Recently I attended a wonderful seminar on the subject of what it is that draws people toward terrorism and even taking off from our country to fight for ISIS. The speaker had a very plausible and interesting theory but I thought that Melanie Klein offered another perspective on the issue. Below is an adaptation of part of a paper I presented recently. The paper went on to the value of the same concept in the work of psychotherapy but as it involved case histories, I have not included the rest of the paper. And I wished to concentrate here on its application to a world wide current issue.
Many psychoanalytic concepts could be shown to have universal application as I think, rather like the place of the bible in our Western culture, the best psychoanalytic ideas and thinking have become so entrenched in our daily lives that we barely even think about their origins. They have relevance in many areas and at many levels of life, world affairs, love, relationship and in therapy.
A Kleinian Concept in Action
The thinking of Melanie Klein I believe gives us the best theory I have heard that can shed light on a current serious out in the world issue. I am talking about extremist or fundamentalist thinking- a subject we are currently hearing about every day! Some degree of extremist thinking is always amongst us. We hear it constantly. Things, theories, beliefs, opinions, ideas or people are seen as black or white, good or bad, right or wrong. They are, belittled or idealised. We are all guilty of it.
In today’s world we see so much of that demonising and extremism! For example that famous or infamous speech from George Bush. “You are either with us or against us” he said! In our own country, we can see the extremism in our government’s demonization and overreaction to refugees who arrive here by boat. And it is at the base of the horrors of that appalling Islamist movement that wants to kill off not only the infidels of the Western world but our whole way of being and all we stand for. Not only that but they want to kill off others of their same faith who hold a slightly different Islamic belief system. Extremist thinking is rife- it gives simple solutions to complex situations!
The Concept as a Tool for Understanding.
Melanie Klein who is herself demonised or occasionally idealised, has given us the tools for understanding and thinking about this phenomena. It was she who saw the dangers and the immaturity in such thinking. Unfortunately for Klein she gave this extremist thinking a name that is off- putting. She called it the Schizoid Position. She saw it as the earliest form of thinking in the infant or, when strongly evident in an older person, an immature way of thinking probably due to some degree of early relational trauma.
It is the sort of thinking we can all resort to when under threat. Extremist thinking is a simplistic way of working out how we must act to survive, either in actuality or emotionally- when the alternatives seem to be to live or not live; to kill or be killed.
Klein’s thinking about it began too with what seems like the simplistic and off-putting notion of the “good breast” or the “bad breast”. That is, the nurturer who was present or the nurturer who was absent when wanted. Klein saw thinking beginning as a result of the absence of the nurturer for even a very short time. The resultant bodily sensations and feelings in the infant forces it to start to develop a mind of its own.
( An aside here to mention that Freud had already paved the way for later thinking about the nature of thinking. For one thing he noted an observation of the response of his grandchild with a cotton reel on a string as he pulled it toward him then threw it away. Freud knew it represented a significant developmental achievement. And though I will not go into it today Bion later took the thinking about the nature of thinking to a whole new level. The study of his work is truly mind stretching but is well worth the effort. And Winnicott of course has contributed so much to the dynamics of the parent-infant interaction.)
So back to fundamentalist thinking in our world today. If you have been listening as I have, to programmes that talk about solutions to young people taking off overseas to join ISIS you can see a few thoughtful people who talk about the fact that these people somehow are disengaged from their community or find their everyday world lacking or their lives meaningless. They are searching for a “cause”- something to fight for; for an identity, for an ideal!
So what do they do- they discover a philosophy that seems to be what they long for – an ideal to give them that focus for their lives. Then some of them go to the extreme position of finding a cause that wants to kill off anyone who disagrees with their ideal. The thoughtful people are talking of solutions that might catch them before they get obsessed with their idealised extremist cause. Solutions that are based on offering those young people some middle ground- a good and life giving cause worth fighting for on their own home ground and amongst their own community.
Klein called the middle ground the “Depressive Position” – another name that gets her disparaged. But for Klein, the thinking of the Depressive Position was a development toward maturity. It allowed for more than the extremes of the utter pain of absence or the wished for oneness of presence; it allowed for more than an either-or; good or bad; right or wrong; black or white world. It allowed for a grey areas- for possibility, for “both-AND…. something more”. It was an enriched world and a more mature way of thinking.
When we can allow for “both and…” we do not have to lose the good when things go wrong or when we see a lot of bad or evil. We can allow for those in authority and ourselves to be less than perfect. We do not have to give up totally on the good in say the Christian churches when we hear of the evil of the horrendous sexual abuse or the good that is in the Muslim faith when we know about ISIS atrocities. And we do not have to give up on seeing and noticing all the good that there is in the world. And perhaps we can put our energies into small ways to contribute to the world rather than believe we can “save” the world.
In Klein’s parlance, the middle ground for the infant meant that when the nurturer (the good breast) was absent, the infant was now secure enough and mature enough to be able to hold in their own mind, the good enough parent who was temporarily absent. The middle ground allows us to have the best of all theories, beliefs and opinions and people and through that, creatively grow and develop.
The allowance for ambivalence is something that I find precious about psychoanalytic thinking. There is no “one way”! Their thinking has its value and so do other ways of thinking. Their work will suit some of the people some of the time and other ways of working will suit others some of the time. Maturity and living together in a diverse world is all about living with difference and ambivalence. Decisions about how we live our lives are simple if we can categorise everything and other people or their ideas into right wrong- good bad or black and white. Extreme thinking is safe for the individual but leaves no room for the other! The trick is to open ourselves to the brilliant ideas that can teach us something!
So this “Out in the world level” is the first level at which Klein’s thinking can be applied and demonstrates the universality of psychoanalytic thinking. I think it is absolutely invaluable and I am yet to find any other theory that helps as much to shed light on the current horrors of terrorism. It is the sort of thing that brings up my excitement about psychoanalysis.
