Early splitting and projective identification

摘要

In this paper, starting from the idea of the relationship between maternal and paternal functions in the processing of experience, the author takes as the object of her thinking an account of a particular observation and its discussion in an observation seminar group. Using the example of early splitting and projective identification, which she first delineates in terms of Klein's (1946) seminal paper, 'Notes on some schizoid mechanisms,' she reflects on this process in the observation, the group and in the mind of the teacher. The seminar leader is also involved, she suggests, in an ongoing process. She needs to exercise caution in the fine balancing of her own maternal containing and paternal explicating processes, in order to facilitate rather than foreclose on the learning which can take place in the experiential group setting. The author exemplifies this in a particular narrative of teaching and learning which occurred within a single seminar, halfway through the first year of the students' experience.