” by Paula Heimann (1943). This paper was dis-
cussed in only two meetings. Heimann outlined her view of earliest
development; inter alia, she described the view that acceptance of the
theory of life and death instincts (Freud, 1920) meant that some form
of unconscious conflict between the antithetical drives (associated with
unconscious phantasy) must have existed from the very beginning of
extra-uterine life.
Disputes over “conflict ab initio”

“Conflict from birth” was challenged, partly because of the timing,
partly because of conceptual disagreement over whether the concept of
“death instinct” could appropriately be used clinically. Willi Hoffer was
one of those who argued against seeing conflict as occurring so early.
He outlined what he saw as the two different pictures of early develop-
ment, to explain why infantile conflict would be described as occurring
so much earlier in the Kleinian picture than it was in Freud’s picture.
The Kleinian picture of conflict between two instincts meant that con-
flict was there from the outset, and this meant that neurosis could begin
very early, as Klein described. He contrasted this with the “Freudian
infantile neurosis”, for which a prerequisite was the “Freudian”

Oedipus conflict. This in turn required three things: the phallic phase;
the capacity to choose an object rather than just to relate to the available
object; and the castration complex. All of these took time to develop,
and consequently, so did unconscious conflict.
Regarding conceptual arguments against Heimann’s views, one
such contestant was Kate Friedlander. She believed that Klein treated
“biological” and “psychological” conceptions as interchangeable in her
ideas about primal instincts, and that this was wrong. She illustrated
this idea by noting that, in the same way, it would be wrong to equate
the (biological) shrunken brain of senile dementia with the concurrent
(psychological) poor memory, and so on. The relevance of this example
was that, to Friedlander, Freud’s thesis about life and death instincts
was a speculative biological theory, which did not lead Freud to alter
anything in his libidinal theory or theory of neuroses. If biological
concepts should not have been used to explain psychological facts, in
Friedlander’s view, it was quite wrong for Heimann to use the theory of
life and death instincts to explain psychological conflict, which she saw
as a clinical concept, a view with which Glover concurred.
Friedlander agreed that the two basic instincts were opposed, but
she did not believe that this meant they were in conflict, if “conflict”
meant “psychological conflict”; adding, rather engagingly, “unless one
also [said that] an amoeba is in conflict”. From a different theoretical
aspect, the concept of instincts in conflict also seemed wrong to her
because, according to Freudian metapsychology, “in the id, antithetical
instincts strove side by side without disturbing each other” (King &
Steiner, 1991, p. 544), a point similar to that made by Anna Freud when
discussing the toddler. “In Freudian theory”, according to Friedlander,
conflict is not between two instincts, but between an instinct and an
ego defence. Consequently, the Kleinian picture of conflict between life
and death instincts was not, in Friedlander’s view, “Freudian psycho-
analysis”; it was a new theory of conflict.
Heimann accepted that Freud did not revise libidinal theory in the light
of his concept of the death instinct, but she stalwartly maintained that
that did not preclude her bringing them more closely together “if clinical
observations appeared to call for it”. Regarding Friedlander’s conceptual
criticism, while she did not accept that it refuted Klein’s views, she argued
that she had, in fact, distinguished between biology and psychology,
because she had used the term “death instinct” for theoretical deductions
and the term “destructive impulses” for the clinical. Glover applauded
her for making these distinctions but he was not impressed, insisting that
in this particular case she “had refuted … her remarkable theory, [of] con-
flict from the beginning of life …”, because in his view (somewhat resem-
bling Friedlander’s) the term “conflict” as used by Freud “was clinical”
and lost meaning when used to illustrate “biological speculations about
instincts at birth” (King & Steiner, 1991, pp. 586–587).
So, differences over “unconscious conflict” included issues about its
timing; the conceptual argument about whether the theory of antitheti-
cal primal instincts, including the concept of the death instinct, had
reference to “psychological conflict”; the arguments about whether the
idea of “conflict between instincts” contradicted accepted metapsychol-
ogy, whether it was a new “conflict theory”, and whether it was justified
by clinical findings. Much of the argument continued in the discussion
of the next paper.
Aspects of “unconscious conflict” in the third paper:

“Regression” by Heimann and Isaacs
The third paper, “Regression” by Heimann and Isaacs (1943), presented
the new Kleinian view of regression, much influenced by the new view
of phantasy. Inter alia, it described regression as earlier and much more
fluid than had hitherto been accepted, which clearly gave a new and dif-
ferent picture of unconscious conflict promoting the defence of regres-
sion; and widespread influence was attributed to aggression (again
largely because of the emphasis on the concept of the death instinct),
including the view that it caused anxiety, fixation, and regression. An
idea was floated that a function of libido was to master aggression, with
aggression consequently seen as arising from the failure of the libido to
master destructive impulses, which seemed a new detail of the concept
of intra-psychic conflict between the two instincts. Overall, the paper
strengthened the (new) picture of “unconscious conflict” that had
emerged in the previous paper.
Although some lengthy comments on it were included in the min-
utes, this paper was discussed at only one meeting, and there was com-
paratively little argument about many of its significant points. There
was, however, much disagreement with the new attribution of signifi-
cance to aggression, for example from Glover and Friedlander. Willi
Hoffer also objected, remarking that, “according to Freud, neuroses are
the specific diseases of the sexual function; according to Klein’s theory,
the neuroses might be called the specific diseases of the destructive

function” (King & Steiner, 1991, p. 723). Friedlander contended that
Heimann and Isaacs had mistakenly thought that Freud was unaware
of aggression, but in fact he had clearly seen it as part of libido, as in
anal-sadism.
One specific difference between Freud’s and Klein’s pictures of aggres-
sion and anal-sadism, was outlined by Friedlander. She put it that, for
Klein, aggression caused the regression to anal-sadism, whereas for Freud,
anal-sadism appeared as the result of regression to that phase. This was
surely a distinction between the views of regression and of unconscious
conflict for which clinical examples could have been brought forward to
argue the applicability of one or the other theory; but this did not hap-
pen. In fact, an attempt of this sort was made only once.
A clinical instance
On opening the Discussions, Ernest Jones had suggested that the most
profitable form for the discussions to take would be to concentrate on
two or three examples, analytical or observational, and compare alter-
native explanations of them, with the aim of ascertaining which most
comprehensively covered the facts. The one single attempt to do this
was made during discussion of Heimann’s paper. Ella Sharpe said that
she had often found that what she might regard clinically as involving
repression, Klein would attribute to projection. Sharpe spoke in detail of
the dream or phantasy of people fighting, when awareness of parental
intercourse accompanied by infantile masturbation had to be repressed
because of rage, frustration, and fear of discovery. She said that to think
introjection was the process, would miss the ego defence and what had
made the phantasy both possible and necessary. Unfortunately, there
was no discussion of this attempt to differentiate and choose between
two different models of unconscious conflict and defence, as Heimann
said regretfully that she had no chance to think about it.
“Unconscious conflict” in “The emotional life

and ego-development of the infant, with special reference
to the depressive position” by Melanie Klein
Perhaps the most important difference of view about “unconscious con-
flict” arose from the descriptions and explanations of the conflicts of the
depressive position in Melanie Klein’s paper, “the emotional life and

ego development of the infant, with special reference to the depressive
position” (1944). This, however, was another occasion when argument
did not occur. Apart from earlier comments, as, for example, when
Anna Freud discounted “a scheme of mental functioning completely
governed by the mechanism of introjection”, this difference of view was
never really argued. That was because neither Anna Freud nor Glover,
nor any of their close followers, attended the last two meetings, at which
Melanie Klein presented her paper.
Klein described extreme anxiety in tiny infants caused by aggressive,
not libidinal, impulses and phantasies directed against introjected part-
objects. When the infant began to introject the whole mother, by three
to five months, intense anxieties lest she be destroyed by the cannibalis-
tic impulses ushered forth intense conflicts of ambivalence, with greed
and dread lest it destroy the good object, and so on. This picture of con-
flict was very different from the one hitherto accepted, partly because of
the new ideas of phantasy, objects, love and hate, ego and superego in
the first months; but even more, because of the “internal” nature of the
processes. For example, instead of ambivalence being unresolved love
and hate for the mental representative of an external object, it related
as much or more to the mental representative of an introjected object or
part-object.
Payne argued against the dominant role attributed to aggression,
believing that the depressive position depended primarily on libidinal
frustration. She and Brierley were still concerned to make a clear dis-
tinction between experiences of the first months and later ones; but both
of them, as well as Sharpe, were interested in exploring, criticising, but
certainly not rejecting, the idea of the depressive position with conflicts
between introjected (part) objects. In one sense, therefore, at their most
intense and extreme, the “Controversial Discussions” lasted for only
eight meetings, and Melanie Klein’s paper was not part of them.
To summarise, the differences of view about “unconscious phan-
tasy” that emerged in the Discussions included arguments over Isaacs’s
assumed early events, over modes of assessing and conceptualising
about them, over their significances and over the theoretical changes
involved. These included differences over the timing of phantasy and
aspects of its early nature; over its assumed connection with early (part)
object relationships achieved via unconscious introjection and pro-
jection; in contrast with claims for early autoerotism and narcissism.
There were arguments about the ways of interpreting evidence, about

inferences, and about interpretations of Freud, and various conceptual
arguments at different levels about the definition per se. Included were
questions as to whether the accompanying changes to Freudian theory
were recognised and justified; whether the case for genetic continuity
rested on a definable identity, as distinct from differentiation, between
primitive and sophisticated psychic events such as (oedipal) phantasies;
about whether or not phantasy, hallucination, judgement and thinking,
remembering, wishing, longing, and so on, could be defined under
one head; about whether or not there was confusion between clinical
descriptions (as of phantasy) and abstract or objective concepts of func-
tion; and, in general, whether or not the extension of the definition of
phantasy to include new meanings (such as the functions of defence, of
introjection and projection, and of subjectively interpreting experience)
justifiably widened the reference, or blurred necessary distinctions.
The tenor of the arguments ranged widely, from stalwart attempts to
achieve genuine and friendly understanding, to extreme rancour.
Whether the extension of the concept of “phantasy” helpfully wid-
ened the reference or confusingly blurred necessary distinctions,
remains an unresolved question; as, while Isaacs’s paper unquestiona-
bly illuminated many important new findings, such as those concerned
with the timing and nature of early phantasy life, it was not universally
accepted that those findings would depend upon the new definition of
“phantasy”.
Regarding “unconscious conflict”, disagreements over the concept
concerned, inter alia, its timing (whether inferred from observations or
abstract theorising); disagreements over whether psychological conflict
existed between instincts or between instinct and ego defence; the sta-
tus of death instinct theory in clinical theorising; the role of aggression;
and disagreements over modes of conceptualising. There was also some
disagreement, though actually less argument, over the status of (inner)
conflicts of the depressive position.
Comment
Consideration of the arguments of the “Controversial Discussions” illu-
minates the fact that each of the clinical concepts—“unconscious phan-
tasy” and “unconscious conflict”—was often understood by different
psychoanalytic thinkers and practitioners to have different meanings.
These included ones which were not clinical; and some of these various
supposed elements, could be inconsistent, contradictory, or irrelevant
to each other. To quite an extent, this still pertains, and can cause com-
municative and conceptual difficulties (Hayman, 1989).
To consider firstly the case of the term “phantasy”. Subsequent to
the new Kleinian definition, its many different meanings have included
primitive and sophisticated affective experiences, other mental func-
tions, and every possible unconscious mental experience, plus concepts
of mental functions theoretically assumed but not experienced; all in
addition to the specific meaning of “imaginary substitute gratification
in the presence of frustration”.
This breadth of meaning gives rise to two different problems. The
first is semantic; the use of a term of such wide definition, as it were,
that it is almost indeterminate, muddles the meaning in any commu-
nication using the term. And, as it is used widely in psychoanalytic
writing and speaking, it also means that the very thinking about the
concept, unconscious phantasy, is very unclear. This leads to the sec-
ond question, which is to try to understand how so many, sometimes
incompatible meanings, have come to be accepted as belonging together
under the umbrella of one term.
It is true that some of the various new meanings are quite easy to
amalgamate with the pre-Kleinian idea. For instance, accepting that
aggressive as well as libidinal frustrations can be ameliorated by phan-
tasy gratifications, involves comparatively little conceptual change from
the older meaning, and this addition is universally accepted. Secondly,
observations and inferred conclusions have led to wide acceptance that
the timing of “phantasy” and early object relations occurs much earlier
than was once thought by some.
By contrast, the contradictions alleged in the Discussions, in align-
ing “phantasy” with perceiving, thinking, hallucinating, remember-
ing, judging, interpreting, defending, longing, and so on, which were
argued without resolution, remain a difficulty. It seems to be more of a
problem to decide how the concept of a function that provides imagi-
nary substitute gratification, can also be the concept for each item in
such a wide range of primitive and sophisticated experiencing as well
as mentation. In the Discussions, the particular difference between
the functions of imaginary gratification and of realistically interpret-
ing experience (which included perceiving) was clearly spelt out; but
it did not have meaning for everyone. It was never explained how the
functions of hallucinatory wish-fulfilment and primary introjection,

and the functions of thinking and judgement, could be thought of as
sufficiently close to sit comfortably together as parts of one concept;
let alone how the function of creating imaginary gratifications could
be also be included as sufficiently similar to share the same conceptual
bed. Even more difficult is the problem of including the concept of the
primary content of unconscious mental processes, which seems in a cat-
egory even further removed, conceptually, from that of the concept of
“imaginary gratification”.
This particular item was one of those included by Sandler (1983) in
describing how psychoanalytic concepts may be elastic and become
stretched. He saw this type of flexibility as playing an important part in
the development of psychoanalytic theory; but it remains a puzzle as to
how it is possible for such disparate meanings to be so widely accepted,
as if that disparity did not exist. It is certainly possible, perhaps prob-
able, that moments of intellectual regression from the sophisticated
(secondary process) mode used to conceptualise, is part of the proc-
ess of creating or arriving at new ideas. The fact that psychoanalysts
are daily accustomed to detecting and understanding clinically, the
multiple affective and personally historical meanings arising from and
expressed by means of unlogical contradictory “primary processes”,
like condensations, multiple associations, displacements, identifica-
tions, and so on, can, of course, make it easier for them to turn to such
modes when theorising. But there is a problem of conceptual accept-
ability, if such processes are not recognised as inherently inappropriate
for theorising.
There is nothing new in pointing to this problem. Sandler & Dare
(1970) wrote of “the failure to distinguish between descriptive and
explanatory concepts”. Nearly two decades earlier, Brierley (1951) had
described the failure to distinguish between the language of phantasy
and abstract terminology, between experience and theory about expe-
rience, which she saw as causing confusions or errors in the ways of
thinking about the subject. She considered that psychoanalysts alter-
nately use two different modes of thinking: perceptual and subjective
when empathising with patients, conceptual and objective when think-
ing and theorising about patients. When theory was couched “in per-
ceptual terms” it could cause, as Strachey put it, “capital confusions
and errors in our view of the real events” (in Brierley, 1951, p. 67). This
difficulty remains. The language of perceptual description (and perhaps
particularly the vivid language describing affective interactions between

internal objects) is so much easier to comprehend than the dry language
of conceptual theorising, that for many it remains difficult to maintain
the distinction between these two modes of thinking.
With “unconscious conflict”, there were partly similar, partly some-
what dissimilar problems of difference. In the “Controversial Discus-
sions”, there was no paper specific to the topic, and “conflict” per se
was discussed less than “phantasy” was. However, there was enough
discussion to show that the term was understood and used in a number
of ways. There were various models, for concepts or for descriptions of
psychological conflict, with differences as to the timing, the constitu-
ents, and the locus of conflict.
One (conceptual) model relied on the structural theory and saw inner
conflict as existing between superego-inspired ego defence and instinct;
with the descriptive corollary of a considerable period of development
being required before “conflict” could exist. This timing differed from
the outcome of another (totally conceptual) model, which conceived of
all psychological conflict as deriving from the innate clash of life and
death instincts, and was thus presumed to exist from birth onwards. As
there could be non-distinction or overlap between conceptual and clini-
cal thinking for many theorists, that concept could be regarded as con-
sistent with the clinical model that described conflict situated between
extremely complicated and changing internal (part) objects.
From the point of view of “locus”, conflict could be regarded as occur-
ring between a very wide range of different experiential and theoretical
entities; including (metapsychologically) as occurring between drive
and superego; (experientially) as between love and hate; (clinically)
as between various inner objects; or (developmentally), as moving on
in time, from being external (between subject and the outer world) to
becoming internalised.
As with “phantasy”, “conflict” is a term with different types of
meaning. Clinically, it is an evocative term, essential and also valuable
in conveying vital nuances in psychoanalytic descriptions. It is simulta-
neously a necessary term used theoretically to denote different concepts
to explain the clinical descriptions. It could be thought that the cavalier
use of language and thinking implicit in the multiple and contradictory
meanings given to significant psychoanalytic terms, is a serious prob-
lem that requires serious consideration.
CHAPTER EIGHT
What do our terms mean?*
F
or more than fifty years, Pearl King has played an increasingly
vital part in the world of psychoanalysis, working her way from
student to President of the British Psychoanalytical Society, con-
tributing vastly to work in the IPA and to every existent aspect of organ-
isation and functioning of the British Society; and outstandingly, in
creating new projects, of which the British Society Archives are perhaps
only the most important and significant among many contributions.
Given the extent and range of her creative activity, she may possibly
differ from many outstanding psychoanalysts in being more renowned
for things she has done than for things she has written, with perhaps
the one exception of the volume mentioned below. But the distinctive
originality that made her think of doing things no one else had thought
of doing has also made her think and say and write down things that
no one else has managed to say and write. I shall report at a little length
on something she wrote of this nature—not to discuss it, but to give an
indication of her capacity to notice and then bring theory to bear, on a
difficult and potentially contentious clinical issue.
* Slightly modified chapter from Within Time and Beyond Time: A Festschrift for Pearl King,
R. Steiner & J. Johns (Eds). London: Karnac, 2001.
127
In 1992, the topic of the English-Speaking Conference held in

London by the British Society, was “The British Controversial Discus-
sions: The Issues of Unconscious Phantasy and Conflict Fifty Years
Later”. It followed the publication the previous year of the now famous
massive volume, The Freud-Klein Controversies, 1941–1945, edited by
Pearl King and Riccardo Steiner. Pearl King opened the conference
with a challenge. She noted that in 1942, prior to the Controversial
Discussions, Marjorie Brierley wrote that “one way of stating the prob-
lem before us [of the then current theoretical disagreements and dis-
harmony] is to ask the question: ‘is a theory of mental development in
terms of infantile object relationships compatible … with a theory in
terms of instinct vicissitudes?’” Brierley felt that the answer was in the
affirmative, quoting Freud’s most recent definition of instinct in sup-
port of her opinion: “an instinct may be described as having a source, an
object and an aim” (Freud, 1933a, p. 125). But, King continued, “when
I listen to some members of the British Society now [fifty years later],
I wonder if she was right, as they tend to work in terms of the analysis
of the vicissitudes of the current object relationships of the patient and
the analyst, and there is little reference to the vicissitudes of instincts,
indicating that perhaps the two theories have not proved compatible,
but that one theory has replaced the other”.
In 1996, King elaborated on this issue in a paper entitled “What Has
Happened to Psychoanalysis in the British Society?”1. She explained in
detail why she believed that analysts too frequently focus on the imme-
diate assumed unconscious relationship between analysand and analyst,
and that this so-called “here-and now transference” gives far too little
attention—often none—to each individual moment of the past. Instead
of wondering “with whom the analyst is at anyone moment identified
by the analysand”, for many analysts the central or only question is:
“What unconsciously is the analysand doing to the analyst?” The con-
cept of transference, whereby affects, memories, experience from the
past still exist in the mind of the patient and are what is transferred—
this is ignored and replaced by equating the transference with the
(immediate) relationship. King believes that a whole range of concepts,
ideas, discoveries of Freud and also of Melanie Klein, that only make
sense if taken together with an appreciation of the patient’s past history,
include free association by the analysand and free-floating attention on
the part of the analyst (both interfered with if the past is firmly ignored
in favour of the present); repetition compulsion and regression (both
inherently connecting the transference with the past); and likewise the
W H AT D O O U R T E R M S M E A N ? 129
developmental approach, infantile sexuality leading to adult sexuality,

and the superego. (Regarding the concept “here-and-now”, she thinks
the term was first used by John Rickman, for whom the patient’s
timeless unconscious past was very much present in the here-and-now,
and part of the analyst’s task was “to discover the age or developmental
stage the patient was at any one moment”.)
King’s central criticism is of the way the concept of “transference” is
frequently understood now, in contrast to the way she understands it
and the way(s) she understands Freud and Klein to have understood it.
She describes rather appealingly how she searched through Klein’s
writings, looking for a quote that she could use to blame Klein for
the (present) state of affairs and to her “chagrin” realised that Klein
described transference in the same way King herself thought and thinks
about it; and King gives a long Klein quotation from 1943 illustrating
this. The clinical practices King describes critically probably stem from
the gradual acceptance of Heimann’s (1950) theory of “countertransfer-
ence” and especially its being adapted to the Klein canon (Klein initially
rejected Heimann’s idea) through Klein’s concept of “projective iden-
tification”, subsequently expanded by many others, including Joseph
(1989). King felt she had touched only on the fringe of the problem, and
welcomed further suggestions. If what follows is not exactly a response
to this invitation, it was stimulated by the example of King’s coura-
geous originality.
The issue of Pearl King’s concern (the common use or overuse of the
“here-and-now” transference as currently often conceived) can be seen
from at least two directions. Her focus is on how a new and essentially
more limited concept apparently replaces the original, much richer and
more consequential meaning. A second way of looking at it is that a
new meaning has been silently accepted for a long established tech-
nical term. If seen from this second viewpoint, then what King criti-
cises in some practitioners apparently involves their changing, without
acknowledgement, the meaning of an item of psychoanalytical termi-
nology. This is the theme that I follow, to note and illustrate a few types
of change in psychoanalytic terminology, with some emphasis on their
value or the opposite. This is anything but an exhaustive enquiry, as it
deals merely with a few random examples that have come the way of
the author. But it is felt that they can exemplify a wide problem that
requires recognition.
There are a number of ways in which changes in psychoanalytical
language occur. The first group of ones that are entirely acceptable
are those for which new terms are added to the existing vocabulary
because they are necessary for naming genuinely new ideas. There are
a number of obvious local examples, such as those within the Kleinian
corpus, the ideas of Fairbairn, Winnicott, Bion, as well as those further
afield, including, for example, Kohut. Whether or not the new ideas
are accepted, the need for special terms for them is not an issue. At the
very least they make clear that the new idea is new, so that when under-
standing or agreement is not achieved, there is at least clear certainty
on that point. New ideas are, of course, very important—the life-blood
of any discipline. Like any growing body of knowledge and ideas, psy-
choanalysis has its own concepts expressed in its own terminology, and
there can be absolutely no argument against these inevitably expanding
to accommodate new knowledge and new ideas. The more enthusias-
tically new ideas are embraced, the more will the new concepts and
terminology be used.
The first examples of changes in psychoanalytic vocabulary naturally
came with Freud, who, as his creative ideas developed and evolved, used
some terms in new ways so that their meanings stretched. Consequently,
these were not always consistent, and one term could ultimately in effect
mean more than one thing. This has long been recognised as a problem,
so it might be said that, in effect, the subject of this section has respect-
able antecedents! “Ego” is the best known example; and the topic of the
evolution and expansion of the uses by Freud (as well as later writers) of
the term, has engaged a number of thinkers over the years. It has been
accepted as if defined, inter alia, as personality, as person, as central agency,
as psychic agency, as subject, as substructure of the personality defined
by its functions, as self, and so on. There are various approaches to the
consequent multiplicity of meanings and inevitable confusion and even
contradictory nature of some descriptions. They include exploring the
multiplicity as a historical fact; accepting or even validating multiplicity
as perhaps reflecting a parallel existing psychic multiplicity; presenting
one or another new model, offering new meanings to terms: sometimes
to solve contradictions, sometimes to offer new ideas (an example is
mentioned below); and at least recognising and describing the existence
of uncertainty of definition as a continuing evolving problem. This last
approach resembles that of the present investigation.
There are certain difficulties or paradoxes in this pursuit. Not every-
one is bothered by differences in definition or meaning of current terms,
many people either ignoring or not noticing any difficulty by simply
adhering to a chosen model. But in one way this “solution” probably

applies to everyone, because, however they arrive at it, all practitioners
will surely have a chosen model or models on which they rely clinically
(even if it might change at times for some). This means that whatever
the theoretical recognition of different meanings of terms and con-
cepts, some reliance on a certain validity of the meanings, is more or
less automatically taken for granted. Unless this were the case, it would
simply not be possible to do any work at all. So paradox exists, in this
way. Secondly, analysts are well accustomed to the utter necessity of
working clinically with a great deal of uncertainty and ignorance about
immediate processes within the analysand, to an extent within the ana-
lyst, and between the two of them. However, at the same time, in order
to make the best analytic use they can of whatever they perceive as hap-
pening, they will inevitably rely on some hoped-for safety or security
(or even near-certainty) of experience and knowledge; if not of those
ongoing processes per se, then at least of the usefulness of the analyst’s
very ways of trying to understand. So there may be two different chal-
lenges to any analyst’s feeling at home or at ease with what he or she is
doing. Remarkably, this might not interfere with the analyst’s capacity
to work without too much anxiety or rigidity or whatever. (Problems
about this last paradox, which might be lauded as non-rigid fluidity
of mind, described as defensive unconscious splitting, or lamented as
stupidity or woolliness or dishonesty of thought, will be left for a later
possible investigation.)
To return to terminology: it is far from unknown for thinkers, other
than Freud, to change terminology by using established psychoanalytical
conceptual or clinical terms for new and different meanings. A well
known historical example is the then new meaning accorded the term
“phantasy” by Klein, as well explained by Susan Isaacs (1943). Briefly,
Freud’s main probable meaning of the term “phantasy” (conscious or
unconscious) was the construction of an imagined situation of gratifica-
tion to defend against the pains of frustration. According to Isaacs, Klein
expanded this meaning enormously, to denote phantasies as “mainly
unconscious, the primary content of unconscious mental activity: phan-
tasy as psychic reality, the mental representative and corollary of instinc-
tual urges which cannot operate in the mind without phantasy”: that
Freud’s postulated “hallucinatory wish-fulfilment” and his “primary
projection” are the basis of phantasy life; and that phantasies are the
subjective interpretation of experience, early becoming elaborated
into defences as well as wish-fulfilments, and that they express the

specific content and show the specific purpose of an urge, a feeling, or a
defence. Phantasies exert an uninterrupted and omnipresent influence
throughout life, with individual and age difference lying in the mode
of elaboration and expression. In terms of this definition, “phantasy”
ultimately comes to mean well-nigh every single aspect of unconscious
mental activity, This vastly differs from Freud’s much more focused
meaning of one specific mode of defence against pain; but, somehow,
within the British Society this difference is hardly noticed. The term
“phantasy” is quite widely used in the expanded (Kleinian) meaning as
well as in the more focused limited meaning. This involves an oddity
that is ignored; that is, of including under one name, in one category,
what are surely extremely different items, such as the primary content
of unconscious mental processes, of primary projection, of hallucina-
tory wish-fulfilments, of imaginary gratification, of perceiving and
realistically interpreting experience, of thinking and judgement. This
problematic point is mentioned again below,
Another example of established terms being used with new mean-
ings (which includes a new meaning for the term “ego”) is found when
Winnicott explained his view on the relation between “ego and id”.
Freud used the terms to denote items in his 1923 model of the mind
(1923). Inter alia, he described the individual as “a psychical id, … on
whose surface rests the ego …” adding, “the ego is that part of the
id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external
world …” It is clear from these descriptions (as it was from his 1915a
description of System Unconscious, inter alia, as earlier than the higher
organised system later called “ego”), that for Freud “id” unquestion-
ably preceded “ego”, even if only briefly. Winnicott would appear not
to contradict this when he wrote that “… id functioning is collected
together … and becomes ego experience”. But he went on to state that
there thus is no sense in making use of the word “id” for phenomena
that are not covered … and experienced … and eventually interpreted
by ego-functioning. What instinctual life there may be apart from ego-
functioning can be ignored, because the infant is not yet an entity hav-
ing experiences. There is no id before ego.” What Freud named “das Es”
(the id) he saw as preceding what he named “das Ich” (the ego); what
Winnicott named “ego” he saw as preceding what he named “id”. This
contradiction, too, is further mentioned below.
A third way in which psychoanalytic terminology can change,
comprises those situations where new terminology disguises the loss or
the unacknowledged part-duplication, with or without contradiction,

of ideas long established in earlier terminology. What follows are some
examples of an idea described in new language that has been offered
as new but turns out to be, or to include, ideas long familiar (or that
should be long familiar) when couched in older terminology—that is,
the use of new words for old ideas.
1. In his 1912 “Recommendations for Physicians on the Psycho-
Analytic Method of Treatment” (1912), Freud recommends “evenly
suspended attention”. In summary, he explains that in this way a
strain that could not be kept up for several hours daily and a danger
inseparable from deliberate attentiveness, are avoided. For as soon
as attention is deliberately concentrated in a certain degree, one
begins to select from the material before one; one point will be fixed
in the mind with particular clearness and some other consequently
disregarded, and in this selection one’s expectations or one’s inclina-
tions will be followed. This is just what must not be done, however;
if one’s expectations are followed in this selection there is the danger
of never finding anything but what is already known, and if one
follows one’s inclinations anything that is to be perceived will most
certainly be falsified.
This should be compared with Bion’s 1970 statement in Attention and
Interpretation:
The memories and desires to which I wish to draw attention have
the following elements in common: they are already formulated
and therefore require no formulation: they derive from experience
gained through the senses: they are evocations of feelings of pleas-
ure or pain; they are formulations “containing” pleasure or pain.
Insofar as they are Column 2 statements their function is to pre-
vent transformation of the K→O order … . The first point is for
the analyst to impose on himself a positive discipline of eschewing
memory and desire … what is required is a positive act of refrain-
ing from memory and desire.
While the terminology is quite different, it can be seen that, in effect,

these two statements are identical in their advice to analysts, and well-
nigh identical in the meaning of their reasons for giving this advice. To
some extent the same would apply to yet another new formulation.
2. In Britton and Steiner’s 1994 paper, “Interpretation: selected fact or
overvalued idea”, which relies heavily on Bion’s thinking, the view
is given that the new model the paper promotes has the effect, inter
alia, that it “protects the analyst from overactive participation”.
Essentially, the difference between these three aids to practice lies
in the different background theories producing different ways of
giving what is virtually or even absolutely the same advice. This
sameness might have the advantage of confirmation—a confluence
is arrived at from different theoretical sources and therefore in
different languages. (Although it should be remembered that without
conscious intent, “original” thinking does sometimes plagiarise. It is
far from unusual to discover a “forgotten” source for something that
had been cherished as an original idea; and it seems fair to assume
that all analysts have read Freud at some time in the past!)
There are, of course, reasons for the new formulations. Bion’s is in the
context of his model of the Grid and so forth, explaining an important
idea of his own. However, there is no reason to think that the particular
piece of advice to analysts stands or falls by the acceptability of those
theories or of that particular idea. Often enough the idea of operating
“without memory or desire” is spoken of as if it is accepted as an idea
in its own right. Freud’s words of advice could be preferable, not just
because they “are Freud’s”, but because Bion’s could be taken as sug-
gesting that the analyst actively eschew all memory of previous ses-
sions, which effort would certainly be counterproductive clinically, as
actively choosing not to think of anything is as much a contrivance as
actively choosing points of personal interest. In fact, it seems quite pos-
sible that Bion did not mean this but meant exactly what Freud meant.
3. Another example comes with Bion’s 1967 statement in Second
Thoughts. He writes that there is in the analyst’s thinking
an evolution, the coming together, by a suddenly precipitating intui-
tion, of a mass of apparently unrelated phenomena, which are thereby
given coherence and meaning not previously possessed … . From
the material the patient produces there emerges, like the pattern
from a kaleidoscope, a configuration which seems to belong, not
only to the situation unfolding, but to a number of others not previ-
ously seen to be connected and which it has not been designed to
connect. (1984)
Bion is explaining how his attention could be arrested by what

he calls the “selected fact”, which could emerge as the centre of a
hypothesis in which different elements in the patient come to be

integrated in the mind of the analyst … which could then be formed
into an interpretation.
This can be compared with words written more than a decade ear-
lier. In 1951, writing “On Counter-Transference”, Annie Reich describes
“… confusing incomprehensible disconnected presentations [which]
suddenly make sense and become a Gestalt”. Bion seems to have arrived
at his “selected fact” in exactly the same way as Annie Reich arrived at
her “Gestalt”, and aside from the descriptive detail, it is difficult to see
any difference between her “Gestalt” and his “selected fact”.
As mentioned, the above examples were given to illustrate the theme
of “old ideas presented as if new, in new terminology”. Important
corollaries to this are the possibilities of new terminology disguising
contradictions of ideas and theoretical losses of long-valued insights.
Regrettably, although there is something approaching conviction that
significant examples of these are available, in the rush to get this chapter
written there was not enough time to get full details of them; and this
is a task for the future.
To consider what has so far been stated: there are differences in the
ways different workers understand the concept “transference”. One
way of formulating the “difference” is to note that it involves a change
in the meaning of the term, in such a way that long-valued insights
accruing to the older meaning may have been lost. This leads to notic-
ing changes in some other items of psychoanalytic language, achieved
either by the creation of new terms or by established terms being treated
as having different or additional meanings. New terminology is unar-
guably acceptable when a new term is created to name a new idea—
as, for example, with a Kleinian term like “depressive position”. There
is, however, room for argument when new meanings are added to an
established term, as with the Klein/Isaacs definition of “phantasy”,
the question here being whether the older and the newer meanings are
really sufficiently within the same category as to be meaningfully defin-
able by the one term (i.e., imaginary gratification as the specific defence
against the pain of frustration, and well-nigh every single aspect of
unconscious mental activity). Obviously, the new meanings require to
be stated, but whether it helps clarity to lump them together with the
meaning of the old term rather than giving them a new term altogether,
is another matter. (During the Controversial Discussions, Brierley sug-
gested that Isaacs should use the word “meaning” for what she was
newly defining as “phantasy”.) It was claimed that the new additions

enriched the older concept of “phantasy”. Alternatively, it could be felt
that there is a loss, because a term denoting just about “everything to
do with unconscious mentation”, ultimately means just about nothing,
whereas phantasy meaning “imaginary gratification” is far more spe-
cific and thus useful as a term.
When Winnicott said “there is no id before ego”, in one sense he,
like Klein and Isaacs, was adding to the established meanings of the
terms, because he still went along with major aspects of what Freud
meant by the concepts, in seeing id as the source of instinctual drive
and ego as the seat of mature functions like memory, thinking, organ-
ised action, and so on. But in another sense (again like Klein and
Isaacs), he was using the terms for a new meaning. He wanted to say
something new, about how he conceived of early development, aris-
ing from his experience in analysing a few borderline or psychotic
patients, and in observing large numbers of infants with their moth-
ers. All these were clinical observations, of the same conceptual order
as the clinical observations Freud made on his patients and on him-
self. But the topics of observation were not “ego” or “id”—they were
people who were talking, struggling with feeling wretched or guilty
or loving or furious, remembering and forgetting, fighting or com-
plying, and so on. The psychoanalytic “Ich” and “Es” (or “superego”
or “depressive position” or “projective identification”, etc.) are not
matters of observation to be described. They are concepts to explain
what is being and has been observed and described. They cannot be
treated as pieces of natural science to be noted and categorised. If this
distinction is kept in mind, it might help to resolve the apparent con-
tradiction of Freud’s and Winnicott’s “ego and id”. Clearly, Winnicott
wanted to change something of Freud’s concept because he felt it did
not adequately explain what he felt he had observed; but his generali-
sation using the terms was at a different level from Freud’s. For Freud,
“Ich” and “Es” were abstract metapsychological concepts. Winnicott
said (personal communication) that he couldn’t use metapsychol-
ogy and he was using the (metapsychological) terms to describe the
infant’s experience. So, rather than modifying Freud’s concept the bet-
ter to explain new findings, it might rather be said that Winnicott was
actually using the terms to describe something significantly differ-
ent. They were the wrong words, in contrast to the meaningful and
resonating and useful words with which he repeatedly described the
infant’s experience.
The distinction between observation, as in natural science, and

abstract theorising about what is observed, parallels a distinction made
over half a century ago by Marjorie Brierley (1939) when she distin-
guished between two independent aspects of psychoanalytic theory
that she related to two different modes of thinking in psychoanalysis.
One was “used in the consulting-room [where] we understand the indi-
vidual personal subjective experience of our analysands by thinking and
feeling with them by identification”. The other came into play “when
we theorize, thinking metapsychologically, and feeling objectively about
the patient”. Descriptions of the sequence of the patient’s actual experi-
ence, was “something different in kind from theoretical generalizations
about experience”, and Brierley was of the opinion that to avoid ambi-
guity or even mistakes, the two should be described in different terms.
For one example she quotes Strachey describing a patient who may say
that “his self is falling to pieces”; but this subjective experience might
or might not reflect what could be described objectively as the “stabil-
ity of his ego”. If the patient is schizophrenic, ego stability might be
threatened, if he is hysteric, it might not be, “despite his feelings”. To
describe the patient using only that patient’s subjective description “is
not merely a linguistic mistake but may result in capital confusions or
errors in our views of the real events”. It is a sad reality that little regard
has been paid to Brierley’s clarifying distinction, with the result that
confusions between what she called “perceptual” and “conceptual” lan-
guage abound in our literature; of which Winnicott’s misleading use of
the metapsychological terms ego and id, to describe what he believed was
the experience of the infant, is a telling example. So while he had much
to add to psychoanalytic terminology in describing his new ideas (e.g.,
“transitional states and objects”, “true and false self”) his “new” use of
the terms “ego” and “id” arises, in this view, from a misconception.
It is a different matter with the rather startling resemblances in small
details of differently conceived theories that have been illustrated with
examples of Freud, Bion, Britton, Steiner, and Reich arriving at what
seems the same idea in different ways and along different routes and
using different terms. It makes a difference as to when each arrived
there in relation to when the other did. It is certainly not unknown for
different researchers in any discipline to get to more or less the same
idea at about the same time, the resounding example being Darwin
and Wallace; and it would appear that when relevant thoughts and
ideas are being exchanged and known about in the scientific com-
munity, it is quite possible for them to stimulate similar responses in
more than one perspicuous worker. Winnicott and Bion, working at

the same time in London, produced ideas about earliest development
that were somewhat different in their languages and concepts, but by
no means always so different in meaning. To take one example, papers
first including Winnicott’s idea of “unthinkable anxiety” and Bion’s
thought of “nameless dread”—obviously referring to just about the
same thing—were published within the same year (I have a recollection
for which I have no reference, of Winnicott grumbling that his was first
and not acknowledged!). In Annie Reich’s aforementioned paper with
her term “Gestalt”, published in the same year as Heimann’s renowned
“Countertransference” paper, which Reich was therefore unlikely to
have read before she wrote hers, there are clear references to something
of the very same idea about countertransference that Heimann was
presenting.
It is less easy to guess about the source of similarities in two publica-
tions when there is a decade or more between their appearance. On the
other hand, if such an identity of ideas does not irritate too much (“that
was said ten or twenty years ago by X—why isn’t it quoted?”) it can
be seen as a rewarding or even reassuring confluence. Psychoanalysis
has far too little in the way of testability or refutability of theory not to
feel that identical conclusions by different workers, working separately,
constitute at least some substitute for statistical confirmation.
Finally, while there are obviously occasions when a change in mean-
ing of a psychoanalytic term is justified because new knowledge of the
relevant topic shows the need for change in the concept, there are others
when this is not the case. The first problem is to recognise when this is
so and then to try to understand why it has happened—that is, why an
unnecessary, confusing contradiction or duplication or other muddle
of terminology is offered. How can it be that terms can be used with
so niggardly a regard for the function of terms, which is to communi-
cate clearly, which function includes the unequivocal communication
(rather than dramatic enactment) of muddle, unclarity, and equivoca-
tion, if that is the subject of what needs to be communicated.
There may be a number of contributing factors. One is the situation
when the change is part of an exciting new idea that may engage so
much interest that earlier ideas are left behind and forgotten, which
can be a serious loss. This might sometimes have been the case with the
concept of “transference”, as King illustrates. Another example might
be of how the concept of “repression” is sometimes lost when relevant

clinical findings are subsumed under the heading of “splitting”, thereby
losing the distinction of ego intactness, if repression is by ego and split-
ting is of ego. One factor might be a problem inherent to our study.
There is no way at all of testing our theoretical concepts per se, and their
usefulness or otherwise depends entirely on whichever set of words
resonate with any one psychoanalytic community at any one moment,
which is shown by the fact that they differ in different countries and in
different groupings and at different times. Furthermore, there are dif-
ferences between those using abstract metapsychological formulations
as well as clinical experiential ones, and those preferring to theorise
only in clinical experiential terms, with the added difficulty that the dif-
ference is not always noticed. An overall disadvantage of most workers
relying on their chosen, immediate modes of communication and theo-
rising is the lamentable paucity of serious attempts to contrast different
ideas, to compare and contrast and measure their comparable useful-
ness. This goes together with the great difficulties that many experi-
ence in seriously assessing criticism of their own ideas, as if considering
alternatives is a disloyalty, rather than a welcoming of new ideas.
To summarise: there are a number of ways in which psychoanalytic
language changes. While some are certainly acceptable, the emphasis
has been on some that are regrettable, because of duplications and con-
tradictions and the consequent confusions that ensue. Valuable ideas
may be blurred or totally lost; or great difficulties can accrue in that
vital “scientific” need, the communication and, especially, the com-
parison and evaluation of theoretical ideas. A few examples are given
to illustrate some of these various problems. No grand solutions are
offered. All that has been attempted is an indication of the nature of
a serious problem, in the hope of this being a step towards some fur-
ther understanding. It is offered in tribute to Pearl King, not because it
reflects her ideas, but because her admirable capacity to present ideas
that she might not think popular, has encouraged me to do likewise.
Note
1. Chapter Seven in Who Owns Psychoanalysis?, Ann Casement, London:
Karnac, 2004.
CHAPTER NINE
A psychoanalyst looks at some problems

concerning evidence and motives*
M
y interest in the problems I’ll discuss derives from having
once been subpoenaed to give evidence, about someone
alleged to have been a patient of mine.1 I had to consider the
issues involved, and from them to work out what I thought appropri-
ate to a psychoanalyst in this position: and to convey this to the judge
in non-technical language. Later, I thought of other issues, not strictly
related to this very limited field, but upon which I thought psychoa-
nalysis might cast a little light.
My statement to the judge concentrated on presenting my ethical
stand, with some examples to explain the need for special confidenti-
ality by a psychoanalyst. I noted that in my work it was essential that
people should feel free to discuss everything that concerned them,
including matters of great intimacy that they wouldn’t mention if they
felt there was any chance that I would talk about them elsewhere.
One of these might be the very fact that they had sought my help; and
neither then nor since have I revealed whether or not I had ever seen the
person before. I went into some detail to justify this confidentiality: the
* 3rd International Congress on Medical Law, Ghent, 1973 (slightly modified version).
141
patient’s being able to trust his psychoanalyst’s discretion completely,

is part of the very fabric of the treatment, without which it must fail.
I contrasted this with a physician, whose treatment of a physical illness
might be perfectly successful, despite any ethical lapse.
The judge pointed out that I was not “privileged” in law; if there
were any privilege, it would reside in the so-called “patient”. Would I
answer questions if he gave permission?
I again spoke in general terms, giving the theoretical example of
someone having psychoanalysis, and going through a phase of greatly
admiring and depending on me. He might then feel it necessary to
sacrifice himself and give permission. This unreasonable “generosity”
would reflect a temporary phase stirred up in the treatment situation,
and would have no relation whatever to his ordinary life. It would,
therefore, be quite wrong to accept such permission at face value and
act upon it. This is because any strong feeling for the analyst aroused
during the psychoanalysis is an aspect of the treatment that is called
“the transference”, whereby significant but repressed feelings for oth-
ers, are transferred to the analyst. It has incalculable therapeutic value
when properly used, to cast light on a patient’s patterns of relating to
people: but to use it outside the analytic situation would be analogous
to a doctor’s inviting a patient to undress to be examined, and then
allowing the Law to see him and arrest him for exhibiting himself.
My court appearance ended well for me. This happy outcome rested
partly on its taking place in England, and thus falling within the realm
of English Law regarding contempt of court. There are no rules or regu-
lations defining details of this offence, nor anything like minimal sen-
tences. It is a matter purely for the judge to decide; and before I was
cross-examined, my judge informed counsel that he saw this as a matter
of conscience, and would not send me to prison. How far he under-
stood the significance of those psychoanalytic basics, the unconscious
mind and the power of the transference, fundamental to the explana-
tions I gave, and how far his was a “commonsense” judgement, I cannot
guess.
Even were there not the ethical one, there would still be reasons
why psychoanalysts would resist giving evidence about their patients.
This has to do with the essential unreliability, from the legal point of
view, of our possible so-called “evidence”. Over the years of a psycho-
analytic treatment, we may hear a number of different variations of the
same event, each completely sincere, but varying with the changing
A P S Y C H OA N A LY S T L O O K S AT S O M E P R O B L E M S C O N C E R N I N G E V I D E N C E 143
emotional focus of the analysand/patient; each version being a clue to

another level of his or her unconscious conflict. To report on which-
ever is momentarily in the ascendant could mislead a court, as much
as a report on an applicant’s blood pressure after a night of vomiting
could mislead an insurance company. Telling all the known versions,
garnered perhaps over years, would surely only confuse the court. Our
honest reports simply could not be used as evidence.
The same sort of “unreliability” may surely sometimes attend reports
of non-psychoanalytic colleagues, but they might have less opportunity
of noticing this. Their patients’ inner physical organisation will prob-
ably not be changing in the way a person’s psychological organisa-
tion can do during psychoanalysis. Although physical disorders can of
course develop and expand, once a physical diagnosis is satisfactorily
achieved, it is likely to be accepted as the basic ongoing determinant
of the patient’s pains, incapacities, and sufferings, and so on; whereas
the whole basic psychological picture is likely to change, gradually
but considerably, during psychoanalysis. An important point with our
analysands—psychoanalytic patients—is that their symptoms may
well—indeed, probably do—have roots in multiple unconscious deter-
minants. Furthermore, it is worth noting that it is not only neurotics
who have unconscious conflicts that influence their thoughts, feelings,
relationships, and activities. We all have them. The difference between
the so-called “normal” and the so-called “disturbed” person, is a matter
of degree, a sliding scale, with normality … more or less quantitatively
in terms of how successfully the person can operate in life; that is, in
work, play, and human relationships. Everyone has a breaking point,
and for some this may be an illness or an accident which releases very
limited “neurotic-like” reactions. (Indeed, the unconscious influence
exerted in “compensation neurosis” is well known to lawyers, who dis-
tinguish it from conscious malingering, and are generally helpful when
it occurs.) Similarly, “transference-like” relationships are not confined
to those between analysands and analysts; but it is only in analysis that
we can understand them. To take an everyday example: the man who is
always especially kind to old ladies may, perhaps, be treating them as if
they were his now deceased but long cherished grandmother. If so, he
has transferred his love of grandmother to anyone who resembles and
unconsciously reminds him of her.
A patient does not have to have been having analysis to have, for
instance, a dependent, self-negating attitude towards his doctor. If the
doctor has treated him well for years, and if his character is the sort that
is self-denying when appreciative, he might well “sacrifice” himself
and give permission to his doctor to give evidence about him, without
in the least realising that this permission stems from an unconscious
constellation whereby he reacts to his doctor as to an admired, perhaps
god-like figure, to whom all must be given. Whether this will lead to “the
whole truth” of the matter being revealed, is quite another question.
I began this chapter with matter deriving from my own experience
as a psychoanalyst, going on to extrapolate theoretically to some more
general situations. To carry this extrapolation further, I’d like to say
something about the validity of evidence in general. Such evidence
depends initially on the mental function of perception. (As regards the
allied function of memory, one does not have to be a psychoanalyst to
distrust its certainty. If the story of the judge who, witnessing an acci-
dent, made haste to write down his observations in detail is apocryphal,
it nevertheless underlines lawyers’ familiarity with the unreliability of
memory.) Hence their wish to get reports from as many witnesses to an
event as possible, so that the various descriptions can be checked each
against the others, with the aim of eliminating those most obviously
faulty. They gain vast experience in assessing the reliability of witnesses,
and on a rough and ready basis their conclusions may often, and even
usually, work well enough. Where this could occasionally fail, might be
in the standards whereby a judge assesses the reliability of one or another
conflicting witnesses’ reliability, which in any one instance would surely
reflect the judge’s personal standards of probity. What may be missed
are the witnesses’ particular predilections concerning the matter at issue.
To take a silly example. How, I wonder, would any judge have decided
the truth underlying the following little story? My lawyer brother and
I saw a minor episode involving a man and a woman walking down
the street, and commented upon it immediately. I “saw” a clumsy man
inadvertently tripping up a woman with his umbrella; he “saw” an
ungainly woman bumping into an innocent man. Most probably both
our observations were influenced by immediate unconscious identifica-
tions with the person of our own sex; but the staggering point is how
the perception of at least one of us, both professionally accustomed to
assumed or hoped-for objectivity in observation, could have been so dis-
torted, presumably by unconscious attitudes and expectations. I have
no idea what really happened between that man and woman. All I do
know is that this little experience focussed my doubts upon the validity
of evidence, technical or non-technical, from any witness. It is obvious

that some people are patently less reliable observers than others. But can
anyone ever perceive anything with total photographic-like objectivity?
I doubt it. The mental picture adults form from visual stimuli is partly
based on their non-conscious expectations. Take those reading tricks
where we “see” a familiar word, despite the omission of one or more let-
ters in it. Or we may “perceive” known shapes in clouds: or in abstract
pictures, imposing thereon our preconceived mental imagery. Perception
is indeed active rather than passive. Something analogous applies to all
that we observe; to some extent, we see what some part of us expects to
see. Everyone will be familiar with the experience, or at least the idea,
of situations in which there are as many different reports of an episode,
as there are witnesses to it. (If one knows the witnesses well, one can
sometimes notice where a familiar habitual attitude is being repeated.)
For example, one’s friend who is temperamentally incapable of blam-
ing anyone, might well report an argument as having been initiated by
neither of the disputants, whereas a known rebel might, unsurprisingly,
take the side of the more junior of the two. However, even knowing these
aspects of the two “witnesses” does not help to decide what really hap-
pened. The argument may have been no-one’s fault; or it may indeed
have been started provocatively by the senior.
Despite the biases of the witnesses, the evidence of neither might
give the true picture. How is one to know? All that lawyers have at
their disposal is experience in interviewing clients or cross-examining
witnesses. Experience will often help them here: but will it help them
see through a witness’s totally unconscious distortions?
This leads to my second area; which is that the sorts of answers
lawyers and psychoanalysts seek, are of very different calibres. The
law will always seek to arrive at what is to be taken as (or as if) an
incontrovertible, and therefore single, account of what “actually hap-
pened”. Psychoanalysts, in seeking the deeply unconscious interwoven
nexus of urges and counter urges, anxieties, split feelings, phantasies,
conflicts, and compromises between them that are at the base of any
thought, feeling, or action, know very well that in the “truths” they
seek, there is no one incontrovertible account. A further point is that,
primarily, we are dealing, not so much with outcome, as with motives.
In certain situations, lawyers also deal with motives (though ones that
are conscious, not unconscious). I would like to mention two instances
where I would have a different and, I would like to believe, deeper and
more insightful view, than that of some lawyers. Katz, Goldstein, and
Dershovitz, in “Psycho-Analysis, Psychiatry and Law”2, present two
cases illuminating “some problems in the law of Crimes and Evidence”.
In the first case, a man, following protracted marital rows, chased his
wife with a pistol, put it to her head, and pulled the trigger. She sur-
vived, because although he had ammunition, he had not loaded the
pistol. Immediately afterwards, while presumably still caught up in the
emotions belonging to the row, he said he “knew” it was loaded. Later,
he said he knew it wasn’t. He was found guilty of attempted murder,
approximately on the grounds that he thought the pistol was loaded.
A dissenting judgement, referring inter alia to all the details of the load-
ing of the pistol, noted the incontrovertible fact that throughout the
incident, the bottom of its butt was open, which would readily dem-
onstrate to anyone looking at it that it could not have been loaded; and
therefore, the man could not have been murderously motivated. To my
legally innocent and uninformed mind, there is a vastly stronger reason
supporting the dissenting judge’s view. That is the simple fact that the
man had not loaded the pistol. Whatever the strength of his conscious
rage and murderous intent, the unconscious determination not to kill
his wife, for whatever reasons, was the stronger. It seems likely that
he was beset by most powerful conflicts of feeling towards her, and
had unconsciously arrived at a compromise. This was having a violent
row with her, culminating in an act apparently expressing his stronger
hatred; but an opposite feeling, whether of love for that wife or of self-
protection, saw to it that the “murder attempt” on which he was con-
sciously bent, was in fact no more than play-acting. It should be stressed
again that consciously, he determined to kill his wife; but his uncon-
scious opposite strivings, were too strong for him. This conclusion rests
on our psychoanalytic knowledge of the ever present power of totally
unconscious thinking. If all is well, unconscious strivings may reach
consciousness, and the person can then consciously decide whether or
not to carry them out. Under various conditions (by no means always
pathological) the path to consciousness is blocked; but if the striving
is strong enough it might manifest itself indirectly, but recognisably,
without any conscious intent by the person. The man fully determined
to kill his wife, will no more forget to load the pistol, than the ardent
lover will forget an assignation. If the lover forgot, we’d all know he’d
lost interest. We should also know that the non-loading shooter has no
effective interest in killing.
In the second case, a man shot his wife accidentally, while

demonstrating to her how a loaded weapon seemed faulty, because
it wouldn’t fire. But it did. The man, who collected firearms, and had
brought the weapon out of the gun-room to show his wife, was felt
to be clearly guilty of criminal carelessness, but there was thought to
be serious doubt as to his guilt for the greater crime, and he was sen-
tenced for manslaughter. In this case, as with the first one, I would
suppose that he was beset by strongly opposed unconscious feelings.
In the previous case, the unconscious compromise that was reached,
was to enact the crime, but in effect to make sure that it would not
really be committed. In the second case, however, the compromise
may have followed a different path. This man would have known
perfectly well how dangerous was his activity with the weapon in his
wife’s presence. I’d suggest that he behaved as if to leave to “chance”
whether or not there would be a fatal accident; which means that
his behaviour was such as to allow for either outcome, fatal or not.
It might be possible for the law to distinguish between conscious
and unconscious motives; yet it seems to me that the whole issue of
criminal responsibility is thrown in doubt by our realisation of the
extent to which activity can be guided by unconscious motives, with-
out any conscious awareness on the part of the doer. To my mind, the
man in the first case was incontrovertibly not guilty of attempting
to murder his wife, as his own actions made certain that he couldn’t
do so. By contrast, the man in the second case may have had no con-
scious intent towards murder, but his actions made it possible, and in
the event, his wife did die. I would suspect that his deep genuine
unconscious compulsion towards murder was much stronger than
in the first man.
Lawyers may criticise my using these, probably uncharacteristic,
cases. As Oliver Wendell Holmes apparently said “The life of the Law
has not been logic; it has been experience.” I chose the above exam-
ples to highlight the enormous problems lawmakers would face if they
attempted to draft laws recognising the effective power of unconscious
strivings; yet to ignore this aspect must surely be to ignore known reali-
ties governing human behaviour. But whether unconscious motivation
should make a person more culpable in law, is quite another matter.
The whole issue of legally recognisable motivation should surely be
rethought in the light of specialist knowledge about totally unconscious
mentation.
Having said that, I ought now to offer some neat formula to help
the law move towards a more insightful way of dealing with situations
where unconscious strivings are an important factor.
A lawyer friend, who specialises in divorce, speaks of the number of
clients whose behaviour belies their sincerely held conscious motives.
There are mothers who consciously want their children, but find suf-
ficient reason to leave them in the course of matrimonial desertion.
There’s the spouse who wants a divorce but finds reasons against every
step towards achieving it. If such cases ever get to court, the people con-
cerned are grossly hindered by their past behaviour, in achieving what
they consciously seek. It was only after my friend, drawing understand-
ing both from his vast legal experience and from his own psychoanaly-
sis, could see how contrary unconscious motives were hobbling some of
his clients’ conscious aims, that he could devise ways of helping them
see and deal with what they really mostly wanted. I have no doubt
that his preliminary enquiries with a client must often have a genuine
and skilled psychotherapeutic function. Can similar insight and skill be
brought to bear on court practise in general?
Clearly, every judge will have his or her own predilection and
understanding, and the fact that not all effective thinking and decision-
making is conscious is certainly known to some lawyers. But does this
general knowledge help, either in assessing the culpability of moti-
vation, or in the ever-present situation of witnesses giving evidence?
To my regret, I cannot see any way of enabling it to do so. If I were
to suggest that motive is such an imponderable that it should never
be used legally, I imagine I would meet with as much contemptuous
rejection as if I were to say that any witnesses’ personal evidence was
so subject to inevitable obscure distortion, that it should never be used!
But other than these extreme (and of course unworkable) ideas, I have
no answer to propose. All I can do is to suggest that the law look again
at these areas, with some new doubts and uncertainty, in terms of the
extra knowledge revealed by psychoanalytic insight.
Notes
1. Anon (Anne Hayman): “Psycho-Analyst Subpoenaed”. The Lancet, 16
October 1965, pp. 785–786.
2. Katz. J., Goldstein J. & Dershovitz. A. M.: Psycho-Analysis, Psychiatry and
the Law. New York: Free Press, 1967.
POSTFACE
What does it mean? … What do we mean by this concept? If there is

a constant explicit or implicit leitmotiv in Anne Hayman’s papers, that
perhaps could be the one.
She is a typical representative of what she herself calls the Inde-
pendent British tradition. In her case, beside Marjorie Brierley, who
was one of the most gifted British indigenous analysts of the thirties
and forties of last century, one has also to remember D. W. Winnicott,
Paula Heimann, and Michael Balint, just to mention a few names. But
she must also not have been forgetful of the teaching and the way of
approaching our discipline of J. Sandler at the Anna Freud Centre, in
the fifties and sixties. Indeed, gifted with a sharp, razor-like mind, Anne
Hayman reminds one of a Talmudic scholar and, at the same time, of
a British analytic philosopher or of a lawyer, for her passion and skil-
fulness in analysing, dissecting, pointing out obscurities and contra-
dictions of complex concepts and theoretical and clinical issues in our
discipline. To all this one has to add an uncanny sense of paradox and
humour in her mode of argumentation. Some of the papers collected
for this book are well known and little classics in their own way. I am
149
150 P O S T FA C E
thinking particularly of the paper on unconscious phantasy and on the

id. Others are a very pleasant surprise.
Even for those who do not always agree with her, this overdue col-
lection of her papers constitutes a constant challenge and a refreshing
stimulus to further thinking.
Prof. Riccardo Steiner

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INDEX
‘A-stream’ 4 ‘B-stream’ 4
abstract theory 59 babies see infants
affect 73–74 Balint, Michael
‘Affects and the Psycho-Analytic on Bion 21
Situation’ (International Freud and 11
Congress, Jerusalem 1977) 73 Group of Independent Analysts
‘Affects in theory and practice’ 12
(Marjorie Brierley) 71, 73 on oral cannibalistic fantasies 106
aggression 76, 120–122, 124 phantasy 107
American Psychoanalytic behaviour 64
Association 32 Beres, David
anal-sadism 121 dangers to clear thinking 35
anxiety discharge of psychic energy
aggression and 76 30–31
infants 106, 122 on Freud 55–56
phantasies and 89 on metaphorical language 21, 29
Winnicott 13–14, 138 on muddled thinking 57
associative thinking see thinking on the id 33, 38–39, 43
attention 133 Berkeley, Bishop 24
Attention and Interpretation (Wilfred Berlin 2–3, 70, 86
Bion) 133 Bion, Wilfred 21–25
Austria 3, 86 British Psychoanalytic paper 19
161
162 INDEX
Britton and Steiner’s paper writing style 72

133–134 British Object-Relations Theorists 5,
Marjorie Brierley and 82 11–12
‘nameless dread’ 138 British Psychoanalytical Society 1–4
blind children 65–66 see also children; Archives 127
infants Bion’s paper 19
breasts Freud welcomed 70
as external object 9 Melanie Klein welcomed 86
breast-mothers 13 Pearl King 127
hallucination 108 phantasy 132
infantile hunger and 7–8 the Controversial Discussions 85,
infantile phantasy and 88, 90, 105 101–102, 128
Brierley, Marjorie 69–83 Burlingham, Dorothy 89, 105, 110
advancement in theory of
psychoanalysis 72 cannibalism
André Green on 74 age of infants involved 92, 105
Controversial Discussions Anna Freud 109
see ‘Controversial extreme anxiety over 122
Discussions, the’ oral phantasies 90, 105–106
Freud and 72–73, 80 Susan Isaacs 7
her most far-reaching categories 57
contribution 78 causal thinking see thinking
integration 81 cause and effect 42
legacy 71 children 42, 65–66, 113–114 see also
Melanie Klein 72, 74–79, 96, 105, infants
111 chimpanzees 50
object relationships 128 clinical theory 59
on affects 73 communication 20–21, 25, 44
on confusion in thinking 111, 125 concepts 46–48, 51
on phantasy 75, 93, 95, 107, condensation 28, 40
115–116 confidentiality 141
on the id 28 conflict
part-objects 11 ab initio 118–120
perceptual and conceptual terms babies 90–91
25n concept of 48
publications 70–74, 81–82 different meanings of 126
seeks to mediate 71, 110 phantasies and 89
Susan Isaacs and phantasy 75, superego and 117–118
93, 116 unconscious 101–102, 116–117,
transference 15 120–123, 126
two different modes of thinking confusion 51, 57–60
137 conscience 107
INDEX 163
‘containers’ and ‘contained’ 19–22, 48 Melanie Klein’s genius 79–80

‘Controversial Discussions, the’ Oedipus complex 108
101–126 phantasy and 46, 87
details argued 6 pleasure and 39
Marjorie Brierley 69, 71, 74–75, primary narcissism leading to 9
77, 80, 135 repression and 139
opening paper 7 superego and 56
phantasy 77, 85, 87, 96, 101–116, symposium on 43
122–124, 126 thinking and 23, 42
purpose of 4, 86 wishes and 38
summary of discussions 122–123 ‘Ego and the Id, The’ (Sigmund
countertransference 14–17 Freud) 80
Annie Reich 135 empathy 15, 73–74
Marjorie Brierley 74 environment
misplaced concreteness 56 concept of 1, 6
Paula Heimann 129, 138 environment analysts 14
general meaning of 8
Darwin, Charles 137 evidence (in court) 141–148
death instinct 6, 119–120 evocation 20, 60–61, 63
defences 103, 111, 126
depressive position Fairbairn, Ronald 11–12, 14, 56, 82
Klein revises 78 fantasy see phantasy
Klein’s paper 122 Foulkes, S. H. 114
new term for new idea 135 Freud, Anna
start point of 7 inference 106–107
Susan Isaacs 117 introjection 122
Winnicott and Klein 12 Kleinians and 3–4, 59, 115
determinism 75, 95, 111 objections to inner world concept
developmental psychology 15 8–9
dreams 40–41, 46 on infants 89–91, 93, 95–96
phantasy 105–110
ego superego 117–118
affects 73 views on transference 10, 15
changing meanings of 130, 132, Freud, Sigmund
136–137 Anna Freud and 9
child’s 79 changes in terminology 130
confusion over 58 concept of sexuality 107
continuum with id 34 conflict 118–120
development 16, 41, 73 countertransference 14
Freud on see Freud, Sigmund ego and id 28, 32–33, 36, 41, 44,
functions of 27–28, 32, 43, 58 80, 82, 132
Marjorie Brierley 82 Fairbairn criticises 56
164 INDEX
functional systems 31 resignation 113

hallucinatory wish-fulfilment Susan Isaacs and 92–93, 96,
94–95 113–114
hysteria 105 Green, André 15, 74
instinct theories see instinct Group of Independent
libido 119 Psychoanalysts (British
Marjorie Brierley 72–73, 80 Psychoanalytical Society) 1–2,
Melanie Klein and 6, 8–9, 86, 102, 5–6, 12
113
monumental work of 2 hallucination 108, 112–114, 116
moves to England 3, 70, 86 hallucinatory wish-fulfilment 87,
‘Negation’ 112 94–95, 103
on affect 73–74 Hartmann, Heinz 58, 82
on infants and mothers’ breasts Heimann, Paula
90 Controversial Discussions 74–75
on phantasy 87–88, 93, 104, countertransference 14–16, 129,
106–107, 131–132 138
on psychoanalysis 5, 62 Kate Friedlander and 119
primary introjection 109 regression 120–121
‘psychic apparatus’ 53 unconscious conflict paper 118
secondary process 114 ‘here and now’ 129
superego 6–7 Hitler, Adolf 3, 86
Susan Isaacs 95 Hoffer, Willi 118, 120
use of metaphor 29–30, 55–56, 62 Holmes, Oliver Wendell 147
Winnicott and 132, 136 humour 57
Freud-Klein Controversies 1941–1945, hunger 7, 96
The (ed. Pearl King and Riccardo ‘hypostatisation’ 56
Steiner) 128 hypotheses 76, 81
Friedlander, Kate 106, 119–121 hysteria 105
function 28, 30–31
id
Galileo 63 as concept 47
genetic continuity 108 attempted definitions 32–33,
Genetic Field Theory 62 36–37, 46, 51–52, 54
Gestalt 135, 138 continuum with ego 34, 38
Glover, Edward development 42–43
Controversial Discussions 74, 77, Freud on see Freud, Sigmund
106 instinctual drives and 37
hallucinatory wish fulfilment 94 literature on 28
Marjorie Brierley 69 metaphor and 39, 47
Melanie Klein and 3–4, 77, 86, 113 multiple ids 41
on phantasy 95, 113–115 Schur on 37–38
INDEX 165
symposium on 43 instinctual drives 28, 37, 42–43

Winnicott 132, 136–137 instruction 61
wishes and 38 integration 81, 90
ideas 24, 55, 130 internal objects 6–9, 76, 110
Independents’ Group see Group of International Congress, Jerusalem
Independent Psychoanalysts (1977) 73
inductive thinking see thinking International Journal of Psychoanalysis
infants 40–43 70
behaviourist data 92 interpretation 76, 79–80, 103
blind children 65–66 ‘Interpretation: selected fact or
Brierley on 77 overvalued idea’ (Ronald Britton
cruelty in 91 and Riccardo Steiner) 133–134
extreme anxiety 122 intrapsychic happenings 12, 74
feelings towards mother 89–90, introjection 7–10
110–111 Anna Freud 122
hunger and the breast 7–9, 96 as process 111
inner world 96 Controversial Discussions 102
Melanie Klein on 79, 96 Freud 88, 93
memory in 89–90, 117 phantasy and 97, 103, 107, 109
narcissistic stage 108–109 projection and 76
naughtiness in 91 Isaacs, Susan
phantasy in 77, 88, 92–93, 97, Anna Freud and 89–91, 118
104–107 Controversial Discussions 7,
schizoid states and 11, 13 102–110
unconscious conflict 116–117 defining phantasy 103
inference 106–107 Freud and 95, 112–113
inner world hallucinatory wish fulfilment
additions and modifications 11 94
Anna Freud’s objections 9 infantile phantasy 75, 86–97,
building process 8, 13 102–110, 113–115
concept of 1 Marjorie Brierley 72
countertransference and 15 Melanie Klein 79, 131
Melanie Klein 6, 13, 96 phantasy and thinking 112
of objects 6 regression 120–121
instinct unconscious conflict 116–117
conflict and 91, 119
Freud on 53, 73, 110, 112, 119, Jones, Ernest
128 cannibalistic oral phantasy 92,
Marjorie Brierley 76, 128 105
phantasy and 87–88, 93, 96, 108, Controversial Discussions 121
114 establishing psychoanalysis in
superego and 126 Britain 2–3
166 INDEX
extending the meaning of linguistics 22

phantasy 107 Locke, John 6
Melanie Klein 9, 86 London 2–3, 70, 86
London Weekend Conference 102
Karush, Aaron 32 Low, Barbara 3
King, Pearl 127–129, 138–139
Klein, Melanie 2–13 mathematics 63
Anna Freud and 59, 118 Meltzer, Donald 58
background 86 memory 89, 114, 116–117
British Object-Relations Theorists metaphor
and 12 as language for psychoanalysis
countertransference 16 63–66
depressive position 117, 122, borrowing 62
135 different languages 21–22
diverges from Freud 86, 102, 113 different metaphors 59
ego 58 Freud’s use of 29–30, 55–56
infants 79, 96, 104 id and 39, 47
influence of 70 ideas and 55
Marjorie Brierley on 71–72, 74–79, resonating 61
111 metapsychology
misplaced concreteness 56 Brierley on 80–81
object relationship 11, 96, 110 communication in 44
Oedipus complex paper 78 conceptualising 48–50
on conflict 118–119 Freud’s 11
Pearl King on 129 Middle Group, the 5
phantasy see phantasy misplaced concreteness 56
transference 10, 129 Morgan, Clifford T. 38
Winnicott and 13 mothers
‘Klein system of child psychology, absent 110
The’ (Edward Glover) 77 cause and effect 42
defining 8
lawyers 145–8 dependency of infant 13
Liberal Empriricism 6 effects of failure 11
libido feeding their children 109
aggression and 120–121 memories of 77, 89–90
Anna Freud 106 motives 145, 147–148
Depressive position and 122 music 61
Fairbairn 56 Mutual Influences of Ego and Id
Freud 119 (symposium) 43
object seeking nature 11
phantasy and 103, 124 ‘nameless dread’ 138
phases of 6, 43 names 31–32
INDEX 167
narcissism objects relations 109

Anna Freud 89, 109 on phantasy 105, 114–115
infant developing from 9 presidency of BPS 4
mother and infant 13 transference 10
Sigmund Freud 11, 90 perception 144–145
Nazis 70 personology 81
needs 38–39 phantasy 85–100
‘Negation’ (Sigmund Freud) 112 animistic 77
neurological development 43 beginnings of 104
neurosis 119, 143 cannibalistic 92
nuclear war 82 Controversial Discussions see
Controversial Discussions, the
object relationships definitions 75, 86–87, 98, 103, 111,
Controversial Discussions 102 123
Marjorie Brierley 128 differing points of view 93–94
Melanie Klein 7, 76–77, 96 ego and 46, 58, 87
Susan Isaacs and Anna Freud 89 Freud on see Freud, Sigmund
Sylvia Payne 109 hallucination 113, 116
theories of mental development hallucinatory wish fulfilment and
110 94–95, 103
various views 10–11 infantile see infants
observation 137 instinct see instinct
Oedipus complex internal and part-objects and 7,
Anna Freud and Isaacs 118 110
Balint on 12 introjections and 97, 103, 107, 109
constituent elements of 10 meanings attached to 124,
Marjorie Brierley 78 131–132, 135–136
superego and 6–7, 108 Melanie Klein 10, 76–77, 79–80,
urge and prohibition 91 103, 131–132
‘On Counter-Transference’ (Annie mother’s breast phantasies 7–8
Reich) 135 primary content 113–114
‘On countertransference’ (Paula projections on to analysts 16
Heimann) 14 Susan Isaacs’ paper 103 see also
organisms 8, 39, 42 Isaacs, Susan
thinking and 96, 111–112
paranoid-schizoid position 7, 12–13 unconscious and 87, 101–106
part-objects 6–8, 10–11 unconscious conflict 116–117
pathology 6 Vienna group 92
Payne, Sylvia phenomena 50, 54, 59
genetic continuity 108 physical science 51
infantile phantasy 88, 90, 95 pleasure 11, 39, 94, 114
Melanie Klein 9–10 primary content 113–114
168 INDEX
primary process ‘Recommendations for Physicians on

examples of 125 the Psycho-Analytic Method of
fantasy and dream 40–41, 46 Treatment’ (Sigmund Freud) 133
Freud on 94 regression 78, 92, 97, 120–121
humour and 57 Reich, Annie 135
illogicality of 48 reification 54, 56, 60, 64
in thinking 23, 45 repression
secondary process and 23, as functional mechanism 98
30–31 differing meanings of 58–59
privilege (legal) 142 ego and 139
Process Theory 81 Ella Sharpe 121
‘Project for a Scientific Psychology’ Freud’s objective concept 80
(Sigmund Freud) 62 transference and 142
projection unconscious 73
Controversial Discussions 102 Rickman, John 129
Marjorie Brierley 76 Riviere, Joan 86
Melanie Klein 97–98, 109, 121 Romantic tradition 5–6
patients and analysts 16 Russell, Bertrand 49
projective identification 16, 56
psychoanalysis Sandler, Joseph J. 125
Anna Freud on 3–4 schizoid states 11
behaviour central to 64 Schmideberg, Melitta 3, 93, 106
Beres’ structural theory of 30 Schur, Max
Brierley’s two independent on conflict 48
aspects 137 on the id 33–34, 37–39, 47
concepts of 107 primary process 29, 40
established in Britain 2 science 62–64
flexibility 125 Scott, Clifford 104
Group of Independent Analysts Second Thoughts (Wilfred Bion) 134
5 secondary process
language for 63–66 analysts’ use of 60
science and 62–64 development 40, 94
similar conclusions from different discharge of psychic energy 31
workers 138 examples of thinking 50
Winnicott’s findings 14 Freud describes 114
‘Psycho-Analysis, Psychiatry and primary process and 23, 30–31
Law’ (Katz, Goldstein and self 9, 46
Dershovitz) 146 sexuality 6, 107
Psychoanalysts Against Nuclear War Sharpe, Ella
82 infantile phantasy 95
Ptolemy 49 Melanie Klein and 88, 90, 105,
public relations 81 107–108
INDEX 169
Oedipus complex 108 two modes of 61, 111, 125

paper dedicated to 81 unconscious thinking 146
repression 121 Tower, Sarah S. 32
Smuts, J. C. 81 training 4–5
splitting 139 Training Committee (British
Steiner, Riccardo 71, 128 Psychoanalytical Society) 2–4,
Stephen, Adrian 108 15, 71
Strachey, James transference see also
aims of Independents 5 countertransference
Controversial Discussions 74 affective nature of 73
ego stability 137 in everyday life 143
interpretation 79 Pearl King 128–129, 138
quoted from General Training therapeutic value of 142
Papers 3 various opinions on 10–11
theory and perception 125 Trends in Psycho-Analysis (Marjorie
superego see also ego Brierley) 72, 74
anger imputed 30
as metaphor 56 unconscious elements
conflict and 117–118, 126 conflict see conflict
instinct and 126 Freud’s aim 9
internalisations 73 inference and empathy 15
Melanie Klein and Freud 7 inner world and 15
modification of 15 internal objects and 8, 11
Oedipus complex and 108 Marjorie Brierley 71, 80
Supervisors 5 motivation 147
phantasy 77, 87, 101–106
tension 76 primitive delusions 16
‘the’ (as a word) 35–6 repression of 73
thinking the id and 28, 46
associative 20, 25 thinking 146
Bion on 23–24 ‘unthinkable anxiety’ 13–14
causal 20, 25, 44, 50–51
conceptualising and 45 verbal communication 20–21, 55,
confusion in 51 60–62 see also communication
development of 41–42 verbal interpretations 12
inductive 51 Vienna 3, 70
logical 44 Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society
mixed 80 86, 92
phantasy and 96, 111–112 visualizing 65
primary process 23
revision of 49 Waelder, Robert 86, 92, 105
secondary process 23, 50 Wallace, Alfred Russell 137
170 INDEX
wants 38–39 witnesses 144–145

‘War Nurseries’ 89, 91, 105 women 72
‘What Has Happened to words 58–60
Psychoanalysis in the British Bion and 22–23
Society?’ (Pearl King) 128 different shades of meaning 35
Winnicott, Donald 11–14, 132, inexactitude 53–54
136–138 Strachey’s letter 79
wishes 38, 103, 108 World War Two 70

What Do Our Terms Mean, Explorations Using Psychoanalytic Theories and Concepts - Hayman

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WHAT DO OUR TERMS MEAN?

CONTROVERSIES IN PSYCHOANALYSIS SERIES

Preface by Kenneth Robinson

Controversies in Psychoanalysis Series

Copyright © 2013 by Anne Hayman

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library

Typeset by V Publishing Solutions Pvt Ltd., Chennai, India

Printed in Great Britain

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ix

CONTROVERSIES IN PSYCHOANALYSIS SERIES xi

Anne Hayman, MB, Bch, FRCPsych, Mres, DPM, was a Training

IPA Publications Committee

The Publications Committee of the International Psychoanalytical

by the recent creation of the IPA “Project Committee on Conceptual

Is a theory of mental development expressed mainly in terms of the

What do our terms mean?

The British Psychoanalytical Society (BPAS) is known to embrace more

theoretical disagreement, going together with much-used technical

Some thoughts on the inner world and

* International Review of Psychoanalysis, 1990, Volume 17, part 1.

subgroup adhering to one particular set of psychoanalytic ideas. While

1930s there also began to be increasing disquiet, to some extent here

philosophical tradition, and the British tradition of Liberal Empiricism

complex at about age five, as Freud said, or whether it begins by the

(such as Burlingham, Lantos, Friedlander, Low, and the Hoffers). For

Klein stated that, in her experience, the transference was present

relationship of the Oedipus complex; and he postulated a “basic fault”

“motility phases”, including those expressing urgent hungry urges and

chaos and annihilation of the potential for thinking, or compliance with

in which the analyst’s countertransference, or affective response to the

that it can happen in clinical situations. There are certainly occasions

analysand, but the equally problematic situation of having positive

Ideas stirred by “On communication:

ideas as to a catastrophic change that occurs if this “container” fails to

like poetry or oratory, is aimed at arousing feelings and associations;

evoked by metaphors in different languages, and their development. It

but just describing these imagined configurations doesn’t supply one.)

have the disruptive social consequences Dr. Bion so vividly describes.

What do we mean by “id”?*

whether or not formed elements should be included in it, whether it

Discussion of some points from the literature

our difficulties (of understanding abstract structural concepts). He puts

structural concepts which he questions. Primary and secondary process

There is need in the further development of the tripartite structural

Finally, Beres deals with what he describes as the functional point of

The structural theory has proved its usefulness. I have tried to

I include these lengthy extracts from this publication by Beres, because

the idea implied is unexceptionable; but in practice I think that the

delineations between id and ego, and he therefore supports the concept

Comments on some words

treating concepts and observational data as if it were appropriate to

senses—as adjective, or as abstraction denoting the quality described

Some suggested alternative formulations

a. As regards “its relationship to the instinctual drives”, if what I have

always thus rooted in needs there might be no need to distinguish

This double meaning of “need” can make it sound as if Beres’s

simply as nice or nasty, may gradually separate out into detailed

etc.) of impulses seeking gratification, can in any sense be thought

I am attempting to present a way of describing our thinking that will

metapsychology. This is in no sense a criticism of the validity or value of

to recognise, that many words have meaning referable to descriptions